Over the years, independent Soviet writers, artists, and intellectuals have used Cervantes's hero to symbolize their own high-minded "tilting at windmills." The tragi-comic, self-deluding aspect of the role is accepted, even flaunted. "The sole advantage of Don Quixote's," Soviet writer Fridrikh Gorenshtein wryly observed in a recent story, "is that they're ridiculous and go unrecognized."