Alexey Peshkov, known in literary circles as Maxim Gorky, was born in Nizhny Novgorod. Alexei's father died in 1871, when the future writer was only 3 years old, his mother lived only a little longer, leaving her son an orphan at the age of 11. The boy was sent for further care to the family of his maternal grandfather Vasily Kashirin.
It was not the cloudless life in his grandfather’s house that forced Alexei to switch to his own bread from childhood. To earn food, Peshkov worked as a delivery boy, washed dishes, and baked bread. Later, the future writer will talk about this in one of the parts autobiographical trilogy called "Childhood".
In 1884, young Peshkov sought to pass the exams at Kazan University, but was unsuccessful. Difficulties in life, unexpected death dear grandmother, Which was good friend Alexei, lead him to despair and attempt suicide. The bullet did not hit the young man’s heart, but this incident doomed him to lifelong respiratory weakness.
Thirsty for change government system, young Alexey gets involved with Marxists. In 1888 he was arrested for anti-state propaganda. After his release, the future writer travels, calling this period of his life his “universities.”
The first steps of creativity
Since 1892, having returned to his native place, Alexey Peshkov became a journalist. The young author's first articles are published under the pseudonym Yehudiel Chlamys (from Greek cloak and dagger), but soon the writer comes up with another name for himself - Maxim Gorky. Using the word “bitter,” the writer strives to show the “bitter” life of the people and the desire to describe the “bitter” truth.
The first work of the master of words was the story “Makar Chudra”, published in 1892. Following him, the world saw other stories “Old Woman Izergil”, “Chelkash”, “Song of the Falcon”, “ Former people"and others (1895-1897).
Literary rise and popularity
In 1898, the collection “Essays and Stories” was published, which brought Maxim Gorky fame among the masses. The main characters of the stories were the lower classes of society, enduring unprecedented hardships of life. The author depicted the suffering of the “tramps” in the most exaggerated form, in order to create a feigned pathos of “humanity”. In his works, Gorky nurtured the idea of the unity of the working class, defending the social, political and cultural heritage of Russia.
The next revolutionary impulse, openly hostile to tsarism, was the “Song of the Petrel.” As punishment for calling for a fight against the autocracy, Maxim Gorky was expelled from Nizhny Novgorod and recalled from the Imperial Academy. Remaining in close ties with Lenin and other revolutionaries, Gorky wrote the play “At the Lower Depths” and a number of other plays that received recognition in Russia, Europe and the United States. At this time (1904-1921), the writer connected his life with the actress and admirer of Bolshevism Maria Andreeva, breaking ties with his first wife Ekaterina Peshkova.
Abroad
In 1905, after the December armed rebellion, fearing arrest, Maxim Gorky went abroad. Gathering support for the Bolshevik Party, the writer visits Finland, Great Britain, the USA, meets famous writers Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt and others. But the trip to America is not cloudless for the writer, because he soon begins to be accused of supporting local revolutionaries, as well as violating moral rights.
Not daring to go to Russia, from 1906 to 1913 the revolutionary lived on the island of Capri, where he created a new philosophical system, which is vividly depicted in the novel “Confession” (1908).
Return to the Fatherland
An amnesty for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty allowed the writer to return to Russia in 1913. Continuing his active creative and civic activities, Gorky published key parts of the autobiographical trilogy: 1914 - “Childhood”, 1915-1916 - “In People”.
During the First World War and the October Revolution, Gorky's St. Petersburg apartment became the site of regular Bolshevik meetings. But the situation changed dramatically a few weeks after the revolution, when the writer explicitly accused the Bolsheviks, in particular Lenin and Trotsky, of lust for power and false intentions of creating democracy. The newspaper “Novaya Zhizn”, which Gorky published, became the target of censorship persecution.
Along with the prosperity of communism, Gorky's criticism diminished and soon the writer personally met with Lenin, admitting his mistakes.
Staying in Germany and Italy from 1921 to 1932, Maxim Gorky wrote the final part of the trilogy called “My Universities” (1923), and was also treated for tuberculosis.
The last years of the writer's life
In 1934, Gorky was appointed head of the Union Soviet writers. As a token of gratitude from the government, he receives a luxurious mansion in Moscow.
IN last years creativity, the writer was closely associated with Stalin, in every possible way supporting the dictator’s policies in his literary works. In this regard, Maxim Gorky is called the founder of a new movement in literature - socialist realism, which has more to do with communist propaganda than artistic talent. The writer died on June 18, 1936.
Russian Soviet writer, playwright, publicist and public figure, founder of socialist realism.
Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov was born on March 16 (28), 1868 in the family of cabinetmaker Maxim Savvatyevich Peshkov (1839-1871). Orphaned early, the future writer spent his childhood in the house of his maternal grandfather Vasily Vasilyevich Kashirin (d. 1887).
In 1877-1879, A. M. Peshkov studied at the Nizhny Novgorod Slobodsky Kunavinsky Primary School. After the death of his mother and the ruin of his grandfather, he was forced to leave his studies and go “to the people.” In 1879-1884 he was a shoemaker's apprentice, then in a drawing workshop, and then in an icon painting studio. He served on a steamship sailing along the Volga.
In 1884, A. M. Peshkov made an attempt to enter Kazan University, which ended in failure due to lack of funds. He became close to the revolutionary underground, participated in illegal populist circles, and conducted propaganda among workers and peasants. At the same time, he was engaged in self-education. In December 1887, a streak of failures in life almost led the future writer to suicide.
A. M. Peshkov spent 1888-1891 traveling around in search of work and impressions. He traveled the Volga region, Don, Ukraine, Crimea, Southern Bessarabia, the Caucasus, managed to be a farm laborer in a village and a dishwasher, worked in the fishing and salt fields, as a watchman at railway and as a worker in repair shops. Clashes with the police earned him a reputation as "unreliable." At the same time, he managed to establish his first contacts with the creative environment (in particular, with the writer V. G. Korolenko).
On September 12, 1892, the Tiflis newspaper “Caucasus” published A. M. Peshkov’s story “Makar Chudra”, signed with the pseudonym “Maxim Gorky”.
The formation of A. M. Gorky as a writer took place with the active participation of V. G. Korolenko, who recommended the new author to the publishing house and edited his manuscript. In 1893-1895, a number of the writer’s stories were published in the Volga press - “Chelkash”, “Revenge”, “Old Woman Izergil”, “Emelyan Pilyai”, “Conclusion”, “Song of the Falcon”, etc.
In 1895-1896, A. M. Gorky was an employee of the Samara Newspaper, where he wrote feuilletons daily in the “By the way” section, signing the pseudonym “Yegudiel Chlamida.” In 1896 - 1897 he worked for the Nizhegorodsky Listok newspaper.
In 1898, the first collection of works by Maxim Gorky, “Essays and Stories,” was published in two volumes. It was recognized by critics as an event in Russian and European literature. In 1899, the writer began work on the novel Foma Gordeev.
A. M. Gorky quickly became one of the most popular Russian writers. He met ,. Neorealist writers began to rally around A. M. Gorky (, L. N. Andreev).
At the beginning of the twentieth century, A. M. Gorky turned to drama. In 1902, his plays “At the Lower Depths” and “The Bourgeois” were staged at the Moscow Art Theater. The performances were an exceptional success and were accompanied by anti-government protests from the public.
In 1902, A. M. Gorky was elected an honorary academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature, but by personal order the election results were annulled. As a sign of protest, V. G. Korolenko also renounced their titles of honorary academicians.
A. M. Gorky was arrested more than once for social and political activities. The writer took an active part in the events of the Revolution of 1905-1907. For the proclamation of January 9 (22), 1905, calling for the overthrow of the autocracy, he was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress (released under pressure from the world community). In the summer of 1905, A. M. Gorky joined the RSDLP, and in November of the same year, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, he met. His novel “Mother” (1906) received great resonance, in which the writer depicted the process of the birth of a “new man” during the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.
In 1906-1913 A. M. Gorky lived in exile. He spent most of his time on the Italian island of Capri. Here he wrote many works: the plays “The Last”, “Vassa Zheleznova”, the stories “Summer”, “Town of Okurov”, the novel “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin”. In April 1907, the writer was a delegate to the V (London) Congress of the RSDLP. A. M. Gorky visited Capri.
In 1913, A. M. Gorky returned to. In 1913-1915 he wrote autobiographical novels“Childhood” and “In People”, since 1915 the writer published the journal “Chronicle”. During these years, the writer collaborated with the Bolshevik newspapers Zvezda and Pravda, as well as with the magazine Enlightenment.
A. M. Gorky welcomed the February and October Revolution 1917. He began working at the World Literature publishing house and founded the newspaper New life" However, his differences in views with the new government gradually grew. Journalistic cycle of A. M. Gorky " Untimely thoughts"(1917-1918) attracted sharp criticism.
In 1921, A. M. Gorky left Sovetskaya for treatment abroad. In 1921-1924 the writer lived in Germany and Czechoslovakia. His journalistic activities during these years were aimed at uniting Russian artists abroad. In 1923 he wrote the novel “My Universities”. Since 1924, the writer lived in Sorrento (Italy). In 1925, he began work on the epic novel “The Life of Klim Samgin,” which remained unfinished.
In 1928 and 1929, A. M. Gorky visited the USSR at the invitation of the Soviet government and in person. His impressions from trips around the country were reflected in the books “Around the Union of Soviets” (1929). In 1931, the writer finally returned to his homeland and launched extensive literary and social activities. On his initiative, literary magazines and book publishing houses were created, and book series were published (“Life wonderful people", "Poet's Library", etc.)
In 1934, A. M. Gorky acted as the organizer and chairman of the I All-Union Congress Soviet writers. In 1934-1936 he headed the Union of Writers of the USSR.
A. M. Gorky died on June 18, 1936 at his dacha in Pod (now in). The writer is buried in the Kremlin wall behind the Mausoleum on Red Square.
In the USSR, A. M. Gorky was considered the founder of the literature of socialist realism and the ancestor of Soviet literature.
Message quote On March 28, 1868, Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov-Maxim Gorky was born.
Alexey Peshkov, better known as the writer Maxim Gorky, is a cult figure in Russian and Soviet literature. He was nominated five times Nobel Prize, was the most published Soviet author throughout the existence of the USSR and was considered, along with Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy, the main creator of Russian literary art.
Alexey Peshkov - future Maxim Gorky
He was born in the town of Kanavino, which at that time was located in the Nizhny Novgorod province, and is now one of the districts of Nizhny Novgorod. His father Maxim Peshkov was a carpenter, and in the last years of his life he ran a shipping company. Mother Varvara Vasilievna died of consumption, so Alyosha Peshkova’s parents were replaced by grandmother Akulina Ivanovna. From the age of 11, the boy was forced to start working: Maxim Gorky was a messenger at a store, a barman on a ship, an assistant to a baker and an icon painter. The biography of Maxim Gorky is reflected in his stories “Childhood”, “In People” and “My Universities”.
After an unsuccessful attempt to become a student at Kazan University and arrest due to connections with a Marxist circle, the future writer became a watchman on the railway. And at the age of 23, the young man set off to wander around the country and managed to reach the Caucasus on foot. It was during this journey that Maxim Gorky briefly wrote down his thoughts, which would later become the basis for future works. Gorky's first stories began to be published around that time.
In 1902 Gorky was elected honorary member Imperial Academy sciences... But before he could take advantage of his new rights, his election was annulled by the government, since the newly elected academician “was under police surveillance.” In this regard, Chekhov and Korolenko refused membership in the Academy
Gorky published the poem “The Wallachian Legend,” which later became known as “The Legend of Marco.” According to contemporaries, Nikolai Gumilyov highly valued the last stanza of this poem:
And you will live on earth,
How blind worms live:
No fairy tales will be told about you,
They won't sing any songs about you.
Gorky was friends with Lenin. How could a great proletarian writer not be friends with the petrel of the revolution, Lenin? A legend was born about the closeness of two powerful figures. She has been visualized in numerous sculptures, paintings and even photographs. They show the leader’s conversations with the creator of socialist realism. But after the revolution, the writer’s political position was already ambiguous, he lost his influence. In 1918, Gorky found himself in an ambiguous situation in Petrograd, having begun to write essays critical of the new government, “Untimely Thoughts.” In Russia, this book was published only in 1990. Gorky was at odds with Grigory Zinoviev, the influential chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. Because of this, Gorky went into exile, albeit an honorable one. It was officially believed that Lenin insisted on the classic’s treatment abroad.
There was no place for the writer in post-revolutionary life. With such views and activities, he was threatened with arrest. Gorky himself helped this myth emerge. In his biographical sketch“Lenin” he rather sentimentally described his friendship with the leader. Lenin met Gorky back in 1905, quickly becoming close. However, then the revolutionary began to note the writer’s mistakes and hesitations. Gorky looked at the causes of the First World War differently; he could not wish his country to be defeated in it. Lenin believed that emigration and weakened ties with the Motherland were to blame. PublicationGorky in 1918in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn was openly criticized by Pravda. Lenin began to see Gorky as a temporarily erring comrade.
Alexey Peshkov, who took the pseudonym Gorky
The first published story by Maxim Gorky was the famous “Makar Chudra” (1892). The two-volume “Essays and Stories” brought fame to the writer. Interestingly, the circulation of these volumes was almost three times higher than what was usually accepted in those years. Of the most popular works From that period it is worth noting the stories “Old Woman Izergil”, “Former People”, “Chelkash”, “Twenty Six and One”, as well as the poem “Song of the Falcon”. Another poem, “Song of the Petrel,” has become a textbook. Maxim Gorky devoted a lot of time to children's literature. He wrote a number of fairy tales, for example, “Sparrow”, “Samovar”, “Tales of Italy”, published the first special children's magazine and organized holidays for children from poor families.
Legendary Soviet writer
Very important for understanding the writer’s work are Maxim Gorky’s plays “At the Lower Depths,” “The Bourgeois” and “Yegor Bulychov and Others,” in which he reveals the playwright’s talent and shows how he sees the life around him. Big cultural significance for Russian literature they have the stories “Childhood” and “In People”, social novels“Mother” and “The Artamonov Case”. Last job Gorky’s epic novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” is considered, which has a second title “Forty Years”. He worked on this manuscript for 11 years, but never managed to finish it.
The personal life of Maxim Gorky was quite stormy. He married for the first and officially only time at the age of 28. The young man met his wife Ekaterina Volzhina at the Samara Newspaper publishing house, where the girl worked as a proofreader. A year after the wedding, a son, Maxim, appeared, and soon a daughter, Ekaterina, named after her mother. The writer was also raised by his godson Zinovy Sverdlov, who later took the surname Peshkov.
With his first wife Ekaterina Volzhina
Soon Gorky began to feel burdened family life and their marriage to Ekaterina Volzhina turned into a parental union: they lived together solely because of the children. When little daughter Katya died unexpectedly, this tragic event became the impetus for the severance of family ties. However, Maxim Gorky and his wife remained friends until the end of their lives and maintained correspondence.
With his second wife, actress Maria Andreeva
After separating from his wife, Maxim Gorky, with the help of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, met the Moscow Art Theater actress Maria Andreeva, who became his de facto wife for the next 16 years. It was because of her work that the writer left for America and Italy. From her previous relationship, the actress had a daughter, Ekaterina, and a son, Andrei, who were raised by Maxim Peshkov-Gorky. But after the revolution, Andreeva became interested in party work and began to pay less attention to her family, so in 1919 this relationship came to an end.
With third wife Maria Budberg and writer H.G. Wells
Gorky himself put an end to it, declaring that he was leaving for Maria Budberg, a former baroness and part-time his secretary. The writer lived with this woman for 13 years. The marriage, like the previous one, was unregistered. Last wife Maxima Gorky was 24 years younger than him, and all his acquaintances were aware that she was “having affairs” on the side. One of Gorky's wife's lovers was an English science fiction writer H.G. Wells, to whom she left immediately after the death of her actual spouse. There is a huge possibility that Maria Budberg, who had a reputation as an adventurer and clearly collaborated with the NKVD, could be double agent and also work for British intelligence.
After his final return to his homeland in 1932, Maxim Gorky worked in the publishing houses of newspapers and magazines, created a series of books “History of factories and factories”, “Poet’s Library”, “History civil war", organized and organized the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers. After unexpected death the writer wilted from his son's pneumonia. During his next visit to Maxim’s grave, he caught a bad cold. Gorky had a fever for three weeks, which led to his death on June 18, 1936.
In the last years of life
Later, the question was raised several times that the legendary writer and his son could have been poisoned. In this case there was people's commissar Genrikh Yagoda, who was the lover of Maxim Peshkov’s wife. The involvement of Leon Trotsky and even Joseph Stalin was also suspected. During the repressions and the consideration of the famous “Doctors’ Case,” three doctors were blamed, including the death of Maxim Gorky.
(Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) was born in March 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod into the family of a carpenter. Elementary education he received his education at the Slobodsko-Kunavinsky School, which he graduated from in 1878. From that time on, Gorky’s working life began. In subsequent years, he changed many professions, traveled and walked around half of Russia. In September 1892, when Gorky lived in Tiflis, his first story, “Makar Chudra,” was published in the newspaper Kavkaz. In the spring of 1895, Gorky, having moved to Samara, became an employee of the Samara Newspaper, in which he led the departments of the daily chronicle “Essays and Sketches” and “By the Way.” In the same year, such his famous stories, like “Old Woman Izergil”, “Chelkash”, “Once in the Autumn”, “The Case with the Clasps” and others, and in one of the issues of the “Samara Newspaper” the famous “Song of the Falcon” was published. Gorky's feuilletons, essays and stories soon attracted attention. His name became known to readers, and fellow journalists appreciated the strength and lightness of his pen.
A turning point in the fate of the writer Gorky
The turning point in Gorky’s fate was 1898, when two volumes of his works were published as a separate publication. Stories and essays that had previously been published in various provincial newspapers and magazines were collected together for the first time and became available to the mass reader. The publication was an extraordinary success and sold out instantly. In 1899, a new edition in three volumes was sold in exactly the same way. The following year, Gorky's collected works began to be published. In 1899, his first story “Foma Gordeev” appeared, which was also met with extraordinary enthusiasm. It was a real boom. In a matter of years, Gorky turned from an unknown writer into a living classic, into a star of the first magnitude in the horizon of Russian literature. In Germany, six publishing companies immediately began to translate and publish his works. In 1901, the novel “Three” and “ Song about the Petrel" The latter was immediately banned by censorship, but this did not in the least prevent its spread. According to contemporaries, “Burevestnik” was reprinted in every city on a hectograph, on typewriters, copied by hand, and read at evenings among young people and in workers’ circles. Many people knew it by heart. But truly world fame came to Gorky after he turned to theater. His first play, “The Bourgeois” (1901), staged in 1902. Art Theater, then went on in many cities. The premiere took place in December 1902 new play « At the bottom", which was an absolutely fantastic, incredible success among the audience. Its production by the Moscow Art Theater caused an avalanche of enthusiastic responses. In 1903, the play began to march across the stages of European theaters. It was a triumphant success in England, Italy, Austria, Holland, Norway, Bulgaria and Japan. “At the Lower Depths” was warmly welcomed in Germany. The Reinhardt Theater in Berlin alone played it to full houses more than 500 times!
The secret of young Gorky's success
The secret of young Gorky's exceptional success was explained primarily by his special worldview. Like all great writers, he posed and solved the “damned” questions of his age, but he did it in his own way, not like others. The main difference was not so much in the content as in emotional coloring his writings. Gorky came to literature at the moment when the crisis of the old critical realism and themes and plots began to become obsolete great literature XIX century The tragic note, which was always present in the works of famous Russian classics and gave their work a special - mournful, suffering flavor, no longer awakened the previous uplift in society, but caused only pessimism. The Russian (and not only Russian) reader has grown tired of the image of a Suffering Man, a Humiliated Man, a Man Who Must Be Pityed, moving from the pages of one work to another. There was an urgent need for something new positive hero, and Gorky was the first to respond to it - he brought it out on the pages of his stories, novellas and plays Fighter Man, A Man Capable of Overcoming the Evil of the World. His cheerful, hopeful voice sounded loudly and confidently in the stuffy atmosphere of Russian timelessness and boredom, the general tonality of which was determined by works like “Ward No. 6” by Chekhov or “The Golovlev Lords” by Saltykov-Shchedrin. It is not surprising that the heroic pathos of such things as “Old Woman Izergil” or “Song of the Petrel” was like a breath of fresh air for contemporaries.
In the old dispute about Man and his place in the world, Gorky acted as an ardent romantic. No one in Russian literature before him had created such a passionate and sublime hymn to the glory of Man. For in Gorky’s Universe there is no God at all; all of it is occupied by Man, who has grown to cosmic proportions. Man, according to Gorky, is the Absolute spirit, which should be worshiped, into which all manifestations of existence go and from which they originate. (“Man is the truth!” exclaims one of his heroes. “...This is huge! In this are all the beginnings and ends... Everything is in man, everything is for man! Only man exists, everything else is his business hands and his brain! Man! This is great! It sounds... proud! ") However, depicting a “breaking out” Man in his early works, a Man breaking with the bourgeois environment, Gorky was not yet fully aware of the ultimate goal of this self-affirmation. Thinking intensely about the meaning of life, he initially paid tribute to the teachings of Nietzsche with his glorification of the “strong personality,” but Nietzscheanism could not seriously satisfy him. From the glorification of Man, Gorky came to the idea of Humanity. By this he meant not just an ideal, well-ordered society that unites all the people of the Earth on the path to new achievements; He saw humanity as a single transpersonal being, as a “collective mind,” a new Divinity in which the abilities of many individual people would be integrated. It was a dream of a distant future, the beginning of which had to be made today. Gorky found its most complete embodiment in socialist theories.
Gorky's fascination with revolution
Gorky's passion for revolution logically followed both from his convictions and from his relationship with Russian authorities who couldn't stay good. Gorky's works revolutionized society more than any incendiary proclamations. Therefore, it is not surprising that he had many misunderstandings with the police. The events of Bloody Sunday, which took place before the writer’s eyes, prompted him to write an angry appeal “To all Russian citizens and public opinion European countries" “We declare,” it said, “that such an order should no longer be tolerated, and we invite all citizens of Russia to an immediate and persistent struggle against the autocracy.” On January 11, 1905, Gorky was arrested, and the next day he was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. But the news of the writer’s arrest caused such a storm of protests in Russia and abroad that it was impossible to ignore them. A month later, Gorky was released on a large cash bail. In the autumn of the same year he became a member of the RSDLP, which he remained until 1917.
Gorky in exile
After the suppression of the December armed uprising, which Gorky openly sympathized with, he had to emigrate from Russia. On instructions from the Party Central Committee, he went to America to collect money for the Bolsheviks through campaigning. In the USA he completed Enemies, the most revolutionary of his plays. It was here that the novel “Mother” was mainly written, conceived by Gorky as a kind of Gospel of socialism. (This novel, which has a central idea of resurrection from darkness human soul, is filled with Christian symbolism: during the course of the action, the analogy between the revolutionaries and the apostles of primitive Christianity is played out many times; Pavel Vlasov's friends merge in his mother's dreams into the image of a collective Christ, with the son in the center, Pavel himself associated with Christ, and Nilovna with the Mother of God, who sacrifices her son for the salvation of the world. The central episode of the novel - the May Day demonstration in the eyes of one of the characters turns into "a religious procession in the name of the New God, the God of light and truth, the God of reason and goodness." Paul's path, as we know, ends with the sacrifice of the cross. All these points were deeply thought out by Gorky. He was confident that the element of faith was very important in introducing the people to socialist ideas (in his 1906 articles “On the Jews” and “On the Bund,” he directly wrote that socialism is “the religion of the masses”). One of important points Gorky's worldview was that God is created by people, invented, constructed by them in order to fill the emptiness of the heart. Thus, the old gods, as has happened many times in world history, can die and give way to new ones if the people believe in them. The motive of seeking God was repeated by Gorky in his story “Confession” written in 1908. Her hero, disappointed in official religion, painfully seeks God and finds him in merging with the working people, who thus turn out to be the true “collective God.”
From America, Gorky went to Italy and settled on the island of Capri. During the years of emigration, he wrote “Summer” (1909), “The Town of Okurov” (1909), “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin” (1910), the play “Vassa Zheleznova”, “Tales of Italy” (1911), “The Master” (1913) , autobiographical story “Childhood” (1913).
Return of Gorky to Russia
At the end of December 1913, taking advantage of the general amnesty declared on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Romanovs, Gorky returned to Russia and settled in St. Petersburg. In 1914, he founded his magazine “Letopis” and the publishing house “Parus”. Here in 1916 it was published autobiographical story“In People” and a series of essays “Across Rus'”.
Gorky accepted the February Revolution of 1917 with all his soul, but further events, and especially towards the October revolution, his attitude was very ambiguous. In general, Gorky’s worldview after the 1905 revolution underwent an evolution and became more skeptical. Despite the fact that his faith in Man and faith in socialism remained unchanged, he doubted that the modern Russian worker and modern Russian peasant were able to perceive bright socialist ideas as they should. Already in 1905, he was struck by the roar of the awakened national element, which broke out through all social prohibitions and threatened to drown the miserable islands material culture. Later, several articles appeared defining Gorky’s attitude towards the Russian people. His article “Two Souls,” which appeared in “Chronicles” at the end of 1915, made a great impression on his contemporaries. While paying tribute to the richness of the soul of the Russian people, Gorky still treated its historical possibilities with great skepticism. The Russian people, he wrote, are dreamy, lazy, their powerless soul can flare up beautifully and brightly, but it does not burn for long and quickly fades away. Therefore, the Russian nation necessarily needs an “external lever” capable of moving it from a dead point. Once the role of “lever” was played by. Now the time has come for new achievements, and the role of “lever” in them must be played by the intelligentsia, first of all revolutionary, but also scientific, technical and creative. She must bring to the people Western culture and instill in him an activity that will kill the “lazy Asian” in his soul. Culture and science were, according to Gorky, precisely the force (and the intelligentsia the bearer of this force) that “will allow us to overcome the abomination of life and tirelessly, stubbornly strive for justice, for the beauty of life, for freedom”.
Gorky developed this theme in 1917-1918. in his newspaper “New Life”, in which he published about 80 articles, later combined into two books “Revolution and Culture” and “Untimely Thoughts”. The essence of his views was that revolution (a reasonable transformation of society) should be fundamentally different from the “Russian revolt” (meaninglessly destroying it). Gorky was convinced that the country was now not ready for a creative socialist revolution, that first the people “must be calcined and cleansed of the slavery nurtured in them by the slow fire of culture.”
Gorky's attitude to the 1917 revolution
When the Provisional Government was finally overthrown, Gorky sharply opposed the Bolsheviks. In the first months after the October revolution, when an unbridled crowd smashed the palace cellars, when raids and robberies were committed, Gorky wrote with anger about the rampant anarchy, about the destruction of culture, about the cruelty of terror. During these difficult months, his relationship with him became extremely strained. The bloody horrors of the Civil War that followed made a depressing impression on Gorky and freed him from his last illusions in relation to the Russian peasant. In his book “On the Russian Peasantry” (1922), published in Berlin, Gorky included many bitter, but sober and valuable observations on negative sides Russian character. Looking the truth in the eye, he wrote: “I attribute the cruelty of the forms of the revolution exclusively to the cruelty of the Russian people.” But of all social strata In Russian society, he considered the peasantry to be the most guilty of it. It was in the peasantry that the writer saw the source of all the historical troubles of Russia.
Gorky's departure to Capri
Meanwhile, overwork and bad climate caused an exacerbation of tuberculosis in Gorky. In the summer of 1921 he was forced to leave for Capri again. The following years were filled with hard work for him. Gorky writes the final part of the autobiographical trilogy “My Universities” (1923), the novel “The Artamonov Case” (1925), several short stories and the first two volumes of the epic “The Life of Klim Samgin” (1927-1928) - a picture of intellectual and social life Russia last decades before the revolution of 1917
Gorky's acceptance of socialist reality
In May 1928, Gorky returned to the Soviet Union. The country amazed him. At one of the meetings, he admitted: “It seems to me that I have not been in Russia for not six years, but at least twenty.” He eagerly sought to get to know this unfamiliar country and immediately began to travel around Soviet Union. The result of these travels was a series of essays “Around the Union of Soviets.”
Gorky's performance during these years was amazing. In addition to his multilateral editorial and social work, he devotes a lot of time to journalism (over the last eight years of his life he published about 300 articles) and writes new works of art. In 1930, Gorky conceived a dramatic trilogy about the revolution of 1917. He managed to complete only two plays: “Yegor Bulychev and Others” (1932), “Dostigaev and Others” (1933). Also, the fourth volume of Samgin remained unfinished (the third was published in 1931), on which Gorky worked in recent years. This novel is important because in it Gorky says goodbye to his illusions in relation to the Russian intelligentsia. Samghin’s catastrophe in life is a catastrophe of the entire Russian intelligentsia, which at a turning point in Russian history was not ready to become the head of the people and become the organizing force of the nation. In a more general, philosophical sense, this meant the defeat of Reason before the dark element of the Masses. A just socialist society, alas, did not develop (and could not develop - Gorky was now sure of this) by itself from the old Russian society, just as it could not be born from the old Moscow kingdom Russian empire. For the triumph of the ideals of socialism, violence had to be used. Therefore, a new Peter was needed.
One must think that the awareness of these truths largely reconciled Gorky with socialist reality. It is known that he did not like him very much - he was much more sympathetic to Bukharin And Kamenev. However, his relationship with the Secretary General remained smooth until his death and was not overshadowed by any big quarrel. Moreover, Gorky put his enormous authority at the service of the Stalinist regime. In 1929, together with some other writers, he toured Stalin’s camps and visited the most terrible of them on Solovki. The result of this trip was a book that, for the first time in the history of Russian literature, glorified forced labor. Gorky welcomed collectivization without hesitation and wrote to Stalin in 1930: «... the socialist revolution takes on a truly socialist character. This is an almost geological revolution and it is greater, immeasurably greater and deeper than everything that has been done by the party. A system of life that has existed for millennia is being destroyed, a system that created a man who is extremely monstrously unique and capable of terrifying with his animal conservatism, his instinct of ownership.».
In 1931, under the impression of the “Industrial Party” process, Gorky wrote the play “Somov and Others,” in which he portrays sabotage engineers.
We must remember, however, that in the last years of his life Gorky was seriously ill and he did not know much of what was happening in the country. Starting from 1935, under the pretext of illness, inconvenient people were not allowed to see Gorky, their letters were not given to him, and newspaper issues were printed especially for him, in which the most odious materials were absent. Gorky was burdened by this guardianship and said that “he was surrounded,” but he could no longer do anything. He died on June 18, 1936.
On March 28, 2008, on the day of the 140th anniversary of the birth of Maxim Gorky, the Gorky Readings will be held at the Institute named after him, dedicated to the place writer in modern world. Literary scholars not only from Russia, but also from France, Poland, Italy, Ukraine and the USA take part in the “Gorky Readings 2008”.
Maxim Gorky (real name - Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) was born on March 28, 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a cabinetmaker. His parents died early, and the writer spent his childhood in the house of his grandfather Vasily Kashirin. The grandfather taught the boy to read from church books, the grandmother Akulina Ivanovna introduced her grandson to folk songs and fairy tales, but most importantly, she replaced the mother, “saturating,” in Gorky’s own words, “with strong strength for a difficult life” (“Childhood”).
In the summer of 1884, sixteen-year-old Alexey Peshkov went to Kazan in the hope of entering the university. However, due to lack of funds, he limited himself to active communication with students, visiting self-education circles, and gatherings. At this time, he earned his living by day labor: he was a laborer, a loader, and a baker. Unsettled life and personal troubles led Gorky to a mental crisis, which ended with a suicide attempt (December 1887).
From the summer of 1888 to October 1892, Gorky traveled “throughout Rus'.” For four years, he traveled all over Southern Russia - from Astrakhan to Moscow, and visited Southern Bessarabia, Crimea and the Caucasus. He worked as a farm laborer in villages, worked in the fishing and salt fields, was a dishwasher, served as a railway guard and as a repair shop worker.
During these years, Gorky made many acquaintances among the creative intelligentsia, experienced a passion for populism, Tolstoyism and social democratic teachings, and wrote poetry and prose. In September 1892, the newspaper "Caucasus" (Tiflis) published his story "Makar Chudra", signed with the pseudonym "M. Gorky".
Until 1909, Gorky was closest in his views to the Bolsheviks. In 1909, thanks to his sympathy for the Vperyodists and God-builders, he broke up with Lenin. After February revolution founded, together with a number of left-wing Social Democratic publicists and writers, the internationalist newspaper “Novaya Zhizn”, which became the unifying center of a peculiar trend in the Social Democratic Party, called “Novaya Zhiznsky”.
New Life and Gorky himself greeted the October Revolution with pessimism, predicting its imminent failure. In the first weeks and months after the revolution, the writer published a series of articles under the general title “Untimely Thoughts,” in which he sharply criticized the course taken by Lenin, emphasized the prematureness of the revolution and its devastating consequences. Gorky spoke out in defense of the bourgeois press, finding that it was precisely the peculiarities of the transition period that required free competition between various political parties. However, already in 1919 he became an ardent supporter of Soviet power.
However, the Bolsheviks themselves did not consider him close in spirit, and from 1921 to 1928 Gorky lived in exile, where he went after Lenin’s extremely persistent advice. Gorky settled in Sorrento (Italy), but did not break ties with the young Soviet literature(L.M. Leonov, V.V. Ivanov, A.A. Fadeev, I.E. Babel). He wrote the series “Stories of 1922-1924”, “Notes from the Diary”, and the novel “The Artamonov Case”.
Since 1925, Gorky began work on the historical epic “The Life of Klim Samgin” (the original title of the novel was “Forty Years”), which, according to the writer’s plan, was to become a chronicle of a turning point in the history of Russia and the Russian intelligentsia. He continued to work on the novel until his death, but never managed to finish it.
In May 1928, Gorky returned to the USSR and spent the entire summer traveling around the country (Kursk, Kharkov, Dneprostroy, Zaporozhye, Crimea, Rostov-on-Don, Baku, Tiflis, Kojori, Yerevan, Vladikavkaz, Stalingrad, Samara, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod). His impressions of these trips were collected in the book “Around the Union of Soviets” (1929).
In 1933, Gorky moved to Moscow. On his initiative, the magazines “Our Achievements” (1929-1936) and “ Literary studies"(1930-1941), publication "History of factories and factories", which published about 250 books in 1931-1933 of various nature, the publication "History of the Civil War", a literary and artistic almanac was published, and the "Poet's Library" series was established.
Gorky played a key role in the formation of the Union of Soviet Writers, being the organizer and chairman of the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers (1934). On Gorky's initiative, the Literary Institute was founded, later named after him.
Maxim Gorky died on June 18, 1936. His death was shrouded in rumors. Even during the Stalinist repressions, the official version became official that the great proletarian writer was allegedly “healed to death” by killer doctors. Subsequently, back in Soviet years, this version was consigned to oblivion. Now the circumstances and causes of the death of Gorky (and his son Maxim in May 1934) remain the subject of debate.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources