The island where Gorky rested. An acute sense of the crisis of civilization
To the best writers and translators. Maxim Gorky spent seven years in this paradise, wrote the novel “Mother” here and received Lenin on the island, who was preparing the revolution and, according to declassified reports from British intelligence, it was on Capri that he met the German General Staff.
If you’re going to Capri to work, don’t tell anyone. They still won't believe it. This is how it happened historically: Emperor Tiberius, tired of the intrigues of corrupt Rome, abandoned all state affairs and moved here to live in idleness. In his villas, painted with obscene pictures, today capri - mountain goats - are grazed - sacred animals. It is in honor of them that the island has its name. Lemon gardens, grottoes with emerald water, white villas - well, how could a revolution be started here, Russian tourists are still indignant.
This also sounds like a mockery, but Capri for Gorky is an exile. Expelled from Russia, misunderstood in the States, he lands on the island in 1906 with his samovar and his common-law wife, actress Maria Andreeva.
At his first villa - "Blezus" - Gorky is trying to work. He himself admitted in a letter to Andreev: “The air here is such that you get drunk without wine.” He swims, fishes, receives guests in his favorite port, Marina Piccolo, sings Russian songs and organizes theater evenings. "The Miracle of St. Nicholas of Myra." In the role of the courtier - Maxim Gorky.
Construction on Capri was banned back in the 40s. Everything was preserved in that style. The vases are original, the tiles are faience from the beginning of the century. His favorite are scarlet geraniums. Gorky and his wife kept a cook in the villa and fed the poor, but they did not share this view with anyone. Almost.
Lenin first sailed to Capri by ferry and walked up to the villa. In 1909, along the same serpentine road, 13 workers climbed to Gorky’s villa—the first batch of the school—socialism with a human and divine face, the Capri heresy, according to Lenin. The school's sponsor is Fyodor Chaliapin, teachers are Lunacharsky and Alexander Bogdanov. Vladimir Ilyich could not stand the latter as a competitor.
The “comrades” were thoroughly prepared for the revolutionary struggle: they were taken to Naples and shown Pompeii. But the main classes took place in Capri, in the Grotto di Matromania, dedicated to the great mother of all gods, Kebele. Sitting on the steps, the workers listened to lectures on literature, history and art.
The school will not last even a year. Russian socialism will also die here at the chessboard, in the famous game where Lenin either yawns or screams. He will lose. But who Lenin will become, and who Bogdanov will become, is just a footnote in the collected works of Vladimir Ilyich. The director of the film "The Other Revolution" Raffaele Brunetti compared this photograph in Soviet and Italian textbooks. Gorky’s godson Zinoviy Peshkov, a future friend of De Gaulle and a general in the French army, also disappeared from history without a trace. Lenin's censorship also “purged” Bazarov (Rudnev) for harmful economic views.
“Bogdanov was not as practical and calculating as Lenin. If not for this, who knows how history would have turned out. But his education, depth, and level were head and shoulders above. Lenin suffered from this, was jealous, and therefore eliminated his rival,” - Raffaele Brunetti is confident.
Lenin played another game of his own in Capri. Recently declassified Italian police encryption and a British intelligence report. Two agents watched the “Russian” in Capri at once. Firstly, Lenin was invited to the island together with his wife, Krupskaya, but Inessa Armand admired this view. In addition, Lenin had other dates on the island.
"Lenin came here to meet with two generals of the German army - Eric Ludendorff and Paul von Hidenburg. It was at that moment that the Germans decided that Lenin was the one they needed to finance the October Revolution. You remember how he was later brought from Geneva to Russia in a sealed carriage? This “sacred marriage” was concluded in Capri,” said Sangiuliano Gennaro, author of the book “Check to the Tsar.”
No matter what the inhabitants of Capri wrote in the books for the Octobrists, Lenin: he laughed badly, pestered him with questions about his salary, and did not believe in legends. The locals erected a monument to him, but only Gorky is considered their true friend here - they still adore him: for his simplicity, dinners for the poor. It was the writer who defended Certosa. If it weren’t for him, the monastery where the Gorky Prize is now awarded would have been turned into a casino.
In response to my request “Gorky Capri,” the Internet returned a line from Alexander Gorodnitsky’s song: “Don’t come back, Gorky, from Capri,” and further developed the theme: “Don’t miss your luck,/ Once you go abroad,/ Don’t invite the leader to your dacha,/ Don’t eat his cakes.” She smiled: he mixed up - consciously or not - the bard of the era and the faces. In Capri, Gorky was with the tsar, and “under the leader” he lived in Italy, already in Sorrento - very close, only five kilometers across the strait, but on the mainland. However, then the World Wide Web found a poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky. “I am very sorry, Comrade Gorky, / that you are not visible / at the construction site of our days. / Do you think - / from Capri, / from the hill / You can see better?” - the poet addressed the writer in 1926. I realized that this couldn’t be a simple coincidence. Capri is simply an iconic island.
For the majority of our compatriots, who are not particularly experienced in the delights of a holiday on a quiet island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, Capri has always existed more in historical than in geographical space. Many will remember that there was a party school there that adhered to a harmful orientation, from the point of view of the Bolsheviks. This tarnished the island's reputation. But Lenin visited Gorky twice. And this circumstance will rehabilitate Capri.
I myself kept saying: “Let’s go and see where they were thinking about our happy future.” As if, without its glorious revolutionary past, Capri wasn't worth spending an entire day on during a mere week in Rome.
At exactly eight o'clock I board the train to Naples at the Rome station. Coupe for six people with glazed doors, leather chairs with a high back. Outside the window, the Roman outskirts floated by, and now the fields of Campania stretched out, then the climb into the mountains began - my ears even started to feel a little stuffy. The train dived into tunnels every now and then - and finally the glass skyscrapers of Naples were visible in the distance. This is his business center. But we are not going there, but to the port - the oldest part of the city.
Sabbath day. On the streets they sell anywhere and anything, just like in any port city. When you are in a hurry - and you have to return to Rome in the evening - it is annoying. The port itself was nearby. But cargo. And it took a long time to make our way along it between the trucks and hangars to the passenger berths. I buy a ticket for the meteor for 12 euros, go up the ramp, and finally I can take a breath and look around. Someone with a suitcase: only then does it occur to you that you can go to Capri not for an excursion, but just to relax. Someone is already resting there and returning “from the city” for lunch. Capri is beginning to take on real shape. It’s a pity that there is no one to congratulate on the anniversary of October (and the trip took place on November 7).
Traveling on a modern ship is comfortable, but devoid of romance. And you can’t write like one Russian traveler in the middle of the 19th century: “The lateen sail flutters like the wing of a shot seagull, the lazy breeze puts all the work on the bronze-muscular four Sorrentines... at the oar these rowers are active like devils, singing excerpts from their Neapolitan barcarolles or joke among themselves with innate comedy." Our “rowers” don’t sing songs, and the breeze is not lazy. A light rain is falling. But now the “rocks rising from the waters” are very close, and we moor at Marina Grande.
The delight that you feel at the sight of the approaching island gives way to confusion: in reality, for some reason, it turned out to be much larger than it existed in my revolutionary-oriented mind. There shouldn't have been any cars briskly darting along the embankment. But we urgently need to grow into the present.
Having bought a guidebook (in Russian - thanks to the Italians!), I was surprised. On the island, the length of the coastline of which is only 17 kilometers, two cities fit in - Capri and Anacapri - with an insane number of streets and, what is most unpleasant, intertwined due to the complex terrain in completely unimaginable forms. She became sad: without knowing the exact addresses, Gorky’s refuges would never be found (and the Italians didn’t even bother to indicate them in the Russian edition, although they wrote that there were three villas).
It is noticeable from the map that the island seems to be pulled across with a rope. This caused both ends to “puff up”. It is believed that its configuration resembles a wild boar, which is what some associate its name with. This constriction - closer to the hind legs of the animal - is most suitable for a short walk, I decide: there is no place between the banks, and you won’t have to climb so high.
I turn into the first staircase street that catches my eye. You can return along it - you won’t get lost, naively, as it turned out later, I reasoned. The steps go steeply up, and on the sides are the windows and doors of the villa, then a high stone wall - and there, above it, trees grow next to the house on top. It is interesting that Gorky (I will often refer to his testimony) used the example of Capri to explain to one young poet what the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were, making fun of his excessive romanticism: “There is nothing surprising in the fact that these hanging gardens are. They just were located in ledges along the steep slope of the mountain..."
But even knowing this secret, you never cease to be amazed. So, moaning about the blooming (in November!) geranium and many more purple, red, burgundy, orange flowers unknown to me, looking at different pots, trellises, balconies, I didn’t even notice how I got to the top and through the arch I got to The main square of the city of Capri is Piazza Umberto Primo. Surrounded on all sides by the interlocking walls of low buildings, it looks more like a hall than a city square. Half of it is occupied by restaurant tables. It turns out to be a kind of dining room in a prestigious sanatorium. But there’s no time to linger: I’m already anticipating the view that will open up as soon as I turn behind the tall (for Capri, of course) clock tower.
The observation deck hangs over the hollow (the one along which the “rope” passed). On the left rises the green hill of Monte Solara, the highest mountain on the island. Ahead is the sea. Alas, fog and rain mute the colors and prevent you from enjoying the color of the water, which, according to stories, should be unusually blue here. But under the gray sky, the rocky coastal cliffs loom even more clearly and impressively.
The Roman emperors fell in love with Capri for its inaccessibility: first Augustus, then Tiberius. If you carefully read “The Master and Margarita,” perhaps you will remember how Pontius Pilate said that “the message will fly not to the governor in Antioch or to Rome, but directly to Caprea, to the emperor himself.” Bulgakov did not sin against historical truth. Indeed, Tiberius spent a total of 10 years here until his death in 37. And he could maintain contact with the mainland: special towers served this purpose, from which conditioned signals were given with smoke and flame. But the reader needs to be an erudite to recognize Caprea (that’s what the Romans called the island) as geographical Capri.
Luxurious villas were built here - with terraces, swimming pools, decorated with mosaics and marble, the scale of which can be judged by the ruins. No documentary evidence has been preserved about how the emperors spent their time, and historians are not unanimous. Juvenal and Plutarch write about Tiberius’s quiet, secluded old age, and Suetonius, for example, says that he started “nests of hidden debauchery” and “boys of the most tender age, whom he called his fish and with whom he played in bed,” in Capri.
There are a lot of rumors. The cannon king Alfred Krupa, who was forced to settle in Capri due to asthma, is accused of the same sin as Tiberius. And about the Swedish Queen Victoria, who arrived here due to weak lungs, they said that she was having an affair with the court doctor Axel Munthe...
But there is a more complex mystery than all these juicy details: why did Gorky in 1906-1913 “choose Capri, at that time almost unknown Capri, where mainly Germans visited?” In the diaries of Vera Muromtseva, the wife (then still civil) of Ivan Bunin, from which this entry, dated 1919, is taken, it is preceded by conversations about the famous whistleblower of provocateurs Burtsev and what many thought about Gorky when Burtsev promised to reveal “the name of the one who was in the service of the Germans." And then we read the thoughts of Yana (as she called Bunin): “How did a consumptive, after a seven-year stay in Capri, withstand the Berlin, and then the Finnish winter and the winter in the Tver province? Yes, much is not clear and will it ever be understood?”
It was not by chance that I asked this question through the lips of the Bunins. Probably, at that time, with the sight of Russia collapsing in Odessa changing hands, the rumor about Gorky in the service of the Germans was taken closer to heart than it might be today. And the likelihood of documenting or disproving it was higher.
Be that as it may, on the island itself the last thing you want to think about is what really forced Gorky, forced not to return to Russia due to the threat of arrest, to make a choice in favor of Capri. There, when you see the sea and mountains, you simply believe that the climate was very suitable for the writer who suffered from consumption. And he stayed because he really liked Capri. A few days after his arrival, he paints a picture to Leonid Andreev: “Capri is a tiny piece, but delicious. In general, here at once, in one day, you see so many beautiful things that you get drunk, go crazy and can’t do anything...”
Gorky and then continued to invite all his good friends there. “For some reason, I keep thinking that you, Moskvin, Leonidov, the Rumyantsevs will come here in the spring,” writes V.I. Kachalov in 1913, “we will swim in the blue sea, catch sharks, drink white and red Capri and generally live. .. Have a great rest..."
Gorky was not joking about sharks: they were actually caught and eaten on Capri. The technology was this: they caught it with live bait, pulled it to the side, stunned it with an oar and dragged it on board. Of course, this whole complex procedure was carried out with the help of local fishermen. They didn’t dare go to sea without them - it was dangerous. Somehow we managed to catch a shark, along which 25 people could stand. The artist Isaac Brodsky recalls that there was even a photo in Italian newspapers.
Close friends spent almost all their time with Gorky. Anecdote or not, they say that once the open veranda was so crowded that an Englishman passing by mistook Gorky’s house for a restaurant. Has entered. He sat down at the table and asked for a glass of cold soda, scrambled eggs and ham, and cheese. He was served for fun. And only when he was about to pay, he was told that the villa was not a restaurant and they did not sell meals here. They say that his embarrassment was very great, he shook Gorky’s hand for a long time when he found out who was standing in front of him, and the next day he sent flowers with a million apologies.
Gorky in Capri seems a little too “vacation-like” for me. I hasten to correct myself. “...I live as always, but I don’t live, but either sit at the table or stand at the desk. Someday I’ll get so tired that I’ll fall on the floor and lie motionless for two months,” - this is Gorky about his life -being.
He wrote a lot. His Capri period is compared to Pushkin's Boldino autumn. Every day he leafed through dozens of newspapers, which, weather permitting, were delivered to Capri by steamboat from Sorrento. He read mountains of manuscripts and explained in detail the mistakes to the authors. Made plans for new magazines. He argued heatedly about philosophical matters and enthusiastically “built” God. He also taught literature classes at a school for advanced workers.
In connection with the school, the origins of which were, in addition to Gorky, A.V. Lunacharsky and A.A. Bogdanov, today they say that it was in Capri that the paths of development of Russian Social Democracy were determined. Had Lenin come to terms with the “Caprian heresy” - fantastic, of course - who knows where Russian socialism would have gone. Some even believe that he died there, in Capri, when the school was closed. Well, they declare the last Russian socialist to be Alexander Bogdanov, who - this is how history turned out for many who studied it from Soviet textbooks - remained only a “footnote” in Lenin’s collected works.
This means that, no matter the political situation, a mention in the history of Capri is guaranteed. Only it is necessary that he be there in his rightful place, at least in Gorky’s biography. The same Internet provided me with amazing information that Mura (that is, Baroness Budberg, whom Gorky met only in 1919) often acted as a hostess at the Capri villa, and her already adult son Maxim (born in 1897) drove around Capri on a motorcycle. And there are countless reservations about the fact that Stalin really wanted to lure Gorky out of Capri.
During the more than four thousand days that the writer spent there, he walked the length and breadth of the island: he loved to walk with guests after dinner or under the starry sky. And I probably walked along the “crossbar” that I chose for my forced march often. Especially in Marina Piccola - fishing. I was heading there too.
The main local promenade with prestigious hotels and expensive shops begins from the Piazzetta. They say that in the summer people walk here shoulder to shoulder. But I was lucky: November is no longer the season in Capri. And those romantics who choose it for a quiet autumn holiday were driven home by the rain. I stubbornly walked towards the goal, greedily catching the signs of Capri life, not hesitating to look behind the fences. However, there was nothing there except well-groomed lawns, flower beds, swimming pools, and palm trees.
There were rumors in Russia that Gorky had his own villa in Capri. He denied them: “I don’t have a villa, and I hardly ever will.” So now nothing reminds us of the proletarian writer - and of Russian socialists in general - in Capri. Except for the memorial plaques on the houses where Gorky lived. And also a bust of Lenin in the public gardens named after Emperor Augustus, just next to Marina Piccola. By the way, they were founded by the German imperialist Krupp. Not a bad mix of eras, you’ll agree.
The latter still has a much more significant presence on the island. The zigzag road that he once laid from his villa to the sea is still marked on maps today as Via Krupp.
Comparable in area to Moscow within the boulevard ring, the island can easily compete with capitals in terms of the number of celebrities who have visited there. Only during the time of Gorky, Chaliapin, Bunin, Leonid Andreev, Stanislavsky (with most of the Moscow Art Theater troupe), Sasha Cherny, Repin stayed here... I could go on for a long time. Among the foreign cultural figures who visited the island were Oscar Wilde, Henri Gide, Rainer Maria Rilke, Pablo Neruda, Graham Greene, Alexandre Dumas, Alberto Moravio, Somerset Maugham - too many to list. They left so many enthusiastic testimonies about Capri that it could be published as a separate book. But in terms of fanatical love and devotion to the island, hardly anyone can compare with the Swedish doctor Axel Munthe. He built the Villa San Michele here in the Roman imperial style, which everyone who comes to Capri considers it their duty to visit.
The idea of settling on the island forever took possession of him in his youth, when he came here in 1876 for a reason that was not at all original - due to poor health. And not just settle, but build a house yourself. Later, having started digging with assistants, at a depth of about two meters they “found Roman walls as solid as granite: nymphs and bacchantes were dancing against a red Pompeian background.” As Munthe writes, these remains of one of Tiberius’s villas served as the foundation of his snow-white house.
Of course, if you believe what he said in his “Legend of San Michele” (a book written in English, published in 1929). Some, however, consider the Swedish doctor a storyteller and say that much of what decorates the halls of the villa to this day was bought by him from antique dealers, and not found right there.
In the early 60s (by this time the book had been translated into dozens of languages), Tatyana Aleksandrovna Aksakova-Sivers, fascinated by it, made a Russian translation and gave it to Gosizdat, where it sat happily for almost ten years. Once, when asked what was the delay, her answer was: “The face of the author of the book about San Michele is unclear to us! Who is he? Born in Sweden, studied in Paris, lived in Capri and published his novel in London! This is some kind of cosmopolitan!"
The “cosmopolitan” Munthe bequeathed all his property on the island to the Swedish state. The San Michele Foundation, which occupies the villa, specializes in classical culture.
Munthe, by the way, was also, as we would say today, a convinced environmentalist: he fought against bird catchers on the territory of Barbarossa Castle. He fought in his own way: he simply bought this land. Today, the castle, once built to protect against Saracen raids and named after the famous pirate who almost completely destroyed the island, houses an ornithological center.
Another famous Capri house, that of the Italian writer Curzio Malaparte (who paid tribute to his passion for fascism, communism, and even Maoism to the modern reader, the author is best known for his book “Technique of a Coup D’etat”), also serves the cause of education, this time for young architects. He gave the ascetic, bunker-like red building with a flat yellow roof the definitions least compatible with the atmosphere of the island: “sad, heavy and harsh.” But this does not prevent some from considering the Malaparte house, standing on a high promontory surrounded by pine trees, the most interesting of all that is in avant-garde architecture.
Malaparte did not build it himself: the project belongs to the architect Adalberto Libera, who worked for the glory of Mussolini on the Palace of Congresses in the Roman district of EUR. They say, however, that it was the writer who came up with the idea to make the wall behind the fireplace transparent so that the fire would burn against the backdrop of the faraglioni rocks. This view - three stones rising above the sea surface not far from the shore, the shape of which was worked for a long time by water and wind - is considered one of the most impressive in Capri.
I had about fifteen minutes to go to the platform from which I could admire this natural wonder, but a glance at my watch made me turn back. There is less than an hour until the last meteor: just leisurely return to the port.
I easily reached the Piazzetta and, diving from the square into the arch, realized that I was going the wrong way. There were no stairs. I returned to the square and dived into another arch: also no stairs.
All the natives to whom I turned for help shrugged their shoulders and said: “Bus.” I knew where the bus stop was even without them. Only I wanted to run through the “hanging gardens” once again and look at the flowers, balconies, trellises for future use... But it was a real mafia - I had to give up.
Having paid 1.30 euros, in about three minutes I was taken along a narrow serpentine straight to the port. No, I have no complaints about the organization of bus traffic. A person at the box office sells tickets, another one checks these tickets, the driver himself is already behind the wheel, waiting for all the seats to be occupied. Such a density of service personnel per tourist could be the envy of another 5-star hotel.
And in the port, the question that, I admit, tormented me, disappeared by itself: how will all those who arrived during the day manage to sail to the mainland in the evening. After all, few people will refuse to stay longer. Instead of the morning meteor, a real meteor shower awaited us, which housed several hundred passengers. The travel time was the same as in the morning - forty minutes.
On the train, I replayed the pictures of Capri in my memory over and over again. I finally came across one Gorky villa when I was lost in search of that very staircase. The Pompeii-colored walls are stained and slightly peeling here and there, the windows are covered with blinds. On the ground floor there is an Internet center. Just above it is a memorial plaque announcing that Maxim Gorky lived in this house from March 1909 to February 1911 and that the founder of the Soviet state, Vladimir Lenin, visited him here.
While looking at photographs of the house, I noticed another memorial plaque just around the corner. I strain to the limit, trying to make out at least the largest letters, until finally I come up with: “EMIL VON BERING.” Bah! Nobel laureate: in 1901 he received the prize in the field of medicine. What were you doing here? I'm looking for a biography of Bering. It turns out that in 1897 he spent his honeymoon in Capri with Elsa Spinola, the daughter of a Berlin doctor. The Germans again! It was from Bering that Gorky rented the villa. Today's owners, when attracting clients, call it nothing less than Gorky House.
In one day, of course, you can’t go all over Capri. I didn’t have enough time - although I was nearby - to get to the Krupp Hotel: there was Gorky’s first address on the island. Its owners also do not miss the opportunity to mention that a proletarian writer once lived in this villa.
I only know from books the magical power of the famous blue grotto with water of a unique shade. I didn't see the amazing majolica floor in St. Michael's Church. I didn’t go up the cable car to Monte Solaro. I didn’t wander through the ruins of the imperial villas.
Certosa, the former Carthusian monastery of St. James, built in the Middle Ages, also stayed away from my route. The Italo-Russian library is kept here, the initiative of which was taken by Gorky. There were even more extensive plans. Plans were being developed to create a Russian-Italian society for mutual acquaintance with cultures. And it was proposed to turn the abandoned monastery into an Italo-Russian ethnographic museum. But the plans did not come true. And so, who knows, Russia would have a significant cultural presence on the island. Now in Certosa, German art is represented much more clearly: there is a museum of the symbolist artist Karl Dieffenbach, who at one time lived in Capri. Interesting too.
Yes, I didn’t manage to see much. So, we need to go to Capri again. Just relax. Moreover, Gorky also advised.
Svetlana Sorokina
I have always dreamed of visiting Capri, because I have been studying the life and work of Gorky for many years. There are four places on earth that are most important to him: Nizhny Novgorod, where he was born; Kazan, where he was “spiritually born”; Petrograd, where he spent his most difficult years - from 1917 to 1921; Capri and Sorrento. Two of his emigrations took place here - before the revolution (7 years) and after (9 years).
This summer a dream came true: I arrived (sailed from Naples) to the island of Capri and stayed for 7 days. Not 7 years, but still. And... I didn’t find Gorky there.
Gorky - in Sorrento. Mansion with a park. On October 27, a monument to Alexander Rukavishnikov will also be erected to him in Sorrento. And there is no Gorky in Capri. Of the three villas in which he lived, only one has survived. It is located in the center of the village of Capri. Red, cubic in shape, not very attractive. Under the sign, where it is written in Italian that Maxim Gorky lived here, that Lenin came here to see him in 1910, who then made a revolution that turned the entire world history upside down, there is... a glass display case with children's toys. On the carved gate is written in Italian "Residence". The gate is closed.
No matter how hard I strained my imagination, I could not imagine that Maxim Gorky lived and wrote “Vassa Zheleznov” and “Across Rus'” in this red cube. He stood, stood and left...
But Capri is Capri, and Gorky is not the only one who lives on this island. It became the summer residence of the first emperor of Rome, Augustus, because he liked this place so much. But almost nothing from Augustus has survived here. Grateful Capri residents (they love Augustus) set up the Gardens of Augustus in the center of the village of Capri - a cheerful place for tourists, as if in a “baroque” style. Trees, bushes, flowers, nymphs and fauns... These gardens did not touch me at all, and I left there as quickly as I left the supposedly Gorky villa.
There is no smell of history here, this is a place for “sighing on the benches.”
Capri is Capri, this island does not live by Gorky alone
Augustus loved Capri and made it a kind of remote dacha. It is far from Rome, but the Roman Empire was not small. As historians write, Augustus’s dacha was small; he only visited here on short visits. And here is his successor, stepson Tiberius!
Historians are still arguing about Tiberius - what kind of person he was. If you watch Tinto Brass's terrible film "Caligula", please do not believe your eyes. Caligula was the successor of Tiberius and was brought up in Capri.
At the beginning of the film, Tiberius is depicted as a disgusting, lustful old man with corpse marks on his ugly face. He bathes in luxurious baths, then, without looking, stamps orders that Macron, his faithful bodyguard, palms off on him. Then Macron, of course, will strangle him to please Caligula. Then Caligula will kill Macron. It's scary, it's creepy!
The legend that Tiberius, who lived in Capri for the last ten years of his life, led some kind of monstrous lifestyle here, that he engaged in sodomy, raped honest matrons and killed everyone, was created primarily by the Roman historian Suetonius. Tacitus also had his hand in that legend.
It is curious that Pushkin, reading Tacitus, of all the emperors, paid attention to only one Tiberius. And not by chance. After all, he could not help but notice one contradiction.
One of the wisest or, in today’s language, “successful” emperors, in the first half of his reign he expanded the borders of Rome, was the best at solving financial issues, was a brilliant diplomat and a great commander who spared the lives of his soldiers, but in the second half he turned into a monster. But, remaining a monster, he continued to be a wise ruler, solve financial issues well, and conduct competent diplomacy.
He, yes, killed his enemies or exiled them to places distant from Rome. But it has already been calculated that fewer people were executed under him than under the same dear Augustus. And Augustus was a famous libertine; the girls were supplied to him by his wife Livia herself, whom he, by the way, took from her legal husband, Tiberius’ father. This was according to the rules of Rome.
Whether Tiberius became a libertine in Capri, strictly speaking, is unknown. Suetonius was, of course, a scholar-archivist, but in this regard he fed only on rumors and reports from the island. You never know what they reported there... What’s more interesting is that Tiberius chose Capri as the place of his last stay and built 12 (!) villas there. One of them - and this, apparently, was a luxurious palace - has been preserved in ruins. The place is very remote from the center and therefore gloomy, despite the beautiful view of the sea. What was he thinking here? How was the gigantic Roman Empire ruled from here? Mystery!
But the third person, after Tiberius and Gorky, who was “stung” by Capri and decided to settle here was the Swedish doctor Axel Munthe.
There is the only full-fledged biography about him, written by Bengt Youngfeldt (statistically, a Slavist and Mayakovsky researcher).
The eighth wonder of the world - Villa San Michele, full of tourists
It is a pity that it has not yet been published in Russia in Russian, although they were planning to. But for now it can be read in English.
Munthe was a great doctor and an even greater visionary. He saved people in Naples during the great plague, and as a child he also talked with gnomes. Munthe was a skilled veterinarian and conservationist of birds and animals. He came to Capri as a poor student and met Mephistopheles here, who promised him that he would build his “paradise” on the island, but would pay dearly for it. He built "Paradise" and became blind. This is the famous Villa-Museum of San Michele, full of tourists. She's on the other side of the island, in Anacapri.
It is impossible to describe this eighth wonder of the world, you just have to see it!
That's what he is, Capri! True, I did not tell about a hundredth part of his miracles. It’s just a pity that I never found Gorky.
Scuola Di Posillipo 
Christian Frederick Ferdinand Thøming 
Boim Solomon Samsonovich
Vladimir Ilyich changed his mind a lot on the way to Gorky.
A few blocks from the station to the pier - and the famous Bay of Naples appeared before our eyes. The city descended in a huge semicircle towards the water. And then - countless boats, boats, longboats, boats for various purposes; piers extending far from the shore, and walkways on which people scurried, bustled, walked, and sat. They all seemed to be talking at the same time, gesticulating vigorously, and it seemed as if no one was listening. A large section of the embankment was occupied by a market where freshly caught fish and other seafood were sold: squid, crabs, lobsters - almost the entire fauna of the Tyrrhenian and Mediterranean seas.
But everyone could see all the fauna on the same embankment - in the Naples Aquarium Museum. Vladimir Ilyich will come here later along with Alexei Maksimovich.
Bernard Hay 
Jakob Philipp Hackert 
Unknown artist 19-20 centuries. View of Capri from the mainland
The outlines of the island of Capri could be seen in the distance. The passenger ship, which constantly sailed between the city and the island, offered beautiful views of Naples and its surroundings. On the right, when looking at the city from the bay, Vesuvius towered. Along its far slope in 79 AD. e. Lava flows flowed down, burying three cities: Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum.
Walter Zuchors 
Monogrammist C.D. 
Unknown artist 19th century. Fishermen of Capri 
Friedrich II Paul Nerly 
Unknown artist 
Giuseppe Giardiello 
Arturo Cerio 
Albert Flamm
But here comes Capri. Yes, the island is indeed picturesque. No wonder A. M. Gorky wrote about it: “It’s amazingly beautiful here, some kind of infinitely varied fairy tale unfolds before you. The sea, the island, its rocks are beautiful, and people do not spoil this impression of carefree, cheerful, colorful beauty.” M.F. Andreeva called Capri an amazingly beautiful place on the globe.
At the Marina Grande pier there were many greeters and those who were waiting for the ship to leave for the mainland on the next flight. In the crowd, Vladimir Ilyich quickly spotted the tall, stooped figure of Gorky and next to him Maria Feodorovna Andreeva. Alexey Maksimovich joyfully waved his wide-brimmed hat, attracting the attention of his guest. Their meeting was very warm, as only a meeting of true friends can be.
Gorky and Andreeva led Vladimir Ilyich up the steep steps to the platform, then they went up in the cable car. Alexey Maksimovich did not fail to once again persuade Vladimir Ilyich to reconcile with his philosophical opponents. However, we only agreed that communication with the “Machists” should not give rise to theoretical disputes. The small, five-room, white stone villa “Settani” (its owner was Blesus) was located in the southern part of the island, on top of a fairly high hill. The facade of the house was facing the southern bay of Marina Piccola. A. M. Gorky lived in this villa (now not preserved) from November 1906 to March 1909. There was unusually clean, healing air here. However, I also had to experience some inconveniences, especially in cold weather. There was no electricity, they used gas lighting. In a house without stoves, they were heated in winter with braziers. Fresh drinking water was delivered to the island from the mainland.
Now, in the spring, these shortcomings were almost not felt.
Gorky worked well in Capri. Here he finished the novel “Mother” and wrote its second part, which was larger in volume than the first. Working fourteen hours a day, as he wrote to K.P. Pyatnitsky in February - March 1908, Gorky also created here “The Life of an Unnecessary Man”, “Summer”, “The Town of Okurov”, “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin”, “Across Rus'” , “Russian Fairy Tales”, “Tales of Italy”, and not only these works. In addition to working on books, Gorky met and corresponded with many people, read manuscripts of other authors, and wrote reviews. After all, only in the year of V.I. Lenin’s first visit to him, Alexey Maksimovich read more than one hundred and fifty manuscripts. How many Russian and foreign newspapers and magazines did he have to read in order to keep abreast of events taking place in the world!
Vladimir Ilyich was given a small room overlooking the sea, next to Alexei Maksimovich’s office, and he was very pleased. In addition, Gorky had a good library, and some of the books were in the room where V.I. Lenin was placed.
The son of Maria Feodorovna, Yura Zhelyabuzhsky, lived on Capri. He was fond of photography (he would become a famous Soviet cinematographer in the future), and Alexey Maksimovich agreed with him that he would take as many photographs of Vladimir Ilyich as possible, but, if possible, he would do it unnoticed. Gorky knew that Vladimir Ilyich did not like to be photographed. Yura had a new film camera, and he was happy to prepare for filming. Thanks to Yu. Zhelyabuzhsky, there are photographs of V.I. Lenin from that period. They are all the more valuable because until these April days of 1908, Vladimir Ilyich, for secret reasons, had not been photographed since 1900.
E.M. Cheptsov
Everyone in Gorky's house was interested in photography. Views of Capri, houses where Gorky lived, photographs of people close to him have been preserved, and humorous, montage photographs have been preserved, marked by Gorky’s inexhaustible talent for invention. Here is one such montage: Alexey Maksimovich is trying to return to Russia illegally. On the border post there is an inscription “Entry for decent people is prohibited!”
The soldier blocks the road with a gun, and Gorky defends himself with an umbrella. A whole stack of photographs was shown to Vladimir Ilyich, and he, laughing, said that one must be wary of Yura when he has a camera in his hands. Yura managed to take several photographs while playing chess on the veranda of Blezus’s villa, but then Vladimir Ilyich seriously asked to put the camera away.
On the very first evening, guests who then formed a Russian colony in Capri gathered at Gorky’s for dinner. A.V. Lunacharsky, A.A. Bogdanov and V.A. Bazarov came.
Alexey Maksimovich really hoped that this friendly dinner would lead to the reconciliation of opponents divided by their philosophical views. After all, people have a single goal, Gorky thought. V.I. Lenin had already explained to him that unity of purpose does not guarantee against mistakes and misconceptions that lead away from the goal itself. The struggle is in the field of philosophy, but the party business remains a matter and everyone must continue to carry it out.
This thought gave Alexei Maksimovich hope that there would be no split, that if only a conversation could be started at the first general meeting, reconciliation would happen...
(Moskovsky V.P., Semenov V.G. Books about Lenin. 1908. AT GORKY’S IN CAPRI)
Capri in 1900 
Circle of Giovanni Gianni 
Roberti 
Bernard Hay 
Holger Hvidtfeldt Jerichau 
M. Gianni 
Felice Giordano 
Ascan Lutteroth 
Edward Theodore Compton
Despite the fact that more than a hundred years have passed since the stay of the “petrel of the revolution” on Capri, the memory of the Russian writer still lives among the inhabitants of this small island not far from Naples.
Gorky first arrived in Capri at the end of 1906. He was a political exile, arrested during the First Russian Revolution, but then released under the influence of public opinion.
After leaving Russia, the writer went to the United States to raise funds for the Social Democratic Party, but was forced to leave America due to a scandal that erupted over the fact that his common-law wife, the famous actress of the Moscow Art Theater Maria Andreeva, accompanied him on the trip.
Thus, after a series of trials, disappointments and shocks, Gorky found shelter and desired solitude in Capri, where the cordiality and hospitality of the local residents created ideal conditions for him for literary work.
Gorky's house was always full of guests. One day an Englishman passing by mistook it for a restaurant. He walked onto the veranda and demanded dinner. He was served. But when I wanted to pay, they didn’t take the money and explained that this was not a restaurant. The Englishman was very embarrassed, shook Gorky’s hand for a long time with apologies, and the next day sent a huge bouquet of flowers.
There are two more villas on the island where the writer lived - "Blesius" (from 1906 to 1909) and "Serfina" (now "Pierina"). All villas are marked with commemorative plaques.
At that time, the name “Massimo” (as the Italians called Gorky) was already widely known and much loved in Italy.
In Capri, the writer becomes perhaps the biggest foreign celebrity, and his personality attracts many artists, writers, philosophers, and politicians to this quiet place, who gradually form the largest Russian colony in Italy, which existed until the outbreak of the First World War.
During the “Capri exile” (1906-1913), writers L. Andreev and I. Bunin visited Gorky (the latter spent several winters on the island, working successfully).
There were many young writers in Capri who began to publish thanks to Gorky’s support.
The popular humorist and satirist Sasha Cherny wrote to Gorky that he remembers Capri “as your big estate with a small marina, rocks, fishing...”
The special artistic atmosphere in the writer’s house also attracted the great singer Fyodor Chaliapin, who often, especially in the spring and summer months, visited his famous friend.
In the early 1910s, young artists appeared on the island and, thanks to renewed academic scholarships, were able to afford long stays in Italy in order to improve their skills. Among them were the engraver and etcher V.D. Falileev, painter I.I. Brodsky, portrait painter and artist V.I. Shugaev, who were interested in Capri not only for the breathtaking views, but also for the opportunity to take portraits of Gorky and his famous friends.
Ascan Lutteroth 
Andrea Cherubini 
Jakob Alt 
Alwin Arnegger 
19th century artist 
Coleman. The Villa Castello, Capri (1895) 
Edmund Berninger
In Capri, Gorky enjoyed unconditional respect and love, almost adoration, of the local residents, and interest in his personality has not faded to this day.
In 2006, on the centenary of the writer’s arrival in Capri, the local publishing house “Oebalus” published the book “A Bitter Writer in a “Sweet” Country,” which included articles by researchers of the writer’s “Italian” connections, as well as memories of meetings with Gorky in Capri and in Sorrento, artists I. Brodsky, N. Benois, F. Bogorodsky, B. Grigoriev, P. Korin, poet V. Ivanov, writers K. Chukovsky, N. Berberova, sculptor S. Konenkov and others.
The company "B&BFilm" has released a documentary film "The Other Revolution" by young directors Raffaele Brunetti and Piergiorgio Curzi, dedicated to the creation of the Higher Social Democratic School in Capri for the training of worker propagandists and the subsequent ideological conflict of its creators with Lenin.
In 1994, a collection of articles under the same name was published by the Capri publishing house LaConchiglia. Its compiler and one of the authors, a famous writer and researcher of Russian-Italian relations, Vittorio Strada, headed the Institute of Italian Culture in Moscow for several years. He is also one of the participants in the film, which immerses us in the atmosphere of the spiritual quest of Gorky, who was then carried away by the ideas of the philosopher A.A. Bogdanov and who developed the theory of “god-building”, with whom Lenin, who came to Capri twice, conducted a tough polemic.
In memory of this visit, a stele was erected on the island, authored by the outstanding Italian sculptor Giacomo Manzu.
The authors were not least motivated by personal motives to create a film about distant pages of our history.
Raphael Brunetti's grandfather owned one of the houses where Gorky lived, and childhood memories of tourists from the Soviet Union who would sneak into their garden to see places associated with the writer were deeply imprinted in the director's mind. The film shows Gorky's Capri retreats - the Quisisana Hotel, Villa Blesus, Villa Ercolano, nicknamed the "red house".
There are a lot of documentary materials - photographs taken in Capri (including the famous photograph in which Lenin plays chess with Bogdanov in the presence of Gorky) and rare amateur footage.
On one of them you can see Gorky together with Chaliapin, on the other - the writer leaves his house onto one of the streets of Capri. Local newsreel footage gives an idea of the patriarchal atmosphere of the island, which at that time was inhabited mainly by fishermen and which only after the Second World War became a center of attraction for wealthy tourists.
The film “The Other Revolution”, shown in Capri and Rome, was presented in many European countries and was included in the program of the Moscow Film Festival.
In 2011, another event connected with the name of the Russian writer took place in Capri - the presentation of the Gorky Literary Prize, established in 2008 under the auspices of the Russian Embassy in Italy and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation with the aim of strengthening cultural ties between the two countries in the field of literature and literary translation.
The prize is awarded alternately in Russia and Italy to Russian and Italian writers and translators.
The winners of the current Gorky Prize are the famous Italian writer Nicolo Ammaniti for the novel “I'm Not Afraid” and the translator into Italian of “Vishers. Anti-novel" by Varlam Shalamov Claudia Zongetti.
The famous Italian singer Cecilia Bartoli was awarded a special prize for her overall contribution to culture.
Framed by the delightful landscapes of Capri, a round table “Russian history of the 20th century in Italian literature” was held, organized by Andrea Cortellessa, with the participation of Russian and Italian researchers, as well as an exhibition of photographs “Enchanted by the Island”, dedicated to the years of Gorky’s stay in Capri, at which materials were presented from the archives of the M. Gorky House Museum in Moscow.
There is a street in Capri named after the writer. It is decorated with a mosaic with his portrait by Rustam Khamdamov and once again reminds everyone who comes to this distant island that the name of the Russian writer, who created many of his stories here, the story “Confession” and the end of the novel “Mother,” has not been forgotten in Italy.
(Based on an article by Irina Barancheeva, Rome)
Situated in the lower part of the island of Capri, the villa where Gorky lived was spacious, comfortably furnished and surrounded by a flowered garden with dazzling views of the sea. This bourgeois luxury somewhat embarrassed the writer, as if he were trying on someone else's clothes. But Maria Andreeva, who monitored his health and mood, hastened to assure him that he needed this peace of mind in order to continue to engage in creativity. While admiring the landscape, he, however, had no contact with the local residents. It never occurred to him for a second to learn Italian, or indeed any other foreign language. He, transplanted to foreign soil, did not like the blue of the Bay of Naples, nor the roses in the flower beds, nor the modest vineyards, nor the azure grottoes, nor Vesuvius smoking in the distance - he dreamed only of the banks of the Volga, of the bare steppes, of the evening wind in a birch forest. In his understanding, the real world was not the one before his eyes, but the one he left behind when fleeing his native country. His nostalgia was so strong that he wrote: if a pulled out tooth could feel, he would undoubtedly feel just as lonely. It was on Capri that he conceived one of his most striking stories, “The Town of Okurov,” a picture in black tones of the petty and lethargic life of the townspeople in a forgotten corner of the Russian province.
From time to time he escaped from his island to go to Naples, Florence, Rome, and Genoa. But he always returned to his home port. More and more visitors landed on Capri who wanted to visit the writer in his “gilded cage”: they were writers, artists, simply curious people, mostly of the Marxist faith. Every Russian passing through Italy felt morally obligated to make this pilgrimage. Like Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana, Gorky on his island was surrounded by a courtyard in which beggars coexisted with admirers, idle travelers with seekers of truth. He welcomed everyone into his home and listened to everyone eagerly. He needed these echoes of his native land to survive under a foreign sky. Letters accumulated on his desk that came from various parts of Russia: from writers, from scientists, from those who shared his political convictions, from ordinary workers. Although the address was often spelled incorrectly, Gorky was so famous in Italy that the correspondence invariably arrived at its destination. Drowned in manuscripts, confessions, requests for advice, requests for money, he forced himself to read everything - very carefully - and answer in as much detail as possible, without delay. Remembering how difficult it was for him to begin with, he could not get rid of, out of laziness, out of indifference, requests for help from weak people. His table was always crowded and noisy. Some stayed with him for weeks.
Maria Andreeva played three roles with him: mistress of the house, nurse and secretary. She typed his manuscripts, sorted his mail, translated articles from French, English, German and Italian newspapers at his request, and worked as a translator when he received foreign guests. He lived on royalties, which he regularly received in Capri - he lived, barely making ends meet, since his generous donations to the party treasury and helping compatriots in need ruined the family budget. When Maria Andreeva was advised to cut expenses so that she could spend only on herself, for example, to receive fewer guests, she answered: no, no, this is impossible - Alexey Maksimovich will notice. He is cut off from his homeland, but thanks to the comrades who come to him, he is still with the Russian people. He needs this as much as the air he breathes. She took on financial worries and is coping with them. She will not allow Alexey Maksimovich to ask for money in letters. His work should not be affected by any material problems.
In 1907, although Gorky was not a member of the Social Democratic Party, he was invited as an “honored guest” to the party congress in London. Which he was immensely glad about, since the delights of Capri were already beginning to put pressure on him and he felt the need to stand shoulder to shoulder with other fighters. However, when he found himself among the three hundred fighters who had gathered at the site of the congress, he quickly noticed that some of them, such as Axelrod and Deutsch, were more reformists than revolutionaries, while others, such as Plekhanov, were too much European, and not quite Russians to have the right to lead the labor movement. In the end, he found an outlet in Lenin, who won him over with his determination and simplicity. “This bald, burry, thick-set, strong man, rubbing Socrates’ forehead with one hand, tugging my hand with the other, affectionately sparkling with surprisingly lively eyes, immediately began talking about the shortcomings of the book “Mother,” it turned out that he had read it in a manuscript taken from I P. Ladyzhnikova. I said that I was in a hurry to write a book, but - I did not have time to explain why I was in a hurry - Lenin, nodding his head affirmatively, explained this himself: it was very good that I was in a hurry, the book was necessary, many workers participated in the revolutionary movement unconsciously, spontaneously, and now they will read “Mother” with great benefit for themselves. “A very timely book.” This was the only compliment, but it was extremely valuable for me.”
With Lenin and Maria Andreeva, he traveled all over London, visited museums, met with famous writers such as Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Thomas Hardy... “The [London] Congress was terribly interesting for me,” he would write to his ex-wife, Ekaterina Peshkova. “I didn’t notice how three weeks of time flashed by, and during these days I took in a lot of healthy, cheerful impressions. I really like the workers, especially our Bolsheviks. An amazingly lively, diverse, intelligent people, with such a bright thirst for knowledge, with such a greedy, comprehensive interest in life. I organized a rally for them in Hyde Park, talked about modern literature, and was very surprised by their sensitivity and keenness of attention.” (Letter dated May 20 – June 2, 1907.)
After the London congress, Gorky returned to his cell in Capri with an even greater feeling of loneliness. He felt a physical need to contact people. Therefore, with great enthusiasm I accepted the proposal of two major Bolshevik leaders, Lunacharsky and Bogdanov, to found a Higher School of Propagandists in Capri. Without any hesitation, he offered his villa as a training facility. The curriculum was extensive and clearly Marxist. Gorky took on the role of teacher of literary history. Students were supposed to be secretly recruited in Russia, in work centers, and transported across the border with false documents in order to teach them here in Italy the methods of underground struggle. As for the teachers, the organizing committee wanted them to be chosen from the various factions of the party in order to represent all tendencies. But in the end, only Bolshevik theorists responded to the invitation. Thus, the school, which had already opened its doors to its first twenty students, instead of becoming an oasis of Marxism in all its diversity, became a school of militant Bolshevism. However, a serious split was brewing among the Bolsheviks. Lunacharsky, Bogdanov and several other eminent Marxists dreamed of complementing and spiritualizing Marxism. They believed that in order for socialism to become a reality, it had to become a religion. This transition from an economic concept to an ideological and almost mystical one also corresponded to Gorky’s unspoken aspirations. His love for the people came from within. He needed to believe in him as one believes in God.
In the meantime, always guided by his devotion to the working masses, he refused to participate in the organizing celebration committee on the occasion of Tolstoy's eightieth birthday. “Count Leo Tolstoy is a brilliant artist, our Shakespeare, perhaps,” he wrote to Vengerov. “But... for over twenty years, a ringing has been heard from this bell tower, in every possible way hostile to my faith; For twenty years the old man has been talking all about how to turn young, glorious Rus' into a Chinese province, a young, talented Russian man into a slave... Perhaps my judgment will seem harsh to you, even probably so. But I can’t think otherwise. I paid well for my right to think exactly the way I think.” (Letter from the end of July 1908.)
His desire to give the people an almost supernatural meaning forced him to publish in 1908 the long story “Confession,” which he dedicated to Chaliapin. In it, he analyzes the moral conflict of a person torn apart by both Marxism and Christianity.
The hero of the story, Matvey, a foundling raised by a deacon in the veneration of the Holy Scriptures, wonders from a very young age why God loves people so little. Having matured, he sets off to wander the world in search of the absolute. An old wanderer, met at the edge of the forest, reveals to him the solution to this problem: God still needs to be created, and only factory workers are able to quickly complete this task. Then Matvey goes to them and, illuminated by their wisdom, begins to discern the road that leads to a new God, the god of justice and kindness. But soon the police begin to pursue them, and Matvey leaves the factory to carry the good news further. A miracle confirms his faith: at the door of one monastery, an excited pious crowd surrounded a young paralyzed girl lying on a stretcher. Suddenly, as if revived by the energy emanating from the people, the people-inventor, carrying God within themselves, the patient gets up and walks. This mystical-social amalgam could not please Lenin, whose inflexible atheism did not allow any deviations from the doctrine. He condemned the Confession and, more broadly, the prophecies and “god-building” of Bogdanov and Lunacharsky as attempts to move away from the philosophy of Marx. He refused to teach at the new party school and established his own school, in Longjumeau, near Paris, attracting several students from the workers' center in Capri. The Capri Party School Committee reproached Lenin for lack of loyalty, while Lenin accused his opponents of wanting to create a new party, which was by no means a Marxist one. However, he never involved Gorky in the showdown, as if his literary talent redeemed his political errors. He even visited Capri again in 1910 (Lenin had already spent two weeks in Capri in 1908), at Gorky's invitation, and this meeting sealed their reconciliation.
The friendship of these two people was based, oddly enough, on the opposite of their natures. They seemed as antagonistic as ice and fire. Lenin, who came from the petty nobility, the son of a high school director, and a lawyer by training, was guided by unbending logic in all his decisions. Possessing a sober and cold mind, subordinate to a harsh system, he was hostile to the slightest surrender of positions in ideological terms, preached pure materialism and was convinced that in the cause of revolution the end justifies the means. Gorky, who came from the people, with an artistic and emotional character, was capable of rash actions, sudden hatred, and uncontrollable impulses. He educated himself thanks to the many books he read and treated knowledge with the respect of an autodidact. Since childhood, religiosity lived in him, through which his revolutionary struggle was still refracted. His socialist convictions were not thoughtful, but intuitive, like the call of faith among the first Christians. He had great hopes for the future of the Capri party school. However, after many long lectures, the school was disbanded. Professors and students left the island.
Left alone with Maria Andreeva, Gorky again fell into despondency. The news from Russia was alarming. The defeat of the 1905 revolution was followed by brutal repressions by the Minister of Internal Affairs Stolypin. The liberal intelligentsia was scared. The proletariat, which had been silenced, no longer dared to raise its head. While socialists of all stripes clashed abroad in sterile polemics, there, in Russia, the autocracy grew brutal and strengthened its positions, hiding behind false parliamentarism. Is the country still capable of making a breakthrough and freeing itself? Another event deeply affected Gorky: the death of Tolstoy on November 7, 1910 at the small Astapovo station, where he found himself running away from his family.
This “flight” at first outraged Gorky: he saw in it only a pathetic comedy serving the legend of the patriarch from Yasnaya Polyana. “Lev Nikolaevich’s “flight” from home, from his family,” he wrote to Ekaterina Peshkova, “caused me to have an outburst of skepticism and almost bitterness against him, because, knowing his long-standing desire to “suffer” only in order to increase the weight of his religious ideas, the pressure of my preaching - I felt in this “flight” something rational, prepared. You know how hateful this preaching of a passive attitude towards life is to me, you must understand how destructive Buddhist ideas are in a country thoroughly saturated with fatalism... Suddenly - a telegram from Rome about the death of Lev Nikolaevich... For about five minutes, maybe I felt somehow vague - well? The inevitable happened, yes. And then he roared. I locked myself in my room and cried inconsolably all day. Never in my life have I felt so lonely as on this day, never have I felt such a caustic longing for a person... The most beautiful, powerful and great person is leaving our life, poor and unhappy... More than one woman [Tolstoy’s wife] is becoming orphaned. – Russian literature is becoming an orphan... The judge leaves. I feel mortally sorry for the prophet—whom I do not love.”
The following year, Stolypin was killed in the Kiev theater, in front of the Tsar and Tsarina. But this act of a lone revolutionary only increased police oppression. In front of a muzzled, strangled Russia, Gorky was ashamed of his Italian well-being. He wrote to his ex-wife on January 30, 1912 that he seemed to be losing the most important thing - his faith in Russia and its future.
Now he longed to visit the Russians with the impatience of a drug addict awaiting his dose of the drug. The new arrival was taken on a ship's boat to the very shore. In the small port he was surrounded by noisy boys who took possession of his suitcase and, having learned that he had come to “Signore Gorky,” saw him off, shouting: “Signore Gorki! Molto Ricco! Molto Ricco! (“Signor Gorky! Very rich! Very rich!”) Gorky’s villa was a former monastery, rebuilt into a bourgeois residential building. In the study there is a long table, covered with green cloth and raised on legs high enough so that Gorky does not have to hunch over when he writes. A huge window - the entire wall - and below are rocks and the blue sea. Vesuvius in its haze in the distance. Terrace with colonnade. A garden full of flowers and exotic plants. And in the midst of this peaceful harmony, this sugary sweetness, there is a bear in a cage. This contrast between the elegance of the decoration and the rudeness of the one who chose this home amazed all the guests. We gathered at the dinner table. Now, among other familiar guests, Zinovy Peshkov, Gorky’s “adopted son,” was sitting here. This young man, twenty-eight years old, whose real name was Sverdlov, was noticed by Gorky around 1900. Having shown interest in him, Gorky became his godfather when Zinovy, at the age of eighteen, decided to accept Orthodox baptism. This formality was necessary so that the boy could enter the Philharmonic School. At the same time, Gorky allowed him to bear the surname Peshkov. Although there was no official adoption, the affectionate relationship between “godfather” and “godson” was very close. In 1904, not wanting to go into military service, Zinoviy Peshkov left for Canada, where he worked at a fur factory in Toronto. Then, after numerous travels throughout the States and New Zealand, he returned to Russia. From there he went to Capri. Gorky wrote to his son Maxim that his “prodigal son Zinovy” had returned and was telling interesting things about New Zealand and all sorts of savages. The stories of this adventure-hungry boy amused Gorky and reminded him of his own youth spent as a vagabond. The revolutionary invited by the writer, Tatyana Aleksinskaya, noted in her “Memoirs”: “After several hours of rest, I am sitting in a spacious dining room, flooded with light. Around the table are Maxim Gorky, Andreeva, Gorky’s adopted son, Andreeva’s daughter and son, and many more people. Gorky is wearing a yellow leather jacket. His sunken cheeks highlight the sharp outline of his chin. His stiff, long, drooping mustache and his irregular nose make him look like orderlies, such as they are portrayed in comic plays in the Russian theater. But his intelligent eyes and folds on his forehead indicate intense spiritual work. Gorky rarely intervenes in conversation, making only short remarks. Then he begins to talk a lot, profusely, and the self-taught person becomes visible. He overuses quotes and scientific terms. When naming the author, he considers it necessary to introduce him... Instead of saying “Kant,” he says “the famous philosopher Kant.”
Cut off from the Russian land, from the Russian people, Gorky felt his creative powers leaving him. He loved Italy, but not knowing the local language, he could not immerse himself in the life of the Italian people in order to draw inspiration from it. The "Italian Tales" he wrote in Capri disappointed him first. Everything in these short stories was colorless and standard, like comments to a travel catalogue. Lenin invited him to collaborate with legal magazines, which had recently been published in St. Petersburg by Social Democrats, deceiving the vigilance of the censorship. He also provided him with columns in the official Bolshevik organ, Proletaria, which was published in France. In 1912 he asked him to compose a small May Day leaflet, short and clear, or a revolutionary proclamation. Gorky himself arrived in Paris in April of the same year, gave a speech in the Wagram hall and published an open letter in L’Humanite denouncing anti-Semitism in Russia.
However, such work in fits and starts did not give him enough impressions to create a work. If only he had found in political activity a compensation for his lack of literary impulse! But, while proclaiming the need for revolution in his books and articles, he was not thoroughly involved in the party. For professional Bolsheviks, he was an eminent comrade-in-arms, a useful propagandist, a respected comrade, without a doubt, who, however, fought in his own way, outside the system, outside the system, outside discipline. Lenin and his closest assistants did not suffer when they lived abroad, because they realized that from there it was most convenient for them to carry out the task of overthrowing the tsarist regime. Their profession was subversive activity, while Gorky's profession was literature, literature intended, of course, for the people, but obedient to the same artistic impulses as those of his bourgeois colleagues in the pen. Like them, perhaps he needed more of them to feel happy, to return to the roots of Russian life, to breathe deeply the air of his native land. Every day he read through the newspapers that came from Russia, hoping to find something there about a change in the government’s attitude towards political emigrants. But the king held his position adamantly. The borders were guarded by the police. It was crazy to even think about going back to myself. Gorky was drying in the middle of his idyllic garden. How long will he have to live in the solitude and intoxicating beauty of Capri?
