Maxim Gorky complete biography. Biography – Maxim Gorky

Russian writer Maxim Gorky (Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) lived an unusually eventful life. Having lost his father at the age of four, and his mother at ten, the future writer was forced to start working as a boy: he served in a store, in a draftsman’s workshop, as a cook on a steamship, as a worker and foreman at fair buildings, and as a baker. A hard life and lack of money deprived the teenager of the opportunity to receive any education - Gorky acquired all his rather extensive knowledge on his own, thanks to his perseverance and thirst for knowledge.

In his youth, Gorky became interested in revolutionary activities, was arrested and spent a month in prison. Throughout his life he retained sympathy for the struggle of ordinary people for their rights. Gorky's revolutionary views were undoubtedly influenced by his difficult working-class childhood and enormous personal experience. He knew firsthand about the hardships of poor people and had a strong aversion to social injustice. Twice young Gorky went on travels around Russia, walked the entire south of the empire along the Don steppes, visited Ukraine, Bessarabia, reached the Danube, then went to the Crimea and the North Caucasus, reached Tiflis. It was in Tiflis that Gorky's first story was published in the newspaper "Caucasus" Makar Chudra“—with this publication his constant literary activity began; At the same time, the writer’s pseudonym appeared - Maxim Gorky.

All-Russian fame came to Gorky quickly, his popularity was enormous, after a few years he was already familiar with all the famous writers of that time - L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov, I.A. Bunin, A.I. Kuprin and others. During the first decade of his work, Gorky wrote many excellent stories and essays, among which the stories “ Old Isergil», « Chelkash"(both - 1895), " Mallow"(1897). Gorky also worked in a unique genre, the novelty of which was the combination of prose and song, thereby continuing the tradition of Turgenev’s prose poems. Examples of this genre in Gorky’s early works were “ Song of the Falcon" (1895) and " Song about the Petrel"(1901), chanting the "madness of the brave" and the "thirst of the storm." At the beginning of his creative career, Gorky wrote fairy tales " The Girl and Death», « About a little fairy and a young shepherd"(both - 1892).

Interest in Gorky's early works arose due to the democratic content of his stories and essays, which was close to wide circles of Russian society. However, most of all, Russian readers were attracted by the fresh voice that sounded in his works, the life-affirming pathos, and the unusually powerful combination of realism in the depiction of life situations and the romantic spirit.

In the 1900s, the genre and thematic spectrum of Gorky's work expanded significantly: from that time on, Gorky turned to drama. The socio-philosophical drama " At the bottom"(1902), the plot of which was a depiction of the fate of the inhabitants of the rooming house - unhappy and degraded people, but nevertheless thirsty for life. In 1906, immediately after the first Russian revolution (1903-1905), Gorky wrote the novel “ Mother", which for several decades became the main work of socialist realism - a trend in Soviet literature of the 20th century that combined the principles of the realistic style with the ideology of socialism. Gorky was firmly assigned the definition of “the first proletarian writer,” although his subsequent work proves that such an approach to his literary merits narrows the true scale and significance of his work.

In the 1910s, Gorky wrote stories, which he included in the collection “ In Rus'" This collection can be called the “second wave” of the writer’s interest in describing the life of our Fatherland, various destinies, characters, and social types. In the stories of this collection, the figure of the central hero of the early works - the “tramp” - receives greater social definition, but at the same time retains the features of a rebel. Gorky’s commitment to his type of hero was successfully explained by his contemporary, the critic D.V. Philosophers: “He stands for the “tramp” not only because he is oppressed, but because he has strength.<...>A tramp is a creature that denies a given social structure, it is a temperament that does not fit within the framework of a given system.”

After the revolutions of 1917 - the February revolution, which led to the abdication of the throne of Emperor Nicholas II, and the October revolution, which established a new political regime with the ideology of socialism - Gorky, as a writer and humanist, often found himself at a crossroads, reflecting on the justice of the actions of the authorities and the honesty of his life and social position . Being an undisputed leader and a living classic of Soviet literature, he continued to write until his death. In his last period of creativity, he created a number of serious works, the main one of which was the chronicle novel “ Life of Klim Samgin"(1925-1936).

1. Gorky's childhood and youth
2. The beginning of Gorky's work
3. Gorky’s works “Makar Chudra”, “Old Woman Izergil”, “Girl and Death”, “Song of the Falcon”, etc.
4. Novel "Foma Gordeev". Summary
5. The play "At the Bottom". Analysis
6. Novel "Mother". Analysis
7. Cycle of stories “Across Rus'”
8. Gorky's attitude to the revolution
9. Gorky in exile
10. Return of Gorky to the USSR
11. Gorky's illness and death

Maxim GORKY (1868-1936)

M. Gorky appears in our minds as the personification of the powerful creative forces of the nation, as the real embodiment of the bright talent, intelligence and hard work of the Russian people. The son of a craftsman, a self-taught writer who did not even finish primary school, he, through a tremendous effort of will and intellect, escaped from the very bottom of life and in a short time made a rapid ascent to the heights of writing.

A lot is being written about Gorky now. Some unconditionally defend him, others overthrow him from his pedestal, blaming him for justifying Stalin’s methods of building a new society and even direct incitement to terror, violence, and repression. They are trying to push the writer to the margins of the history of Russian literature and social thought, to weaken or completely eliminate his influence on the literary process of the 20th century. But still, our literary criticism is difficult, but consistently making its way to the living, non-textbook Gorky, freeing itself from past legends and myths, and from excessive categoricalness in assessing his work.

Let us also try to understand the complex fate of the great man, remembering the words of his friend Fyodor Chaliapin: “I know for sure that this was the voice of love for Russia. Gorky spoke of a deep consciousness that we all belong to our country, our people, and that we must be with them not only morally, as I sometimes console myself, but also physically, with all the scars, all the hardening, all the humps.”

1. Gorky’s childhood and youth

Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov (Gorky) was born on March 16 (28), 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod, in the family of a cabinetmaker. After the sudden death of his father on June 8, 1871, the boy and his mother settled in his grandfather’s house. Alyosha was raised by his grandmother, who introduced him to the motley, colorful world of folk tales, epics, songs, developed his imagination, understanding of the beauty and power of the Russian word.

At the beginning of 1876, the boy entered the parish school, but after studying for a month, he left classes due to smallpox. A year later he was admitted to the second grade of primary school. However, having completed two classes, he was forced to leave school forever in 1878. By this time, my grandfather had gone bankrupt, and in the summer of 1879, my mother died of transient consumption.

At the suggestion of his grandfather, a 14-year-old teenager goes “into the people” - he begins a working life full of hardships, exhausting work, and homeless wandering. Whatever he was: a boy in a shoe store, a student in an icon painting shop, a nanny, a dishwasher on a ship, a builder-foreman, a loader at the pier, a baker, etc. He visited the Volga region and Ukraine, Bessarabia and Crimea, Kuban and the Caucasus.

“My walking around Rus' was not caused by the desire for vagrancy,” Gorky later explained, “but by the desire to see where I live, what kind of people are around me?” The wanderings enriched the future writer with a wide knowledge of folk life and people. This was also facilitated by the “passion for reading” that awoke in him early and continuous self-education. “I owe everything that’s best in me to books,” he would later remark.

2. The beginning of Gorky’s work

By the age of twenty, A. Peshkov had an excellent knowledge of domestic and world art classics, as well as the philosophical works of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, V. Solovyov.

Life observations and impressions, a stock of knowledge required an outlet. The young man began to try himself in literature. His creative biography begins with poetry. It is believed that A. Peshkov’s first printed speech was “Poems on the grave of D. A. Latysheva”, published at the beginning of 1885 in the Kazan newspaper “Volzhsky Vestnik”. In 1888-1889 he created the poems “Only I was freed from troubles”, “You’re out of luck, Alyosha”, “It’s a shame to whine at my age”, “I’m swimming...”, “Don’t scold my muse...” etc. For all their imitation and rhetoric, they clearly convey the pathos of expectations for the future:

In this life, sick and unhappy,

I sing hymns to the future, -

This is how the poem “Do not scold my muse” ends.

From poetry, the aspiring writer gradually moved to prose: in 1892, his first story, “Makar Chudra,” signed under the pseudonym “Maxim Gorky,” was published in the Tiflis newspaper “Caucasus.”

V. Korolenko played a big role in Gorky’s fate, who helped him understand many of the secrets of literary mastery. On Korolenko's advice, Gorky moves to Samara and works as a journalist. His stories, essays, feuilletons are published in Samara Gazeta, Nizhegorodsky Listok, Odessa News, and then in the thick central magazines New Word, Russian Thought, etc. In 1898, Gorky published the two-volume Essays and stories" that made him famous.

Later, summing up his 25-year creative activity, M. Gorky wrote: “The meaning of my 25-year work, as I understand it, boils down to my passionate desire to arouse in people an effective attitude towards life”2. These words can be used as an epigraph to the entire work of the writer. To arouse in people an effective, active attitude towards life, to overcome their passivity, to activate the best, strong-willed, moral qualities of the individual - this was the task that Gorky solved from the first steps of his work.

This trait manifested itself very clearly in his early stories, in which he acted, according to V. Korolenko’s correct definition, at the same time as both a realist and a romantic. In the same year, 1892, the writer created the stories “Makar Chudra” and “Emelyan Pilyai”. The first of them is romantic in its method and style, while the second is dominated by the features of realistic writing.

In the fall of 1893, he published the romantic allegory “About Chizhe, who lied...” and the realistic story “The Beggar Woman,” a year later the realistic story “Poor Pavel” and the romantic works “Old Woman Izergil,” “Song of the Falcon” and “One Night” appeared. These parallels, which can easily be continued, indicate that Gorky did not have two special periods of creativity - romantic and realistic.

The division of early Gorky’s works into romantic and realistic, established in our literary criticism since the 40s, is somewhat arbitrary: the writer’s romantic works have a solid real basis, and realistic ones carry a charge of romanticism, representingthe embryo of a renewed realistic type of creativity - neorealism.

3. Gorky’s works “Makar Chudra”, “Old Woman Izergil”, “Girl and Death”, “Song of the Falcon”

Gorky’s works “Makar Chudra”, “Old Woman Izergil”, “The Girl and Death”, “Song of the Falcon” and others, in which the romantic element predominates, are connected by a single problematic. They sound like a hymn to a free and strong person. A distinctive feature of all heroes is proud disobedience to fate and daring love of freedom, integrity of nature and heroic character. This is the gypsy Radda, the heroine of the story."Makar Chudra".

Two strongest feelings control her: love and Thirst for freedom. Radda loves the handsome Loiko Zobar, but does not want to submit to him, because above all else she values ​​her freedom. The heroine rejects the age-old custom according to which a woman, having become a wife, becomes a slave of a man. The fate of a slave is worse than death for her. It is easier for her to die with the proud consciousness that her personal freedom is preserved than to submit herself to the power of another, even if this other is passionately loved by her.

In turn, Zobar also values ​​his independence and is ready to do anything to preserve it. He cannot subjugate Radda, but he never wants to submit to her, and he is not able to refuse her. In front of the entire camp, he kills his beloved, but he himself dies. The author’s words that complete the legend are significant: “The sea sang a gloomy and solemn hymn to the proud pair of handsome gypsies.”

The allegorical poem “The Girl and Death” (1892), not only in its fairy-tale character, but also in its main themes, is very indicative of Gorky’s entire early work. This work clearly conveys the idea of ​​the all-conquering power of human love, which is stronger than death. The girl, punished by the king for laughing when he returns from the battlefield after defeat in the war in deep sorrow, boldly looks death in the face. And she retreats, because she does not know what to oppose to the great power of love, the enormous feeling of love for life.

The theme of love for a person, rising to the point of sacrifice in the name of preserving people’s lives, reaches a broad social and moral resonance in Gorky’s story “The Old Woman Izergil.” The composition of this work itself is original, representing a kind of triptych: the legend of Larra, the life story of the narrator - the old gypsy Izergil and the legend of Danko. The plot and themes of the story are based on a clear contrast between heroism and altruism and individualism and selfishness.

Larra, the character of the first legend, the son of an eagle and a woman, is depicted by the author as a bearer of individualistic, inhumane ideas and principles. For him there are no moral laws of kindness and respect for people. He deals with the girl who rejected him cruelly and inhumanly. The writer strikes at the philosophy of extreme individualism, which claims that a strong personality is allowed to do everything, even any crime.

The moral laws of humanity, the author claims, are unshakable, they cannot be violated for the sake of an individual who opposes himself to the human community. And the personality itself cannot exist outside of people. Freedom, as the writer understands it, is the conscious need to respect moral norms, traditions and rules. Otherwise, it turns into a destructive, destructive force, directed not only against one’s neighbor, but also against the adherent of such “freedom” himself.

Larra, who is expelled from the tribe by the elders for the murder of a girl and is given immortality, should, it would seem, triumph, “Which, however, he does at first. But time passes, and life for Larra, who finds himself alone, turns into hopeless torment: “He has no life, and death does not smile on him. And there is no place for him among people... This is how a person was punished for his pride,” that is, for self-centeredness. This is how old woman Izergil ends her story about Larra.

The hero of the second legend is the young man Danko - the complete opposite of the arrogant selfish Larra. This is a humanist, ready to sacrifice himself in the name of saving people. Out of the darkness"impassable swampy forests he leads his people to the Light. But this path is difficult, distant and dangerous, and Danko, in order to save people, without hesitation, tore his heart out of his chest. Lighting the way with this “torch of love for people,” the young man led his people to the sun, to life, and died, without asking people for anything as a reward for himself.” In the image of Danko, the writer embodied his humanistic ideal - the ideal of selfless love for people, heroic self-sacrifice in the name of their life and happiness. Izergil’s realistic story about herself is, as it were, a connecting link between these two legends.

The individualistic killer Larra believed that happiness was in splendid isolation and permissiveness, for which he was punished with a terrible punishment. Izergil lived her life among people, a life that was bright and rich in its own way. She admires courageous, freedom-loving people with a strong will. Her rich life experience led her to a significant conclusion: “When a person loves feats, he always knows how to do them and will find where it is possible. In life... there is always room for exploits.” Izergil herself knew both passionate love and exploits. But she lived mainly for herself. Only Danko embodied the highest understanding of the spiritual beauty and greatness of man, giving his life for the lives of people. So in the very composition of the story its idea is revealed. Danko's altruistic feat takes on a sacred meaning. The Gospel of John says that Christ at the Last Supper addressed the apostles with the following words: “Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” It is this kind of love that the writer poetizes with Danko’s feat.

Using the example of the destinies of his two antipodean characters, Gorky poses the problem of death and immortality. The proud individualist Larra turned out to be immortal, but only a dark shadow runs from him across the steppe, which is difficult to even see. And the memory of Danko’s feat is preserved in the hearts of people and is passed on from generation to generation. And this is his immortality.

The action of these and many other Gorky stories takes place in the south, where the sea and the steppe coexist - symbols of boundless and eternal cosmic life. The writer is drawn to the vast expanses, where a person especially strongly feels the power of nature and his closeness to it, where no one and nothing restricts the free expression of human feelings.

The writer’s bright, emotionally charged and lyrically soulful pictures of nature never turn into an end in themselves. They play an active role in the narrative, being one of the main elements of content. In “The Old Woman Izergil” he describes the Moldovans as follows: “They walked, sang, laughed, the men were bronze, with lush, black mustaches and thick shoulder-length curls. Women and girls are cheerful, flexible, with dark blue eyes, also bronze... They moved further and further from us, and night and fantasy dressed them in everything beautiful.” These Moldavian peasants are not much different in appearance from Loiko Zobar, Radda and Danko.

In the story “Makar Chudra” both the narrator himself and the real-life way of gypsy life are presented in a romantic light. Thus, in reality itself the same romantic features are emphasized. They are also revealed in Izergil’s biography. This was done by the author in order to highlight an important idea: the fabulous, romantic does not oppose life, but only expresses in a more vivid, emotionally sublime form what is present in reality to one degree or another.

The composition of many of Gorky's early stories contains two elements: a romantic plot and its realistic frame. They are a story within a story. The figure of the hero-storyteller (Chudra, Izergil) also gives the narration the character of reality and plausibility. The same features of reality are conveyed to the works by the image of the narrator - a young man named Maxim, who listens to the stories being told.

The themes of Gorky's early realistic stories are even more multifaceted. Particularly notable in this regard is the writer’s cycle of stories about tramps. Gorky's tramps are a reflection of spontaneous protest. These are not passive sufferers thrown out of life. Their withdrawal into tramping is one of the forms of unwillingness to come to terms with the lot of a slave. The writer emphasizes in his characters what elevates them above the inert middle-class environment. Such is the tramp and thief Chelkash from the story of the same name in 1895, contrasted with the farm laborer Gavrila.

The writer does not idealize his character at all. It is no coincidence that he often uses the epithet “predatory” to characterize Chelkash: Chelkash has a “predatory look”, “predatory nose”, etc. But contempt for the omnipotent power of money makes this lumpen and renegade more humane than Gavrila. And on the contrary, slavish dependence on the ruble turns the village boy Gavrila, essentially a good person, into a criminal. In the psychological drama that played out between them on a deserted seashore. Chelkash turns out to be more humane than Gavrila.

Among tramps, Gorky especially singles out people in whom the love of work and intense thought about the meaning of life and the purpose of man has not faded. This is how it is depicted Konovalov from the story of the same name (1897). A good person, a dreamer with a soft soul, Alexander Konovalov constantly feels dissatisfied with life and with himself. This pushes him onto the path of vagrancy and drunkenness. One of the valuable qualities of his nature was his love of work. Having found himself in a bakery after long wanderings, he experiences the joy of work, showing artistry in his work.

The writer emphasizes the aesthetic emotions of his hero, his subtle sense of nature, respect for women. Konovalov becomes infected with a passion for reading, he sincerely admires the audacity and courage of Stepan Razin, loves the heroes of Gogol’s “Taras Bulba” for their fearlessness and fortitude, and takes to heart the grave adversities of the men from F. Reshetnikov’s “Podlipovtsy.” The high humanity of this tramp and the presence of good moral inclinations in him are obvious.

However, everything in it is impermanent, everything is changeable and does not last long. The contagious passion for his favorite work disappeared, giving way to melancholy, he somehow suddenly lost interest in it and gave up everything, either indulging in binge drinking, or going on the “run”, on yet another vagrancy. He does not have a strong inner core, solid moral support, strong attachment, or constancy. Konovalov’s extraordinary, talented nature dies because he does not find the will to take action. The popular definition of “knight for an hour” is fully applicable to him.

However, almost all of Gorky’s tramps are like this: Malva from the story of the same name, Semaga (“How Semaga was Caught”), the carpenter (“In the Steppe”), Zazubrina and Vanka Mazin from the works of the same name, and others. Konovalov has the advantage over his fellow wanderers that he is not inclined to blame others for his failed life. To the question: “Who is to blame for us?” - he answers with conviction: “We ourselves are to blame... That’s why we have no desire for life and we have no feelings for ourselves.”

Gorky’s close attention to people at the “bottom of life” gave rise to a number of critics to declare him a singer of tramping, an adept of an individualistic personality of the Nietzschean kind. This is wrong. Of course, in comparison with the world of inert, spiritually limited philistines, Gorky’s tramps have that “zest” that the writer strives to depict as clearly as possible. The same Chelkash, in his contempt for money and in his love for the mighty and free element of the sea, in the breadth of his nature, looks nobler than Gavrila. But this nobility is very relative. For both he and Emelyan Pilyay and other tramps, having freed themselves from petty-bourgeois greed, also lost their working skills. Gorky's tramps like Chelkash are beautiful when they stand up to cowards and self-interested people. But their power is disgusting when it is aimed at harming people. The writer showed this superbly in the stories “Artem and Cain”, “My Companion”, “Former People”, “Rogue” and others. Selfish, predatory, filled with arrogance and contempt for everyone except themselves, the characters in these works are drawn in sharply negative tones. Gorky later called the anti-humanistic, cruel, immoral philosophy of this type of “former people” fraudulent, emphasizing that it is a manifestation of “a dangerous national disease, which can be called passive anarchism” or “anarchism of the vanquished.”

4. The novel “Foma Gordeev”. Summary.

The late 90s - early 900s were marked in Gorky's work by the appearance of works of great epic form - the novel "Foma Gordeev" (1899) and the story "Three" (1900).

Novel "Foma Gordeev" opens a series of Gorky’s works about the “masters of life.” It recreates the artistic history of the formation and development of the Russian bourgeoisie, shows the ways and means of the initial accumulation of capital, as well as the process of “breaking out” a person from his class due to disagreement with his morals and standards of life.

The history of early accumulation is depicted by the writer as a chain of crimes, predation and deception. Almost all the merchants of the Volga city, where the action of “Foma Gordeev” takes place, made their millions “through robberies, murders... and the sale of counterfeit money.” Thus, commercial adviser Reznikov, who began his career by opening a brothel, quickly became rich after “strangling one of his guests, a rich Siberian.”

The large steamship owner Kononov was in the past brought to trial for arson, and increased his wealth at the expense of his mistress, whom he put in prison on false charges of theft. The merchant Gushchin, who once cleverly robbed his own nephews, is thriving. The rich Robists and Bobrovs are guilty of all sorts of crimes. A group portrait of the Volga merchants serves as an everyday and social background against which the detailed types of pioneers appear: Ananiy Shurov, Ignat Gordeev and Yakov Mayakin. Being clearly individualized, they embody the typical features of the Russian bourgeoisie of the period of primitive accumulation of capital.

The old, pre-reform merchant class is represented by the image of Anania Shurov. This merchant is wild, dark, straightforward and rude. He is in many ways related to the well-known figures of A. Ostrovsky, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, G. Uspensky. The basis of his wealth is a criminal offense. Formerly a serf, Shurov became rich after he sheltered a counterfeiter who had escaped from hard labor in his bathhouse, then killed him, and set the bathhouse on fire to conceal the crime.

Shurov became a major timber merchant, drove rafts along the Volga, built a huge sawmill and several barges. He is already old, but even now, as in his younger years, he looks at people “hardly, mercilessly.” According to Shurov, all his life “except for God, he was not afraid of anyone.” However, he builds his relationship with God on considerations of profit, sanctimoniously covering his dishonest actions with His name. Calling Shurov a “manufacturer of sins,” Yakov Mayakin notes, not without venom: “They have been crying about him for a long time both in hard labor and in hell - they are sad, they are waiting - they can’t wait.”

Another version of the “knight of primitive accumulation” is Ignat Gordeev. He is also a former peasant, then a barge hauler, who became a major Volga steamship owner. But he gained wealth not through criminal offenses, but through his own labor, energy, extraordinary perseverance and enterprise. “In his entire powerful figure,” the author notes, “there was a lot of Russian healthy and rough beauty.”

He is not pettyly stingy and not as servilely greedy as other merchants; he has Russian daring and breadth of soul. The pursuit of the ruble sometimes bored Ignat, and then he gave full rein to his passions, uncontrollably indulging in drunkenness and debauchery. But a period of riots and revelry passed, and he again became quiet and meek. In such sharp transitions from one mood to another is the originality of Ignat’s character, who was not without reason called “naughty.” These are personality traits. Ignat was then reflected in the individual appearance of his son Thomas.

The central figure of the merchants in the novel is Yakov Mayakin, the owner of a rope factory and trading shops, the godfather of Foma Gordeev. Mayakin is close in spirit to the patriarchal part of the merchant class. But at the same time, he is also drawn to the new, industrial bourgeoisie, which is confidently replacing the nobility. Mayakin is not just a representative of the economically growing bourgeoisie. He strives to find a historical and socio-philosophical justification for the activities of the merchants as one of the most important classes of Russian society. He confidently asserts that it was the trading people who “carried Russia on their shoulders for centuries”, with their diligence and labor “they laid the foundation of life - they laid themselves in the ground instead of bricks.”

Mayakin speaks confidently, enthusiastically and beautifully about the great historical mission and merits of his class, with pathetic eloquence. A talented lawyer for the merchant class, intelligent and energetic, Mayakin persistently returns to the idea that the weight and importance of the Russian merchant class is clearly underestimated, that this class is excluded from the political life of Russia. The time has come, in his conviction, to oust the nobles and allow the merchants and bourgeoisie to the helm of state power: “Give us room to work! Include us in the construction of this very life!”

The Russian bourgeoisie, which by the end of the century realized itself as a great economic force in the state and was dissatisfied with its removal from the leading role in the political life of the country, speaks through the mouth of Mayakin.

But Mayakin combines correct thoughts and views with cynicism and immorality towards people. In his opinion, one should achieve wealth and power by any means, without disdaining anything. Teaching the peasant Thomas the “politics of life,” Mayakin elevates hypocrisy and cruelty to an immutable law. “Life, brother, Thomas,” he teaches the young man, “is very simple: either gnaw everyone, or lie in the dirt... When approaching a person, hold honey in your left hand, and a knife in your right...”

Mayakin's reliable successor is his son Taras. During his student years, he was arrested and deported to Siberia. His father was ready to disown him. However, Taras turned out to be just like his father. After serving his exile, he entered the office of the manager of the gold mines, married his daughter and deftly beat his rich father-in-law. Soon Taras began managing a soda production plant. Returning home, he energetically enters into business and conducts it on a greater scale than his father. He does not have his father’s inclination to philosophize, he only talks about business, extremely briefly and dryly. He is a pragmatist, convinced that every person “must choose a job within his strength and do it as best as possible.” Looking at his son, even Yakov Mayakin, a very businesslike man himself, admiring his son’s efficiency, is somewhat puzzled by the callous coldness and pragmatism of the “children”: “Everything is good, everything is pleasant, only you, our heirs, are deprived of any living feeling!”

Afrikan Smolin is similar in many ways to the younger Mayakin. He more organically than Taras absorbed the way of acting of the European bourgeois, spending four years abroad. This is a Europeanized bourgeois businessman and industrialist, thinking broadly and acting cunningly and resourcefully. “Adriasha is a liberal,” the journalist Yezhov says about him, “a liberal merchant is a cross between a wolf and a pig...” From a historical perspective, this Gorky character, who well understands the benefits of technical knowledge and the importance of cultural progress, is perceived as an all-powerful bourgeois tycoon and politician, resourceful and dexterous.

But Gorky was interested not only in the problem of the formation and growth of the Russian bourgeoisie, but also in the process of its internal decay, the conflict of a morally healthy individual with the environment. This is the fate of the main character of the novel, Foma Gordeev. Compositionally and plot-wise, the novel is structured as a chronicle description of the life of a young man who rebelled against the morality and laws of bourgeois society and ultimately suffered the collapse of his ideals.

The novel traces in detail the history of the formation of Thomas's personality and character, the formation of his moral world. The starting point in this process was many natural inclinations and properties inherited by Thomas from his parents: spiritual kindness, a tendency towards isolation and solitude - from his mother, and dissatisfaction with the monotony of life, the desire to break the shackles of acquisitiveness that bind a person - from his father.

The fairy tales that Aunt Anfisa, who replaced his early deceased mother, introduced Thomas to as a child, painted his childhood imagination with vivid pictures of life, completely different from the monotonous, gray existence in his father’s house.

The father and godfather sought to instill in Thomas their understanding of the purpose and meaning of life, and an interest in the practical side of merchant activity. But these teachings were of no use to Thomas; they only increased the feeling of apathy and boredom in his soul. Having reached adulthood, Foma retained in his character and behavior “something childish, naive, which distinguished him from his peers.” He still showed no serious interest in the business in which his father had invested his entire life.

The sudden death of Ignat stunned Thomas. The only heir to a huge fortune, he was supposed to become the master. But, deprived of his father’s grasp, he turned out to be impractical and lacking initiative in everything. Foma feels neither happiness nor joy from owning millions. “...I feel sick! - he complains to his kept woman Sasha Savelyeva. “Just think - is it really possible to have a party so that all the veins ring?” He does just that: he periodically indulges in revelry, sometimes causing scandalous brawls.

Foma's drunken stupor gave way to oppressive melancholy. And more and more Thomas is inclined to think that life is arrangedit is unfair that people of his class enjoy undeserved benefits. More and more often he gets into quarrels with his godfather, who for Thomas is the personification of this unfair life. Wealth and the position of “master” become a heavy burden for him. All this results in a public revolt and denunciation of the merchants.

During the celebrations at Kononov's, Foma accuses the merchants of crimes against people, accusing them of not building life, but a prison, turning a common man into a forced slave. But his solitary, spontaneous rebellion is fruitless and doomed to defeat. Foma more than once remembers an episode from his childhood when he scared an owl in a ravine. Blinded by the sun, she rushed helplessly along the ravine. This episode is projected by the author onto the hero’s behavior. Thomas too, blind as an owl. Blind mentally, spiritually. He passionately protests against the laws and morality of a society that is based on injustice and selfishness, but at the heart of his protest there are no clearly conscious aspirations. The merchants easily deal with their renegade, imprisoning him in a madhouse and taking away his inheritance.

The novel “Foma Gordeev” evoked numerous reviews from readers and critics. The opinion of many readers was expressed by Jack London, who wrote in 1901: “You close the book with a feeling of aching melancholy, with disgust for a life full of “lies and depravity.” But this is a healing book. Social ills are shown in it with such fearlessness... that its purpose is beyond doubt - it affirms the good.” Since the beginning of the 20th century, Gorky, without giving up work on prose works, has been actively and successfully trying himself in drama. From 1900 to 1906, he created six plays that were included in the golden fund of the Russian theater: “The Bourgeois”, “At the Lower Depths”, “Summer Residents”, “Children of the Sun”, “Enemies”, “Barbarians”. Differing in theme and artistic level, they, in essence, also solve the main author’s ultimate task - “to arouse in people an effective attitude towards life.”

5. The play “At the Bottom”. Analysis.

One of the most significant plays of this unique dramatic cycle is undoubtedly the drama"At the bottom" (1902). The play was a stunning success. Following its production by the Moscow Art Theater in 1902, it toured many theaters in Russia and foreign countries. “At the Bottom” is a stunning picture of a kind of cemetery where extraordinary people are buried alive. We see the intelligence of Satin, the spiritual purity of Natasha, the hard work of Kleshch, the desire for an honest life in Ash, the honesty of the Tatar Asan, the unquenched thirst for pure, sublime love in the prostitute Nastya, etc.

The people living in the Kostylevs' wretched basement shelter are placed in extremely inhumane conditions: their honor, human dignity, the possibility of love, motherhood, honest, conscientious work are taken away from them. World drama has never known such a harsh truth about the life of the lower social classes.

But the social and everyday problems of the play are organically combined here with philosophical ones. Gorky’s work is a philosophical debate about the meaning and purpose of human life, about a person’s ability to “break the chain” of destructive circumstances, about the attitude towards a person. In the dialogues and remarks of the characters in the play, the word “truth” is heard most often. Of the characters who willingly use this word, Bubnov, Luka and Satin stand out.

At one pole of the debate about truth and man stands the former furrier Bubnov,” who, as he assures, always tells only the truth to everyone: “But I don’t know how to lie. For what? In my opinion, leave the whole truth as it is. Why be ashamed? But his “truth” is cynicism and indifference towards the people around him.

Let us remember how cruelly and indifferently cynically he comments on the main events of the play. When Anna asks not to make noise and let her die in peace, Bubnov declares: “Noise is not a hindrance to death.” Nastya wants to break out of the basement and declares: “I’m superfluous here.” Bubnov immediately sums up ruthlessly: “You are superfluous everywhere.” And he concludes: “And all the people on earth are superfluous.”

In the third act, the mechanic Kleshch pronounces a monologue about his own hopeless existence, about how a person who has “golden hands” and who is eager to work is doomed to hunger and deprivation. The monologue is deeply sincere. This is the cry of despair of a person whom society throws out of life as unnecessary slag. And Bubnov declares: “It’s a great start! Just like he acted it out in the theater.” A distrustful skeptic and cynic in relation to people, Bubnov is dead in soul and therefore brings to people disbelief in life and in a person’s ability to “break the chain” of unfavorable circumstances. The Baron, another “living corpse”, a man without faith, without hope, was not far away from him.

The antipode of Bubnov in his view of man is the wanderer Luke. For many years, critical spears have been crossed around this Gorky “character,” which was greatly facilitated by the contradictory assessments of the image of Luke on the part of the author himself. Some critics and literary scholars literally destroyed Luke, calling him... a liar, a preacher of harmful consolation and “even an unwitting accomplice to the masters of life. Others, while partially recognizing Luke’s kindness, nevertheless considered it harmful and even derived the character’s name from the word “evil.” Meanwhile, Gorky’s Luke bears the name of a Christian evangelist. And this says a lot, if we keep in mind the presence of “significant” names and surnames of characters in the writer’s works.

Luke means “light” in Latin. This semantic meaning of the character’s image also echoes Gorky’s idea at the time he created the play: “I really want to write well, I want to write with joy... to let the sun on the stage, the cheerful Russian sun, not very bright, but loving everything, embracing everything.” The wanderer Luke appears in the play as such a “sun.” It is called upon to dispel the darkness of hopelessness among the inhabitants of the shelter, to fill it with kindness, warmth and light.

“In the middle of the night you can’t see the road,” Luka sings meaningfully, clearly hinting at the night shelters’ loss of meaning and purpose in life. And he adds: “Ehe-he... gentlemen! And what will happen to you? Well, at least I’ll leave a litter here.”

Religion plays a significant role in Luke’s worldview and character. The image of Luke is a kenotic type of a wandering folk sage and philosopher. In his wandering way of life, in the fact that he sought the city of God, the “righteous land,” the eschatologism of the people’s soul, the hunger for the coming transformation, was deeply expressed. The Russian religious thinker of the Silver Age G. Fedotov, who thought a lot about the typology of Russian spirituality, wrote that in the type of wanderer “there lives a predominantly kenotic and Christocentric type of Russian religiosity, eternally opposed to everyday liturgical ritualism.” This is exactly what Gorky’s character is like.

A deep and integral nature, Luke fills Christian dogmas with living meaning. Religion for him is the embodiment of high morality, kindness and help to people. His practical advice is a kind of minimum program for the inhabitants of the shelter. He calms Anna down by talking about the blissful existence of the soul after death (as a Christian, he firmly believes in this). Ash and Natasha - pictures of free and happy family life in Siberia. The actor strives to instill hope for recovery from alcohol. Luke is often accused of lying. But he never lied.

Indeed, at that time in Russia there were several hospitals for alcoholics (in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg), and in some of them the poor were treated for free. Siberia is the place where it was easiest for Ash to start a new life. Ash himself admits that he started stealing because no one called him anything other than “thief” and “son of a thief” since childhood. Siberia, where no one knows him and where hundreds of people were sent in accordance with Stolypin’s reforms, is an ideal place for Ash.

Luke calls the people of the “bottom” not to reconciliation with circumstances, but to action. He appeals to the internal, potential capabilities of a person, calling on people to overcome passivity and despair. Luke's compassion and attention to people is effective. He is driven by nothing more than a conscious desire to “arouse in people an effective attitude towards life.” “Whoever really wants it will find it,” says Luka with conviction. And it’s not his fault that things didn’t work out for Actor and Ashes the way he advised them.

The image of Satin, who also became the subject of conflicting opinions, is also ambiguous. The first, traditional point of view: Satin, unlike Luke, calls for an active struggle for man. The second, diametrically opposed to the first, claims that Satin is Satan, who “corrupts the night shelters, hinders their attempts to escape from the bottom of life”5. It is easy to see that both of these views on the personality and role of Satin in the play suffer from excessive categoricalness.

Satin and Luka are not opponents, but like-minded people in their views on man. It is no coincidence that after Luke leaves, Satin protects him from the Baron’s attacks. Satin defines Luke’s role on himself as follows: “He... acted on me like acid on an old and dirty coin.” Luke stirred Satin's soul and forced him to determine his position in relation to man.

Luka and Satin agree on the main thing: they are both confident that a person is able to break the chain of unfavorable circumstances if he strains his will and overcomes passivity. “A person can do anything, as long as he wants to,” assures Luka. “Only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain,” Satin supports him. There are also differences between them in their views on man. _ Satin takes a maximalist approach to the problem of pity. “Pity humiliates a person,” he believes.

Christian Luke calls first of all to understand a person, and having managed to understand, one must have pity on him. “I’ll tell you,” says Luka, “it’s good to feel sorry for a person in time.” To regret in time means to save sometimes from death, from an irreparable step. Luke is more flexible and merciful than Satin in this matter. Saying that “we must have pity on people,” Luke appeals to the highest moral authority: “Christ had pity on everyone and commanded us to.”

Under the influence of Luke, some of the shelters softened and became kinder. First of all, this applies to Satin. In the fourth act, he jokes a lot and warns the inhabitants of the basement against rude behavior. He stops the Baron’s attempt to teach Nastya a lesson for her insolence with the advice: “Stop it! Don’t touch... don’t offend the person.” Satin also does not share the Baron’s proposal to have fun with the Tatar praying: “Leave me alone!” He’s a good guy, don’t bother him!” Remembering Luke and his views on man, Satin confidently declares: “The old man was right!” Both Luke’s kindness and pity are not passive, but effective - that’s what Satin understood. “Whoever has not done good to someone has done something bad,” says Luke. Through the lips of this character, the author affirms the idea of ​​active goodness, the position of active attention and helping people. This is the most important moral and philosophical result of Gorky’s play-dispute.

During the revolution of 1905, Gorky actively helped the Bolsheviks. He meets Lenin and contributes to the publication of the newspaper “New Life”.

6. Novel “Mother”. Analysis.

After the suppression of the December armed uprising, Gorky, fearing arrest, moved to Finland, and then, in order to raise money for the Bolshevik Party, to America. Here he writes a number of journalistic articles, the play “Enemies” and the novel"Mother" (1906), which requires a different understanding, not according to the canons of “the first work of socialist realism,” as we have been accustomed to doing for decades. Lenin’s assessment of this novel is widely known: “...The book is 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 assessment significantly influenced the interpretation of the novel, which began to be viewed as a kind of manual for organizing a revolutionary movement. The writer himself was dissatisfied with this assessment of his work. “I, of course, thanked Lenin for such a compliment,” he said, “only, I confess, it became somewhat annoying... Reducing my work (...) to something like a committee proclamation is still not suitable. In my piece, I tried to approach several big, very big problems.”

Indeed, the novel “Mother” contains a large and important idea - the idea of ​​motherhood as a life-giving, creative force, although the plot of the work is directly attached to the events of the first Russian revolution, and the prototypes of the central characters are the Sormovo worker - revolutionary P. Zalomov and his mother.

The nature and results of the revolution struck Gorky with its cruelty on both sides. As a humanist writer, he could not help but see the certain rigidity of the Marxist doctrine, in which man was considered only as an object of social, class relations. Gorky, in his own way, tried to combine socialism with Christianity. This idea was used by the writer as the basis for the story “Confession” (1908), where his God-seeking sentiments were clearly manifested. The origins of these sentiments are already contained in the novel “Mother”, in which the writer seeks to overcome the confrontation between atheism and. Christianity, to give their synthesis, our own version of Christian socialism.

The scene at the beginning of the novel is symbolic: Pavel Vlasov brings home and hangs on the wall a painting depicting Christ going to Emmaus. The parallels here are obvious: the gospel story about Christ, who joins two travelers going to Jerusalem, was needed by the author to emphasize the resurrection of Paul to a new life, his way of the cross for the sake of the happiness of people.

The novel “Mother,” like the play “At the Lower Depths,” is a two-level work. Its first level is social and everyday, revealing the process of growth of the revolutionary consciousness of the young worker Pavel Vlasov and his friends. The second is a parable, which is a modification of the gospel story about the Mother of God blessing her Son on the cross for the sake of saving people. This is clearly demonstrated by the ending of the first part of the novel, when Nilovna, addressing the people during the May Day demonstration, speaks of the way of the cross for children in the name of holy truth: “Children are walking in the world, our blood, they are following the truth... for everyone! And for all of you, for your babies, they condemned themselves to the way of the cross... Our Lord Jesus Christ would not have existed if people had not died for his glory...” And the crowd “excitedly and deafly” responds to her: “God speaks! God, good people! Listen!" Christ, dooming himself to suffering in the name of people, is associated in Nilovna’s mind with the path of his son.

The mother, who saw the truth of Christ’s son in the case, became for Gorky a measure of moral height, he placed her image at the center of the story, connecting through the mother’s feelings and actions the political definition of “socialism” with moral and ethical concepts: “soul”, “faith”, "Love".

The evolution of the image of Pelageya Nilovna, rising to the symbol of the Mother of God, reveals the author’s thought about the spiritual insight and sacrifice of the people, who give their most precious thing - their children - to achieve a great goal.

In the chapter that opens the 2nd part of the novel, the author describes Nilovna’s dream, in which the impressions of the past day - the May Day demonstration and the arrest of her son - are intertwined with religious symbolism. Against the blue sky, she sees her son singing the revolutionary anthem “Rise, rise, working people.” And, merging with this hymn, the chant “Christ is risen from the dead” solemnly sounds. And in a dream, Nilovna sees herself in the guise of a Mother with babies in her arms and in her womb - a symbol of motherhood. After waking up and talking with Nikolai Ivanovich, Nilovna “wanted to go somewhere along the roads, past forests and villages, with a knapsack over her shoulders, a stick in her hand.” This impulse combined a real desire to fulfill the instructions of Paul’s friends related to revolutionary propaganda in the village, and. at the same time the desire to repeat the difficult path of the Mother of God’s walk in the footsteps of the Son.

So the real social and everyday plan of the story is translated by the author into a religious-symbolic, evangelical one. The ending of the work is also noteworthy in this regard, when the mother, captured by the gendarmes, transforms her son’s revolutionary confidence (“We, the workers, will win”) into a gospel prophecy about the inevitable triumph of Christ’s truth: “They will not kill the resurrected soul.”

The humanistic nature of Gorky’s talent was also reflected in his depiction of three types of revolutionaries who played an active role in the political life of Russia. The first of them is Pavel Vlasov. The novel shows in detail his evolution, the transformation of a simple working guy into a conscious revolutionary, leader of the masses. Deep devotion to the common cause, courage and unbending will become distinctive features of Paul’s character and behavior. At the same time, Pavel Vlasov is stern and ascetic. He is convinced that “only reason will free man.”

His behavior lacks the harmony of thoughts and feelings, reason and emotions necessary for a true leader of the masses. Wise with extensive life experience, Rybin explains to Pavel his failure in the matter of the “swamp penny” in the following way: “You speak well, but - not to the heart - lo! You need to throw a spark into your heart, into the very depths.”

It is no coincidence that Pavel’s friend Andrei Nakhodka calls him “the iron man.” In many cases, Pavel Vlasov’s asceticism prevents his spiritual beauty and even thoughts from revealing themselves; it is no coincidence that the mother feels her son is “closed.” Let us remember how harshly he cuts off Nilovna on the eve of the demonstration, whose maternal heart feels the misfortune looming over her son: “When will there be mothers who will send their children to death with joy?” Paul's selfishness and arrogance are even more clearly visible in his sharp attack against maternal love. “There is love that prevents a person from living...” His relationship with Sasha is also very ambiguous. Pavel loves a girl and is loved by her. His plans do not include marrying her, since family happiness, in his opinion, will interfere with his participation in the revolutionary struggle.

In the image of Pavel Vlasov, Gorky embodied the character and behavior of a fairly large category of revolutionaries. These are strong-willed, purposeful people, completely devoted to their idea. But they lack a broad outlook on life, a combination of unbending integrity with attention to people, harmony of thoughts and feelings.

Andrey Nakhodka is more flexible and richer in this regard. Natasha, kind and sweet Yegor Ivanovich. It is with them, and not with Pavel, that Nilovna feels more confident, opens her soul safely, knowing that these sensitive people will not offend her heartfelt impulses with a rude, careless word or deed. The third type of revolutionary is Nikolai Vesovshchikov. This is a revolutionary maximalist. “Having barely gone through the basics of the revolutionary struggle, he demands weapons in order to immediately settle accounts with the “class enemies.” The answer given to Vesovshchikov by Andrei Nakhodka is typical: “First, you see, you need to arm your head, and then your hands...” Nakhodka is right: emotions that are not based on a solid foundation of knowledge are no less dangerous than dryly rationalistic decisions that do not take into account the accumulated debts of experience and centuries-tested moral commandments.

The image of Nikolai Vesovshchikov contains a great author’s generalization and warning. The same Nakhodka tells Pavel about Vesovshchikov: “When people like Nikolai feel their resentment and break out of patience, what will it happen? The sky will be splattered with blood. And the earth in it will foam like soap...” Life confirmed this forecast. When such people seized power in October 1917, they flooded the earth and sky with Russian blood. The prophetic warnings of the “Gospel of Maxim,” as critic G. Mitin called the novel “Mother,” were, alas, not heeded.

Since the beginning of the 1910s, Gorky’s work has been developing, as before, in two main directions: exposing petty-bourgeois philosophy and psychology as an inert, spiritually wretched force and affirming the inexhaustibility of the spiritual and creative powers of the people.

A broad, generalizing canvas of the life of district Russia was painted by Gorky in his stories"Okurov Town" (1909) and “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin” (1911), where there are “humiliated and insulted”, victims of petty-bourgeois savagery (Sima Devushkin), where various kinds of militant hooligans and anarchists feel at ease (Va-vila Burmistrov), and also there are their philosophers and lovers of truth, intelligent observers of life (Tiunov, Kozhemyakin), convinced that “our body is broken, but our soul is strong. Spiritually, we are all still teenagers, and we have a lot of life ahead of us. Rus' will rise, just believe in it.”

7. Cycle of stories “Across Rus'”.

The writer expressed this faith in Russia, in the Russian people, in a series of stories"Across Rus'" (1912-1917). The author, according to him, turned here to depicting the past in order to illuminate the paths to the future. The cycle is built in the travel genre. Together with the narrator - the “passer”, we seem to be traveling around the country. We see central Russia, the freedom of the southern steppes, Cossack villages, we are present at the spring awakening of nature, we sail along leisurely rivers, we admire the nature of the northern Caucasus, we breathe in the salty wind of the Caspian Sea. And everywhere we meet a mass of diverse people. Based on extensive life material

Gorky shows how the gifted nature of the Russian person makes its way through the centuries-old layers of lack of culture, inertia and poverty of existence.

The cycle opens with the story “The Birth of a Man,” which tells about the birth of a child along the way to a random companion of the author-narrator. Its action takes place against the backdrop of beautiful Caucasian nature. Thanks to this, the described event acquires a sublimely symbolic meaning under the writer’s pen: a new person was born, who, perhaps, is destined to live in a happier time. Hence, the words of the “passing one”, full of optimism, illuminating the appearance of a new person on earth: “Make some noise, Orlovsky, establish yourself, brother, stronger...” The very image of the child’s mother, a young Oryol peasant woman, rises to the heights of a symbol of motherhood. The story sets the major tone for the entire cycle. “It is an excellent position to be a human being on earth,” these words of the narrator resound with Gorky’s optimistic faith in the triumph of the bright beginnings of life.

Many features of the Russian national character are embodied by the writer in the image of the headman of the carpentry artel Osip from the story “The Ice Breaker”. Sedate, somewhat melancholy, even lazy Osip, in moments of danger, fills with energy, burns with youthful enthusiasm, becomes a true leader of the workers who risked crossing the ice floes to the other side of the Volga during the onset of the flood. In the image of Osip, Gorky affirms the active, strong-willed principle of the Russian national character, expresses confidence in the creative forces of the people, which have not yet truly come into motion.

The picture of folk life and especially folk types depicted by Gorky appears complex, sometimes contradictory, and motley. In the complexity and diversity of the national character, the writer saw the originality of the Russian people, determined by their history. In 1912, in a letter to the writer O. Runova, he noted: “The natural state of man is diversity. Russians are especially colorful, which is why they differ significantly from other nations.” Showing the inconsistency of popular consciousness, resolutely opposing passivity, Gorky created an impressive gallery of types and characters.

Here is the story "Woman". For his heroine Tatyana, the search for personal happiness is combined with the search for happiness for all people, with the desire to see them kinder and better. “Look, you go to a person with kindness, you are ready to give him your freedom, your strength, but he doesn’t understand this, and how can you blame him? Who showed him good?” - she thinks.

People abused the young prostitute Tanya from the story “Light Gray and Blue” and “consoled”, as if with alms, simple wisdom: “Will you punish everyone who is guilty?” But they did not kill her kindness and bright outlook on the world.

The telegraph operator Yudin, who was prone to pessimism (the story “The Book”), had somewhere in the depths of his soul a longing for a better life and “tender compassion for people.” Even in a lost person, such as the drunken milkweed Mashka, the instinct of maternal love awakens a feeling of kindness and self-sacrifice (“Passion-face”).

The story “The Light Man” is very important, if not fundamental, for the entire book - about a 19-year-old typesetter Sashka, passionately in love with life. “Eh, brother Maksimych,” he admits to the narrator, “my heart is growing and growing endlessly, as if all of me is just one heart.” This young man is drawn to books, to knowledge, and tries to write poetry.

All the stories in the cycle are united by the image of the author-narrator, who is not just an observer of events, but a participant in them. He deeply believes in the renewal of life, in the spiritual potential and creative powers of the Russian person.

The positive, life-affirming principle in Gorky’s work of this period was embodied in “Tales of Italy” - twenty-seven romanticized artistic essays about Italian life, which are preceded by an epigraph from Andersen: “There are no fairy tales better than those that life itself creates,” testifying to reality, and not at all about the fabulousness of what is being described. They poetize the “little man” - a man of a broad soul and an active creative deed, whose work transforms reality. The author’s view of such a “little great man” is expressed through the lips of one of the builders of the Simplon Tunnel: “Oh, sir, a little man, when he wants to work, is an invincible force. And believe me: in the end this little man will do whatever he wants.”

In the last pre-revolutionary years, Gorky worked hard on autobiographical stories"Childhood" (1913-1914) and "In People" (1916). In 1923, he completed these memoirs with the book My Universities.

Starting from the rich traditions of Russian autobiographical prose, Gorky supplemented this genre with a depiction of the simplicity of a man from the people, showing the process of his spiritual formation. There are many dark scenes and paintings in the works. But the writer is not limited to depicting only the “leaden abominations of life.” He shows how, through “a layer of all sorts of bestial rubbish... the bright, healthy and creative... victoriously grows, arousing an indestructible hope for our rebirth to a bright, human life.”

This conviction, meetings with numerous people strengthen the strength and shape the character of Alyosha Peshkov, his active attitude to the surrounding reality. At the end of the story “In People,” a meaningful image of a “half-asleep land” appears, which Alyosha passionately wants to wake up, to give “a kick to it and to himself,” so that everything “spun in a joyful whirlwind, a festive dance of people in love with each other, in this life, started for the sake of a different life - beautiful, cheerful, honest ... "

8. Gorky’s attitude to the revolution.

Gorky's attitude to the events of the February and especially the October revolutions was complex. Unconditionally condemning the old system, Gorky associated with the revolution hopes for genuine social and spiritual emancipation of the individual, for the construction of a new culture. However, all this turned out to be an illusion, which forced him to come out with a series of protesting and warning articles, which he called “Untimely Thoughts.” They were published by Gorky from April 1917 to June 1918 in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, which he published. They reflected both Gorky’s love for Russia and his pain for it. And the writer himself appears here as a tragic figure.

These sentiments especially intensified in Gorky after the victory of the October Revolution, for, as L. Spiridonova, the author of a detailed and deep monograph on Gorky, based on the richest archival documents, rightly writes, the writer was “for democracy, but against extreme forms of manifestation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, for socialism as an idea, but against violent measures for its implementation associated with violation of human rights and freedom of conscience.”

The rampant red terror and the indifference of the revolutionary authorities to the fate of people caused Gorky to desperately protest against murders, arrests, lynchings, pogroms and robberies, against the very idea that hundreds of thousands of people could be destroyed in order for justice to prevail. “The great happiness of freedom should not be overshadowed by crimes against the individual, otherwise we will kill freedom with our own hands,” the writer warned.

He wrote with indignation that “class hatred overwhelmed the mind, and the conscience died.” Gorky watched with alarm as people, far from the true ideals of freedom, happiness and justice, crawled to the surface of Russian life and gained power, clinging to the revolution. The writer defends the people from this kind of “unscrupulous adventurers” - the inter-Bolsheviks, who, in his conviction, look at Russia as an experimental field, as “material for social experiments.” One of them, G. Zinoviev, was portrayed by Gorky in the play “The Hard Worker of Slovotekov.”

Gorky was the first to ring the bells, seeing that the plunder of national cultural treasures had begun and their sale abroad. He opposed the call to “Rob the loot,” because this led to the impoverishment of the country’s economic and cultural treasures. Gorky protested especially vehemently against the disdainful attitude towards figures of science and culture, towards the Russian intelligentsia, the “brain of the nation”, seeing in all this a threat to culture and civilization.

The consequences of this position were not long in coming. By order of Zinoviev, a search was carried out at the writer’s apartment, articles began to appear in the newspapers “Pravda” and “Petrogradskaya Pravda” accusing Gorky of having “sold out to the imperialists, landowners and bankers” in the newspaper he published.

In response to this, Gorky wrote on June 3, 1918 in Novaya Zhizn: “Nothing else could have been expected from a government that is afraid of light and publicity, cowardly and anti-democratic, trampling on elementary civil rights, persecuting workers, sending punitive expeditions to the peasants.” . A month after this publication, the newspaper “New Life” was closed.

9. Gorky in exile.

At the urgent suggestion of Lenin, Gorky left his homeland in October 1921. For the first three years of forced emigration he lived in Berlin, then in Sorrento.

Abroad, Gorky, as if making up for lost time, begins to write greedily and feverishly. He creates the story “My Universities”, a series of autobiographical stories, several memoir essays, the novel “The Artamonov Case”, begins work on the epic “The Life of Klim Samgin” - a monumental artistic study of the spiritual life of Russia at the turn of the century, where against the grandiose backdrop of historical events the writer depicts “ the story of an empty soul,” “an intellectual of average value” Klim Samgin, who with his twilight consciousness, the type of split soul, echoes Dostoevsky’s “underground” characters.

10. Return of Gorky to the USSR

In 1928, the writer returned to his homeland. He returned with the firm conviction to take an active part in the construction of a new, as it seemed to him, life that was returning to normal after the revolutionary cataclysms. It was precisely this, and not material considerations, as some modern publicists are trying to assure us, that dictated his return. One of the proofs of this is the memoirs of F. Chaliapin: “Gorky sympathized with me, he himself said: “Here brother, there is no place for you.” When we met this time in 1928 in Rome... he told me sternly: “And now you, Fedor, need to go to Russia...”.

However, despite the obvious sympathy for Gorky of Stalin and his immediate circle, despite the intense literary, organizational and creative activity of the writer, life was not easy for him in the 30s. Ryabushinsky's mansion on M. Nikitskaya, where the writer was settled with a whole staff of staff, rather looked like a prison: a high fence, security. Since 1933, the head of the NKVD G. Yagoda was invisibly present here, introducing his agent P. Kryuchkov to Gorky as his secretary.

All the writer’s correspondence was carefully reviewed, suspicious letters were confiscated, Yagoda watched his every move. “I’m very tired... How many times have I wanted to visit the village, even live like in the old days... I can’t. It’s as if they were surrounded by a fence - you can’t step over it,” he complains to his close friend I. Shkape.

In May 1934, the writer’s son, Maxim, an excellent athlete and promising physicist, suddenly died. There is evidence that Yagoda poisoned him. A few months later, on December 1, the murder of S. M. Kirov, whom Gorky knew well and deeply respected, was committed. The “ninth wave” of repressions that began in the country literally shocked Gorky.

R. Rolland, who visited Moscow in 1935, after meeting Gorky, sensitively noticed that the “secrets of Gorky’s consciousness” were “full of pain and pessimism”12. French journalist Pierre Herbar, who worked in Moscow in 1935-1936 as editor of the magazine “La literature internationale,” writes in his memoirs, published in Paris in 1980, that Gorky “bombarded Stalin with sharp protests” and that “his patience was exhausted.” There is evidence that Gorky wanted to tell the intelligentsia of Western Europe about everything, to draw their attention to the Russian tragedy. He urges his French friends and colleagues L. Aragon and A. Gide to come to Moscow. They came. But the writer was no longer able to meet them: on June 1, 1936, he fell ill with the flu, which then turned into pneumonia.

11. Illness and death of Gorky.

From June 6, the central press begins to publish daily official bulletins on the state of his health.

On June 8, the writer was visited by Stalin, Molotov, and Voroshilov. This visit was tantamount to a final farewell. Two days before his death, the writer felt some relief. There was a deceptive hope that this time his body would cope with the disease. Gorky said to the doctors gathered for the next consultation: “Apparently, I’ll jump out.” This, alas, did not happen. On June 18, 1936 at 11:10 a.m. Gorky died. His last words were: “The end of the novel - the end of the hero - the end of the author.”

According to the official version of those years, Gorky was deliberately killed by his treating doctors L. Levin and D. Pletnev, who were repressed for this. Later, materials were published that refuted the violent death of the writer. Recently, debate has flared up again about whether Gorky was killed or died as a result of illness. And if killed, then by whom and how. A special chapter of Spiridonova’s already mentioned monograph, as well as V. Baranov’s book “Gorky, without makeup,” is devoted to a detailed consideration of this issue.

It is unlikely that we will fully know the secret of Gorky’s death: the history of his illness was destroyed. One thing is certain: Gorky prevented the deployment of mass terror against the creative intelligentsia. With his death this obstacle was removed. R. Rolland wrote in his diary: “Terror in the USSR began not with the murder of Kirov, but with the death of Gorky” and explained: “...The mere presence of his blue eyes served as a rein and protection. Eyes closed."

The tragedy of Gorky in the last years of his life is further evidence that he was neither a court writer nor a thoughtless apologist for socialist realism. M. Gorky's creative path was different - filled with the eternal dream of happiness and beauty of human life and soul. This path is the main one for Russian classical literature.

4 / 5. 1

The place of man in society is one of the main themes in the works of Maxim Gorky. At an early stage of his literary activity, the writer presented this idea using the example of romantic characters. In more mature works, the character of the heroes was revealed through philosophical reasoning. But the basis has always been the conviction that a person is a unique individual, who is still unable to exist separately, outside of society. An essay on Gorky's works is the topic of this article.

Life and art

Maxim Gorky is distinguished from other figures in Soviet and Russian literature by a rather unusual fate, both personal and literary. In addition, his biography contains many mysteries and contradictions.

The future writer was born into a carpenter's family. As a child, living in the house of his mother's father, he was subjected to an extremely harsh and unique upbringing. In his youth he experienced hardships and hard, exhausting work. He was familiar with the life of almost all strata of society. No representative of Soviet literature could boast of the life experience that this writer possessed. Perhaps this is why he gained world-famous fame as a people's intercessor. Who else could represent the interests of the working people if not a writer, who has experience as a simple worker, loader, baker and choir member?

Gorky's last years are shrouded in mystery. There are several versions regarding the cause of death. The most common one is that Gorky was poisoned. In old age, the writer, as eyewitnesses said, became overly sentimental and intractable, which led to a tragic end.

An essay on Gorky’s work should be supplemented with links to important biographical data. Just like you can imagine a writer by analyzing several works belonging to different periods.

"Childhood"

In this he spoke about himself and about his many relatives, among whom he had a hard time living. An essay on Gorky’s work is not an analysis of all his works in chronological order. A small written work is probably not enough even to consider one of them. But the trilogy, the first part of which depicts the early years of the future Soviet classic, is a topic that cannot be ignored.

“Childhood” is a work in which the author’s earliest memories are reflected. A kind of confession is the Man in Gorky’s work - this is, if not a fighter, then a person who is characterized by a heightened sense of self-esteem. Alyosha Peshkov possesses these qualities. However, his surroundings are a rather soulless society: drunken uncles, a tyrant grandfather, quiet and downtrodden cousins. This environment stifles Alyosha, but at the same time, it is in the house of his relatives that his character is formed. Here he learned to love and have compassion for people. Grandmother Akulina Ivanovna and Tsyganok (grandfather’s adopted son) became for him an example of kindness and compassion.

Freedom theme

In his early work, the writer realized his dream of a beautiful and free person. It was no coincidence that Gorky’s life and work served as an example for Soviet people. The motives of freedom and community of people were leading in the culture of the new state. Gorky, with his romantic ideas about selflessness, appeared just in time. “Old Woman Izergil” is a work dedicated to the theme of a free person. The author divided the story into three parts. In them, Maxim Gorky examined the main theme using the example of completely different images.

The Legend of Larra

For all the characters in the story, freedom is the highest value. But Larra despises people. In his concept, freedom is the ability to get what you want at any cost. He does not sacrifice anything, but chooses to sacrifice others. For this hero, people are just tools with which he achieves his goals.

To write an essay on Gorky’s work, it is necessary to draw up a conditional plan for the formation of his ideological positions. At the beginning of his journey, this author firmly believed not only in the idea of ​​a free person, but also in the fact that people can become happy only by participating in some common cause. Such positions are in harmony with the revolutionary sentiments that prevailed in the country.

In the story “Old Woman Izergil,” Gorky shows the reader what the punishment for pride and selfishness can be. Larra suffers from loneliness. And the fact that he became like a shadow was his own fault, or rather his contempt for people.

The Legend of Danko

The characteristic features of this character are love for people and selflessness. This image contains the idea to which Gorky’s early work is subject. Briefly about Danko, we can say that this hero perceives freedom as an opportunity to help people, to sacrifice himself to save them.

Memories Izergil

This heroine condemns Larra and admires Danko’s feat. But in the understanding of freedom, it occupies the golden mean. It bizarrely combines such different qualities as selfishness and self-sacrifice. Izergil knows how to live and be free. But in her confession she says that she lived the life of a cuckoo. And such an assessment instantly refutes the freedom it promotes.

The essay “Man in Gorky’s Work” can include a comparative analysis of these characters. Using their example, the author formulated three levels of freedom. It is worth saying a few words about Gorky’s romantic work is devoted to the condemnation of individualism and the praise of heroic deeds in the name of the happiness and freedom of the people. All the writer’s early works are based on this idea.

The image of man in late creativity

For Gorky, man represented a vast unexplored world. Throughout his entire career, he strove to comprehend this greatest mystery. The writer devoted his later works to the spiritual and social nature of man. The work of Maxim Gorky must be considered taking into account the time in which he lived. He created his works when the old system was destroyed, and the new one was just being formed. Gorky sincerely believed in the new man. In his books he portrayed the ideal that he believed existed. However, it later turned out that such transformations cannot occur without sacrifices. Left behind were people who belonged neither to the “old” nor to the “new”. Gorky dedicated his dramatic works to this social problem.

"At the bottom"

In this play, the author depicted the existence of the so-called former people. The heroes of this social drama are those who, for whatever reason, have lost everything. But, being in miserable conditions, they constantly conduct deep philosophical conversations. The heroes of the play “At the Lower Depths” are the inhabitants of the shelter. They vegetate in material and spiritual poverty. Each of them, for some reason, fell into a place of no return. And only the fantasies of the stranger Luke can temporarily arouse in their souls the hope of salvation. The new inhabitant calms everyone down by telling tall tales. His philosophies are wise and filled with deep mercy. But there is no truth in them. And therefore there is no saving power.

Gorky's life and work were focused on the desire to show that isolation from people (or rather, from the people) cannot bring happiness, but can only lead to spiritual impoverishment.

Born in Nizhny Novgorod. The son of the manager of the shipping office, Maxim Savvatievich Peshkov and Varvara Vasilievna, nee Kashirina. At the age of seven he was left an orphan and lived with his grandfather, a once rich dyer, who by that time had gone bankrupt.

Alexei Peshkov had to earn his living from childhood, which prompted the writer to later take the pseudonym Gorky. In early childhood he worked as an errand worker in a shoe store, then as a draftsman's apprentice. Unable to withstand the humiliation, he ran away from home. He worked as a cook on a Volga steamship. At the age of 15, he came to Kazan with the intention of getting an education, but, without any financial support, he was unable to fulfill his intention.

In Kazan I learned about life in slums and shelters. Driven to despair, he made an unsuccessful suicide attempt. From Kazan he moved to Tsaritsyn and worked as a watchman on the railway. Then he returned to Nizhny Novgorod, where he became a scribe for attorney M.A. Lapin, who did a lot for young Peshkov.

Unable to stay in one place, he went on foot to the south of Russia, where he tried himself in the Caspian fisheries, and in the construction of a pier, and other work.

In 1892, Gorky's story "Makar Chudra" was first published. The following year he returned to Nizhny Novgorod, where he met with the writer V.G. Korolenko, who took a great part in the fate of the aspiring writer.

In 1898 A.M. Gorky was already a famous writer. His books sold thousands of copies, and his fame spread beyond the borders of Russia. Gorky is the author of numerous short stories, novels “Foma Gordeev”, “Mother”, “The Artamonov Case”, etc., plays “Enemies”, “Bourgeois”, “At the Demise”, “Summer Residents”, “Vassa Zheleznova”, the epic novel “ The life of Klim Samgin.

Since 1901, the writer began to openly express sympathy for the revolutionary movement, which caused a negative reaction from the government. Since that time, Gorky has been subjected to arrests and persecution more than once. In 1906 he went abroad to Europe and America.

After the October Revolution of 1917, Gorky became the initiator of the creation and first chairman of the Writers' Union of the USSR. He organized the publishing house “World Literature”, where many writers of that time had the opportunity to work, thereby escaping hunger. He is also credited with saving members of the intelligentsia from arrest and death. Often during these years, Gorky was the last hope of those persecuted by the new government.

In 1921, the writer’s tuberculosis worsened, and he went to Germany and the Czech Republic for treatment. Since 1924 he lived in Italy. In 1928 and 1931, Gorky traveled around Russia, including visiting the Solovetsky special purpose camp. In 1932, Gorky was practically forced to return to Russia.

The last years of the seriously ill writer's life were, on the one hand, full of boundless praise - even during Gorky's lifetime, his hometown of Nizhny Novgorod was named after him - on the other hand, the writer lived in practical isolation under constant control.

Alexey Maksimovich was married many times. First time on Ekaterina Pavlovna Volzhina. From this marriage he had a daughter, Ekaterina, who died in infancy, and a son, Maxim Alekseevich Peshkov, an amateur artist. Gorky's son died unexpectedly in 1934, which gave rise to speculation about his violent death. The death of Gorky himself two years later also aroused similar suspicions.

For the second time he was married in a civil marriage to the actress and revolutionary Maria Fedorovna Andreeva. In fact, the third wife in the last years of the writer’s life was a woman with a stormy biography, Maria Ignatievna Budberg.

He died near Moscow in Gorki, in the same house where V.I. died. Lenin. The ashes are in the Kremlin wall on Red Square. The writer's brain was sent to the Moscow Brain Institute for study.

The name of Maxim Gorky is probably known to everyone. Several generations have studied and are studying his work since childhood. Certain stereotypes have developed about Gorky. He is perceived as the founder of the literature of socialist realism, the “petrel of the revolution,” a literary critic and publicist, the initiator of the creation and first chairman of the Union of Writers of the USSR. We know about his childhood and youth from the autobiographical stories “Childhood”, “In People”, “My Universities”. However, in recent years many publications have appeared that show a slightly different Gorky.

Student's message about Gorky's biography

Childhood

The future writer was born in Nizhny Novgorod. At the age of three he lost his father, and at ten - his mother. He spent his childhood in his grandfather's house, in a bourgeois environment with rude and cruel morals. On Sundays the street was often filled with the joyful cries of boys: “The Kashirins are fighting again!”. The boy's life was brightened by his grandmother, a beautiful portrait of whom Gorky would leave in his autobiographical story “Childhood” (1914). He studied for only two years. Having received a letter of commendation, due to poverty (my grandfather was bankrupt by that time), he was forced to leave his studies and go “to the people” to earn money as a student, journeyman, or servant.

"In people"

As a teenager, the future writer fell in love with books and used every free minute to voraciously read everything he could get his hands on. This chaotic reading, coupled with an extraordinary natural memory, determined much in his view of man and society.

In Kazan, where he went in the summer of 1884, hoping to enter the university, he also had to do odd jobs, and his self-education continued in populist and Marxist circles. “Physically, I was born in Nizhny Novgorod. But spiritually - in Kazan. Kazan is my favorite “university”“, the writer said later.

"My Universities"

Beginning of literary activity

In the late 80s - early 90s, Alyosha Peshkov wanders across the expanses of Russia: the Mozdok steppe, the Volga region, the Don steppes, Ukraine, Crimea, and the Caucasus. He himself is already engaged in agitation among the workers, falls under secret police surveillance, and becomes “unreliable.” During these same years, he began to publish under the pseudonym Maxim Gorky. In 1892, the story “Makar Chudra” appeared in the Tiflis newspaper “Caucasus”, and in 1895 the story “Old Woman Izergil” was published. Gorky was immediately noticed, and enthusiastic responses appeared in the press.

In 1900, Gorky met Leo Tolstoy, and he wrote in his diary "…I liked him. A true man of the people". Both writers and readers were impressed by the fact that a new person had entered literature - not from the “upper,” educated strata, but “from below,” from the people. The attention of Russian society has long been attracted to the people - primarily the peasantry. And then the people, as if in the person of Gorky, entered the living rooms of rich houses, and even holding their own unusual works in their hands. Naturally, he was greeted with enthusiastic interest.

The origins of Gorky's prose

The immediate predecessor of Gorky's prose were the works of Chekhov. But if Chekhov’s heroes complain that they have “strained themselves”, then in Gorky the figures of the “bottom” of society are content with what they have. They have a kind of “tramp” philosophy with a flavor of Nietzscheanism, which was then fashionable.

A tramp is a person without a fixed place of residence, not connected by constant work, family, not owning any property and therefore not interested in maintaining peace and tranquility in society.

It was difficult to ignore the influence of Nietzsche in Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. And in Gorky, already in the 90s, new motives for Russian literature were noted: greed for life, thirst and cult of power, a passionate desire to go beyond the usual, “philistine” framework of existence. Therefore, the writer abandons the usual prose genres and writes fairy tales (“Old Woman Izergil”, 1895), songs (“Song of the Falcon”, 1895), and prose poems (“Man”, 1904).

Beginning in 1889, Gorky was arrested several times for his revolutionary activities among the workers. The more famous he becomes, the more outrage every time he is taken into custody causes. The most famous people in Russia, including Leo Tolstoy, are working for the writer. During one of his arrests (1901), Gorky wrote “The Song of the Petrel” in the Nizhny Novgorod prison, the text of which quickly spread throughout the country. Cry “Let the storm blow harder!” left no options in choosing the path of development of Russia, especially for young people.

That same year he was deported to Arzamas, but given his poor health, he was allowed to live in Crimea for six months. There Gorky often meets with Chekhov and Tolstoy. The writer's popularity in all strata of society in those years was enormous. In February 1903, he was elected honorary academician in the category of fine literature. Nicholas II, having learned about this, wrote to the Minister of Education: “...in these troubled times, the Academy of Sciences allows itself to elect such a person into its midst. I am deeply outraged...".

After this letter, the Imperial Academy of Sciences declared the elections invalid. As a sign of protest, Korolenko and Chekhov refused the title of honorary academicians.

In the 1900s, Gorky, thanks to his enormous literary success, was already a wealthy man and could help the revolutionary movement financially. And he hires capital lawyers for arrested Sormovo and Nizhny Novgorod participants in labor demonstrations, gives large sums for the publication of the Leninist newspaper “Forward” published in Geneva.

As part of the Bolshevik group, Gorky takes part in the workers' march on January 9, 1905. After the authorities shot down a demonstration, he wrote an appeal in which he called “all citizens of Russia to an immediate, persistent and united struggle against the autocracy”. Soon after this, the writer was once again arrested, accused of a state crime and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Gorky was outraged that he was in the fortress for nine days “They didn’t give any news about M.F.’s situation.”(Maria Fedorovna Andreeva, his close friend, was then in the hospital), which was somewhat similar to torture...

A month later he was released on bail, and the conditions of detention in the fortress allowed him to write the play “Children of the Sun” there. In this play, the author complains about the lethargy of the intelligentsia.

Like most people living in Russia at the beginning of the century, Gorky simply could not imagine that as a result of the revolution led by the Bolsheviks, many writers, philosophers, scientists would end up in prisons, but only there they would no longer be allowed to write, they would not have news for years about the fate of their young children, they, innocent ones, will be tortured and killed...

The writer actively participates in the revolution of 1905, joins the Social Democratic Party, and supplies workers' squads with weapons during street battles in Moscow. At the author’s reading of “Children of the Sun”, a certain amount of money is taken from each person present - for weapons for the rebels.

The temperament of a fighter, a fighter, a herald takes Gorky further and further from his own artistic tasks.

Trip to America and Europe

In January 1906, the Bolshevik Party sent Gorky to America to raise money for underground work. This collection was not successful on the intended scale; but in America the novel “Mother” was written - about the awakening of “class consciousness” among the proletarians.

Criticism notes that Gorky could not stand the “major tone” with which he entered literature. Gorky's talent did not increase. Instead of a romantic tramp, he grew up with a clearly invented, gray figure of a “conscious worker.”

After leaving America, Gorky remained abroad: arrest awaited him in his homeland. In the fall of 1906, he settled in Italy, on the island of Capri. The writer was able to return to Russia only in 1913, when, in connection with the tercentenary of the House of Romanov, an amnesty was declared for political emigrants.

Gorky's talent, despite criticism, has not yet exhausted its potential. The writer endlessly studies and describes the Russian national character. Now he is interested not so much in “tramps” as in eccentrics and losers.

“...Rus' abounds with failed people... they are always there, with the mysterious power of a magnet. They caught my attention. They seemed more interesting, better than the dense mass of ordinary county people who live for work and for food...”

In the cycle of stories “Complaints” (1912), Gorky depicts “the hopeless, stupid melancholy of Russian life.” The book “Across Rus'” includes essays on what he saw in his past wanderings across the endless country. Gorky seemed to set out to create a register of Russian characters - infinitely diverse, but somehow similar to each other.

"Childhood"

In 1913, the first chapters from the story “Childhood” appeared in print. It is written on documentary material.

“Although “Childhood” depicts so much murder and abomination, it is, in essence, a cheerful book,– wrote Korney Chukovsky. – Gorky whines and complains the least... And “Childhood” is written cheerfully, in cheerful colors.”.

Under Soviet rule, when it will be impossible to write lovingly about a “good” pre-revolutionary childhood, Gorky’s book will become a role model, a clear illustration of how one must be able to see mainly “lead abominations” in the past pre-revolutionary time.

Best stories 1922–1926 (“The Hermit”, “The Tale of Unrequited Love”, “The Tale of the Hero”, “The Tale of the Extraordinary”, “The Killers”), dedicated to his constant theme - Russian characters, are also largely documentary. And above all, the most qualified critics of the mid-20s will appreciate the short “Notes from a Diary. Memoirs" (1923–1924): in them, Gorky writes mainly about real people under their real names (for example, the essay “A.A. Blok”).

"Untimely Thoughts"

Gorky, who had considered himself a socialist for many years, perceived the October and post-October events of 1917 tragically. In this regard, he did not re-register with the RSDLP and formally remained outside the party. The “Petrel of the Revolution” understands that it is proving disastrous for those “conscious workers” on whom he pinned his hopes.

“...The proletariat has not won, there is internecine carnage all over the country, hundreds and thousands of people are killing each other. ...But what amazes and frightens me most of all is that the revolution does not bear within itself signs of a person’s spiritual rebirth, does not make people more honest, more straightforward, does not increase their self-esteem and moral assessment of their work.”

This is what Gorky wrote shortly after the revolution in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, where his harsh journalistic articles were published under the general title “Untimely Thoughts.” For some period they separated the writer from the Bolsheviks.

Six months later, it seems to him, he finds a way out: the proletariat needs to unite “with the fresh forces of the workers’ and peasants’ intelligentsia.”

“Having covered the entire country with a network of cultural and educational societies, having gathered in them all the spiritual forces of the country, we will light bonfires everywhere, which will give the country both light and warmth, help it heal and get back on its feet vigorous, strong and capable of construction and creativity... Only in this way and only in this way will we reach real culture and freedom.”.

A new utopia is being born - universal literacy as the path to freedom. From now on until the end of his life, she will guide the writer’s actions. He believes in uniting the forces of the intelligentsia and reasonable workers. The peasantry is considered a dark, “anti-revolutionary” element. He never saw through the tragedy of the Russian peasantry at the turn of the 20s and 30s.

Gorky's activities in the first post-revolutionary years

In the first post-revolutionary years, Gorky constantly bothered for the unfortunate people who were threatened with execution, which was very similar to lynching.

“Vladimir Ilyich!- he writes to Lenin in the fall of 1919. “...Several dozen of the most prominent Russian scientists have been arrested... Obviously, we have no hope of winning and no courage to die with honor if we resort to such a barbaric and shameful method, which I consider to be the extermination of the country’s scientific forces... I know that you will say the usual words: “ political struggle”, “whoever is not with us is against us”, “neutral people are dangerous” and so on... It became clear to me that the “reds” are the same enemies of the people as the “whites”. Personally, of course, I prefer to be destroyed by the “whites,” but the “reds” are also not my comrades.”

Trying to save the remnants of the intelligentsia from starvation, Gorky organized private publishing houses and a commission to improve the living conditions of scientists, everywhere meeting fierce resistance from Soviet officials. In September 1920, the writer was forced to leave all the institutions he created, which he announced to Lenin: “I can’t do otherwise. I'm tired of the stupidity".

In 1921, Gorky tried to send the dying Blok abroad for treatment, but the Soviet authorities refused to do so. It is not possible to save those arrested in the so-called Tagantsev case, including Nikolai Gumilyov, from execution. The Famine Relief Committee, created on Gorky's initiative, was dispersed a few weeks later.

Treatment abroad

In 1921, the writer left Russia. He was treated in Germany and Czechoslovakia, and in 1924 he settled again in Italy, in Sorrento. But this time not as an emigrant. Years passed, and gradually Gorky’s attitude towards Soviet power changed: it began to seem to him like a people’s, workers’ power. In the USSR in those years, based on Lenin’s assessment, “Mother” was made a school textbook, convincing everyone that this was exemplary literature. Streets, theaters, and airplanes are named after Gorky. The authorities are doing everything to attract the writer to their side. She needs him as a screen.

Return to Moscow, last years of life

In 1928, Gorky returned to Moscow. He is greeted by crowds of new readers. The writer is immersed in literary and social work: he founded and headed new magazines and book series, took part in the lives of writers, helped some to overcome censorship bans (for example, Mikhail Bulgakov), others to go abroad (Evgeniy Zamyatin), and others -on the contrary, it interferes with publishing (for example, Andrei Platonov).

Gorky himself continues the multi-volume work “The Life of Klim Samgin”, which he began in Italy - a chronicle of Russian life in the pre-revolutionary decades. A huge number of characters, a considerable number of true details of the era, and behind all this there is one task - to show the double, cowardly, treacherous face of the former Russian intelligentsia.

He becomes closer to Stalin and People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yagoda, and this increasingly obscures from him the bloody meaning of what is happening in the country. Like many cultural figures, Gorky does not see that the political regime established in the USSR for its own purposes (like Hitler’s in Germany) manipulates culture, distorts the very meaning of enlightenment, subordinating it to inhumane goals. In his articles, Gorky stigmatizes the victims of the trials of the 28–30s. With all his knowledge of life, he does not want to understand that the testimony given by “enemies of the people” can only be obtained under torture.

Since 1933, Gorky has been deprived of the opportunity to travel abroad for the winter and meet with those whom he would like to see. Stalin can no longer allow even episodic, not foreseen by himself, participation of a writer in any literary and social affairs. Gorky actually finds himself under house arrest and in this situation, under unclear circumstances, dies on the eve of a new wave of mass repressions.

Literature

D.N. Murin, E.D. Kononova, E.V. Minenko. Russian literature of the twentieth century. 11th grade program. Thematic lesson planning. St. Petersburg: SMIO Press, 2001

E.S. Rogover. Russian literature of the 20th century / St. Petersburg: Parity, 2002

N.V. Egorova. Lesson developments on Russian literature of the twentieth century. Grade 11. I half of the year. M.: VAKO, 2005