When the bitter one was born. Seven myths about bitter

Name: Maxim Gorkiy

Age: 68 years old

Place of Birth: Nizhny Novgorod

A place of death: Gorki-10, Moscow region

Activity: writer, playwright

Family status: was divorced

Maxim Gorky - biography

The famous Russian writer Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov is known to everyone under his literary pseudonym “Maxim Gorky”. He was awarded Nobel Prize in literature 5 times.

Childhood, family

Gorky's biography originates from Nizhny Novgorod from grandfather Kashirin, who was a very cruel officer, for which he was demoted. He was sent into exile, and then acquired his own dyeing workshop. Little Alyosha was born in Nizhny Novgorod, where Kashirin’s daughter went. A boy somewhere caught cholera at the age of 4, his father, while caring for him, became infected and died, but little Alyosha managed to recover.

Studies

Maxim began his studies at a parish school, but illness prevented him from receiving elementary education. Later, Gorky studied at the settlement school for two years. Gorky lacked education; there were errors in his manuscripts. Maxim's mother remarried and left with her son to join her husband. The relationship didn't work out new husband He often beat his wife, and Alyosha saw this. Having severely beaten his stepfather, he ran away to his grandfather. The teenager had a difficult life, he often stole firewood and food, collected abandoned clothes, and he always smelled bad. He had to quit school, which is where Gorky’s education ended.

Maxim's youth

The writer's biography is full of sad moments. Alyosha was soon left without his mother, who died of consumption, his grandfather went bankrupt, and the orphan had to go earn a living. Since the age of 11, Alyosha has been working as a laborer in a shop, washing dishes on a ship, and working as an apprentice in an icon painting workshop. At the age of 16, the young man was unable to enter the University of Kazan due to lack of a certificate and money.

Books and meetings with writers

Alexey begins to be monitored for his connections with revolutionaries, and he is subjected to short-term arrest. He works as a farm laborer, guards the station and works as a fisherman. At one of the stations he fell in love, but he was refused, then he takes a trip to Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich in Yasnaya Polyana. But the meeting did not take place. Gorky decides to show one of his manuscripts to Korolenko, who harshly criticized the creation of the aspiring writer.

Writer's talent

Even the emperor recognized the courage and directness of Gorky’s statements. He did not even notice the negative attitude of writers towards the autocratic system of Russia. Alexey Maksimovich does not pay attention to police prohibitions and continues to distribute revolutionary literature. Leo Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky became great friends. In an apartment in the center of Nizhny Novgorod there was always a lot of famous people, contemporaries of the owner of the house. Writers, directors, artists and musicians held conversations and talked about their works.

Maxim Gorky - biography of personal life

Gorky's chronic illness did not prevent him from being full of energy and energy. The writer’s first marriage was an unofficial relationship with Olga Kamenskaya, an ordinary woman midwife. Their union did not last long. For the second time, the writer decided to marry his second chosen one.

Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov was born in 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod. After the death of his father, Maxim Savvateevich Peshkov, a cabinetmaker, his mother, Varvara Vasilievna, with three-year-old Alyosha, returned to the house of her father Vasily Vasilyevich Kashirin, the owner of a dyeing workshop. Since 1876, Alexey Peshkov studied first at the Ilyinsky School, then at the Nizhny Novgorod Sloboda Kunavinsky Primary School, but “due to poverty, he did not complete the course there.”

When his mother died, Alyosha was 11 years old. Left an orphan, he lived in his grandfather’s house in an atmosphere of “mutual enmity of everyone with everyone; she poisoned adults, and even children took an active part in it” (“Childhood”), Alyosha was loved only by his grandmother Akulina Ivanovna, who replaced his mother. She managed to develop in him an interest in folk songs and fairy tales.

A ruined grandfather gave his grandson a service in a shoe store. Then Alexey worked as a servant, a “boy” in an icon shop, a student in an icon-painting workshop, a foreman at a construction site, and an extra in a theater at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. He worked constantly and read a lot at the same time. Alexey read especially a lot while working on the Dobry steamship - books were given to him by the cook Potap Andreev. Later, Gorky would write: “More and more expanding the boundaries of the world before me, the books told me how great and beautiful a person is in striving for the best, how much he has done on earth and what incredible suffering it has cost him.”

In 1884, Alexey Peshkov left for Kazan, dreaming of entering Kazan University. But the dream was not destined to come true - instead of studying I had to work. The future writer lived with a friend’s family, sometimes among tramps in a rooming house, worked as a laborer and loader on the pier, then got a job as a baker’s assistant in A. S. Derenkov’s bakery, which in gendarmerie documents was called “a place of suspicious gatherings of student youth.” During this period, Alexey Maksimovich was especially actively engaged in self-education, became acquainted with Marxist teaching, studied the works of G.V. Plekhanov. In 1888, he wandered around Russia in search of work. A year later, returning to Nizhny Novgorod, he met V.G. Korolenko. He brought famous writer his first composition - “Song of the Old Oak” - and received support. At the same time, Alexey Maksimovich met Olga Yulievna Kamenskaya, who soon became his wife.

In 1891-1892 he made a new journey through Rus'. The experience of wanderings was reflected in his early romantic works and the later cycle of stories “Across Rus'”.

In the cycle “Across Rus'” there are many lyrical “digressions”. They express author's attitude to the world, pictorial and subjective-evaluative plans are combined, the socio-historical and generalized philosophical image of life predominates. “Passing” - this is what Gorky called the autobiographical hero “Across Rus'”. The writer borrowed this word from V.G. Korolenko (“...passing - your word from the story “The River Plays...”,” he wrote to Korolenko). “I deliberately say “passing,” and not “passerby,” it seems to me that a passer-by leaves no traces of himself, while a passer-by is, to some extent, an active person and not only receiving impressions of existence, but also consciously creating something specific.”

Gorky tried to truthfully capture life in its most difficult manifestations (“On the Salt”, “Conclusion”, “Twenty Six and One”, “The Orlov Spouses”, etc.), but he also noticed the brightness that is in it.

In 1892, the Tiflis newspaper “Caucasus” published the writer’s first story, “Makar Chudra,” signed with the pseudonym M. Gorky.

Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov (better known under the literary pseudonym Maxim Gorky, March 16 (28), 1868 - June 18, 1936) - Russian and Soviet writer, public figure, founder of the style of socialist realism.

Childhood and youth of Maxim Gorky

Gorky was born in Nizhny Novgorod. His father, Maxim Peshkov, died in 1871, in last years During his life he worked as a manager of the Astrakhan shipping office of Kolchin. When Alexei was 11 years old, his mother also died. The boy was then brought up in the house of his maternal grandfather, Kashirin, a bankrupt owner of a dyeing workshop. The stingy grandfather early forced young Alyosha to “go among the people,” that is, to earn money on his own. He had to work as a store delivery boy, a baker, and wash dishes in a cafeteria. These early years Gorky later described his life in “Childhood,” the first part of his autobiographical trilogy. In 1884, Alexey unsuccessfully tried to enter Kazan University.

Gorky's grandmother, unlike his grandfather, was a kind and religious woman and an excellent storyteller. Alexey Maksimovich himself associated his suicide attempt in December 1887 with difficult feelings about his grandmother’s death. Gorky shot himself, but remained alive: the bullet missed his heart. She, however, seriously damaged her lung, and the writer suffered from respiratory weakness all his life.

In 1888, Gorky was briefly arrested for his connection with the Marxist circle of N. Fedoseev. In the spring of 1891 he set off to wander around Russia and reached the Caucasus. Expanding his knowledge through self-education, getting temporary work as either a loader or a night watchman, Gorky accumulated impressions, which he later used to write his first stories. He called this period of his life “My Universities.”

In 1892, 24-year-old Gorky returned to his native place and began to collaborate as a journalist in several provincial publications. Alexey Maksimovich initially wrote under the pseudonym Yehudiel Chlamys (which, translated from Hebrew and Greek, gives some associations with “cloak and dagger”), but soon came up with another one - Maxim Gorky, hinting at “bitter” Russian life, and the desire to write only the “bitter truth.” He first used the name “Gorky” in correspondence for the Tiflis newspaper “Caucasus”.

Maksim Gorky. Video

Gorky's literary debut and his first steps in politics

In 1892, Maxim Gorky’s first story “Makar Chudra” appeared. It was followed by “Chelkash”, “Old Woman Izergil” (see summary and full text), “Song of the Falcon” (1895), “ Former people"(1897), etc. All of them were not so different artistic merit, much with exaggerated pompous pathos, however, they successfully coincided with new Russian political trends. Until the mid-1890s, the left-wing Russian intelligentsia worshiped the Narodniks, who idealized the peasantry. But from the second half of this decade, Marxism began to gain increasing popularity in radical circles. Marxists proclaimed that the dawn of a bright future would be ignited by the proletariat and the poor. Lumpen tramps were the main characters of Maxim Gorky's stories. Society began to vigorously applaud them as a new fictional fashion.

In 1898, Gorky's first collection, Essays and Stories, was published. He was a resounding (albeit completely inexplicable in terms of literary talent) success. Public and creative career Gorky took off sharply. He depicted the life of beggars from the very bottom of society (“tramps”), depicting their difficulties and humiliations with strong exaggeration, intensely introducing feigned pathos of “humanity” into his stories. Maxim Gorky gained a reputation as the only literary exponent of the interests of the working class, a defender of the idea of ​​a radical social, political and cultural transformation of Russia. His work was praised by intellectuals and “conscious” workers. Gorky struck up close acquaintances with Chekhov and Tolstoy, although their attitude towards him was not always clear.

Gorky acted as a staunch supporter of Marxist social democracy, openly hostile to “tsarism.” In 1901, he wrote “Song of the Petrel,” an open call for revolution. For drawing up a proclamation calling for “the fight against autocracy,” he was arrested and expelled from Nizhny Novgorod that same year. Maxim Gorky became a close friend of many revolutionaries, including Lenin, whom he first met in 1902. He became even more famous when he exposed as the author of the “Protocols” Elders of Zion» secret police officer Matvey Golovinsky. Golovinsky then had to leave Russia. When Gorky's election (1902) to the category of members of the Imperial Academy belles lettres was canceled by the government, academicians A.P. Chekhov and V.G. Korolenko also resigned as a sign of solidarity.

Maksim Gorky

In 1900-1905 Gorky's work became more and more optimistic. Of his works from this period of his life, several plays that are closely related to social issues stand out. The most famous of them is “At the Bottom” (see its full text and summary). Staged not without censorship difficulties in Moscow (1902), it had big success, and was then given throughout Europe and the United States. Maxim Gorky became increasingly close to the political opposition. During the revolution of 1905, he was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg for his play “Children of the Sun,” which was formally dedicated to the cholera epidemic of 1862, but clearly hinted at current events. Gorky's "official" companion in 1904-1921 was former actress Maria Andreeva – long-standing Bolshevik, which came after October revolution theater director.

Getting rich thanks to his creative writing, Maxim Gorky provided financial support to the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party ( RSDLP), while supporting liberal calls for civic and social reform. The death of many people during the demonstration on January 9, 1905 (“Bloody Sunday”) apparently gave impetus to Gorky’s even greater radicalization. Without openly aligning himself with the Bolsheviks and Lenin, he agreed with them on most issues. During the December armed rebellion in Moscow in 1905, the headquarters of the rebels was located in the apartment of Maxim Gorky, not far from Moscow University. At the end of the uprising, the writer left for St. Petersburg. A meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, chaired by Lenin, took place at his apartment in this city, which decided to stop the armed struggle for now. A.I. Solzhenitsyn writes (“March of the Seventeenth,” ch. 171) that Gorky “in 1905, in his Moscow apartment during the days of the uprising, kept thirteen Georgian vigilantes, and he made bombs.”

Fearing arrest, Alexey Maksimovich fled to Finland, from where he left for Western Europe. From Europe he traveled to the United States to raise funds in support of the Bolshevik Party. It was during this trip that Gorky began to write his famous novel"Mother", which was first released on English language in London, and then in Russian (1907). The theme of this very tendentious work is the joining of the revolution by a simple working woman after the arrest of her son. In America, Gorky was initially welcomed with open arms. He met Theodore Roosevelt And Mark Twain. However, then the American press began to be outraged by the high-profile political actions of Maxim Gorky: he sent a telegram of support to the union leaders Haywood and Moyer, who was accused of murdering the governor of Idaho. The newspapers also did not like the fact that the writer was accompanied on the trip not by his wife Ekaterina Peshkova, but by his mistress, Maria Andreeva. Strongly wounded by all this, Gorky began to condemn the “bourgeois spirit” in his work even more vehemently.

Gorky in Capri

Having returned from America, Maxim Gorky decided not to return to Russia yet, because he could be arrested there for his connection with the Moscow uprising. From 1906 to 1913 he lived on the Italian island of Capri. From there, Alexey Maksimovich continued to support the Russian left, especially the Bolsheviks; he wrote novels and essays. Together with Bolshevik emigrants Alexander Bogdanov and A. V. Lunacharsky Gorky created an intricate philosophical system entitled " god-building" It claimed to develop from revolutionary myths a “socialist spirituality”, with the help of which the enriched strong passions and new moral values humanity will be able to get rid of evil, suffering and even death. Although these philosophical quests were rejected by Lenin, Maxim Gorky continued to believe that “culture,” that is, moral and spiritual values, was more important to the success of the revolution than political and economic events. This theme lies at the heart of his novel Confession (1908).

Return of Gorky to Russia (1913-1921)

Taking advantage of the amnesty given for the 300th anniversary Romanov dynasty, Gorky returned to Russia in 1913 and continued his active social and literary activity. During this period of his life, he guided young writers from the people and wrote the first two parts of his autobiographical trilogy - “Childhood” (1914) and “In People” (1915-1916).

In 1915 Gorky, together with a number of other prominent Russian writers participated in the publication of the journalistic collection “Shield”, the purpose of which was to protect Jewry allegedly oppressed in Russia. Speaking at the Progressive Circle at the end of 1916, Gorky, “dedicated his two-hour speech to all sorts of spitting on the entire Russian people and exorbitant praise of Jewry,” says progressive Duma member Mansyrev, one of the founders of the Circle.” (See A. Solzhenitsyn. Two hundred years together. Chapter 11.)

During First World War his St. Petersburg apartment again served as a meeting place for the Bolsheviks, but in the revolutionary year of 1917 his relations with them worsened. Two weeks after the October Revolution of 1917, Maxim Gorky wrote:

However, as the Bolshevik regime strengthened, Maxim Gorky became more and more depressed and increasingly refrained from criticism. On August 31, 1918, having learned about the assassination attempt on Lenin, Gorky and Maria Andreeva sent a joint telegram to him: “We are terribly upset, we are worried. We sincerely wish you a speedy recovery, be of good spirits.” Alexey Maksimovich achieved a personal meeting with Lenin, which he described as follows: “I realized that I was mistaken, went to Ilyich and openly admitted my mistake.” Together with a number of other writers who joined the Bolsheviks, Gorky created the World Literature publishing house under the People's Commissariat of Education. It planned to publish the best classical works, however, in an environment of terrible devastation, almost nothing could be done. Gorky, however, started love affair with one of the employees of the new publishing house - Maria Benkendorf. It continued for many years.

Gorky's second stay in Italy (1921-1932)

In August 1921, Gorky, despite a personal appeal to Lenin, could not save his friend, the poet Nikolai Gumilyov, from execution by the security officers. In October of the same year, the writer left Bolshevik Russia and lived in German resorts, completing there the third part of his autobiography, “My Universities” (1923). He then returned to Italy "for treatment of tuberculosis." While living in Sorrento (1924), Gorky maintained contacts with his homeland. After 1928, Alexey Maksimovich came to the Soviet Union several times until he accepted Stalin’s offer to finally return to his homeland (October 1932). According to some literary scholars, the reason for the return was political beliefs writer, his long-standing sympathies for the Bolsheviks, however, there is a more reasonable opinion that main role Gorky’s desire to get rid of debts incurred while living abroad played a role here.

The last years of Gorky's life (1932-1936)

Even while visiting the USSR in 1929, Maxim Gorky made a trip to the Solovetsky special purpose camp and wrote a laudatory article about Soviet punitive system, although I received detailed information from camp inmates on Solovki about the terrible cruelties that were happening there. This case is in “The Gulag Archipelago” by A. I. Solzhenitsyn. In the West, Gorky's article about the Solovetsky camp aroused stormy criticism, and he began to bashfully explain that he was under pressure from Soviet censors. The writer's departure from fascist Italy and return to the USSR were widely used by communist propaganda. Shortly before his arrival in Moscow, Gorky published (March 1932) in Soviet newspapers an article “Who are you with, masters of culture?” Designed in the style of Lenin-Stalin propaganda, it called on writers, artists and performers to put their creativity at the service of the communist movement.

Upon returning to the USSR, Alexei Maksimovich received the Order of Lenin (1933) and was elected head of the Union of Soviet Writers (1934). The government provided him with a luxurious mansion in Moscow, which belonged to millionaire Nikolai Ryabushinsky before the revolution (now the Gorky Museum), as well as a fashionable dacha in the Moscow region. During demonstrations, Gorky climbed to the podium of the mausoleum along with Stalin. One of the main Moscow streets, Tverskaya, was renamed in honor of the writer, as was his hometown, Nizhny Novgorod (which regained its historical name only in 1991, during the collapse of Soviet Union). The largest aircraft in the world, the ANT-20, which was built by Tupolev's bureau in the mid-1930s, was named "Maxim Gorky". There are numerous photographs of the writer with members of the Soviet government. All these honors came at a price. Gorky put his creativity at the service of Stalinist propaganda. In 1934, he co-edited a book that celebrated the slave labor built White Sea-Baltic Canal and convinced that in the Soviet “correctional” camps a successful “reforging” of the former “enemies of the proletariat” was taking place.

Maxim Gorky on the podium of the mausoleum. Nearby are Kaganovich, Voroshilov and Stalin

There is, however, information that all this lie cost Gorky considerable mental anguish. The higher-ups knew about the writer’s hesitations. After the murder Kirov in December 1934 and the gradual deployment of the “Great Terror” by Stalin, Gorky actually found himself under house arrest in his luxurious mansion. In May 1934, his 36-year-old son Maxim Peshkov unexpectedly died, and on June 18, 1936, Gorky himself died of pneumonia. Stalin, who carried the writer’s coffin with Molotov during his funeral, said that Gorky was poisoned by “enemies of the people.” Charges of poisoning were brought against prominent participants in the Moscow trials of 1936-1938. and were considered proven there. Former head OGPU And NKVD, Genrikh Yagoda, admitted that he organized the murder of Maxim Gorky on the orders of Trotsky.

Joseph Stalin and Writers. Maksim Gorky

Gorky's cremated ashes were buried near the Kremlin wall. The writer’s brain had previously been removed from his body and sent “for study” to a Moscow research institute.

Evaluation of Gorky's work

IN Soviet times, before and after the death of Maxim Gorky, government propaganda diligently obscured his ideological and creative wanderings, ambiguous relations with the leaders of Bolshevism in different periods life. The Kremlin presented him as the largest Russian writer of his time, a native of the people, true friend Communist Party and father " socialist realism" Statues and portraits of Gorky were distributed throughout the country. Russian dissidents saw Gorky's work as the embodiment of a slippery compromise. In the West, they emphasized the constant fluctuations in his views on the Soviet system, recalling Gorky’s repeated criticism of the Bolshevik regime.

Gorky saw literature not so much as a way of artistic and aesthetic self-expression, but rather as a moral political activity with the goal of changing the world. Being the author of novels, short stories, autobiographical essays and plays, Alexey Maksimovich also wrote many treatises and reflections: articles, essays, memoirs about politicians (for example, Lenin), about people of art (Tolstoy, Chekhov, etc.).

Gorky himself argued that the center of his work was a deep belief in the value of the human person, the glorification of human dignity and inflexibility in the midst of life's hardships. The writer saw in himself a “restless soul” that strives to find a way out of the contradictions of hope and skepticism, love of life and disgust at the petty vulgarity of others. However, both the style of Maxim Gorky’s books and the details of his public biography they convince: these claims were mostly feigned.

Gorky's life and work reflected the tragedy and confusion of his extremely ambiguous time, when the promises of a complete revolutionary transformation of the world only masked the selfish thirst for power and bestial cruelty. It has long been recognized that from a purely literary point of view, most of Gorky’s works are rather weak. Best quality His autobiographical stories are different, where realistic and scenic painting Russian life late XIX century.

Real name and surname - Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov.

Russian writer, publicist, public figure. Maxim Gorky was born March 16 (28), 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod in a bourgeois family. He lost his parents early and was raised in his grandfather’s family. He graduated from two classes of a suburban primary school in Kunavin (now Kanavino), a suburb of Nizhny Novgorod, but was unable to continue his education due to poverty (his grandfather’s dyeing establishment went bankrupt). M. Gorky was forced to work from the age of ten. Possessing a unique memory, Gorky spent his whole life intensely engaged in self-education. In 1884 went to Kazan, where he participated in the work of underground populist circles; connection with the revolutionary movement largely determined his life and creative aspirations. In 1888-1889 and 1891-1892. wandered around the south of Russia; impressions from these “walks around Rus'” subsequently became the most important source of plots and images for his work (primarily his early work).

The first publication was the story “Makar Chudra”, published in the Tiflis newspaper “Caucasus” September 12, 1892. In 1893-1896. Gorky actively collaborated with Volga newspapers, where he published many feuilletons and stories. The name of Gorky gained all-Russian and all-European fame soon after the release of his first collection “Essays and Stories” (vol. 1-2, 1898 ), in which the sharpness and brightness in conveying the realities of life was combined with neo-romantic pathos, with a passionate call for the transformation of man and the world (“Old Woman Izergil”, “Konovalov”, “Chelkash”, “Malva”, “On Rafts”, “Song of Sokol”, etc.). A symbol of growing revolutionary movement in Russia became “Song of the Petrel” ( 1901 ).

With the beginning of Gorky's work in 1900 His long-term literary and organizational activity began at the Znanie publishing house. He expanded the publishing program, organized since 1904 the release of the famous collections “Knowledge” rallied around the publishing house the largest writers close to the realistic direction (I. Bunin, L. Andreev, A. Kuprin, etc.), and actually led this direction in its opposition to modernism.

At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. M. Gorky’s first novels “Foma Gordeev” were published (1899) and "Three" ( 1900) . In 1902 His first plays were staged at the Moscow Art Theater - “Philistines” and “At the Lower Depths”. Together with the plays "Summer Residents" ( 1904 ), "Children of the Sun" ( 1905 ), "Barbarians" ( 1906 ) they defined a unique Gorky type of Russian realistic theater of the early 20th century, based on acute social conflict and clearly expressed ideological character. The play “At the Lower Depths” is still preserved in the repertoire of many theaters around the world.

Involved in active political activity at the beginning of the first Russian revolution, Gorky was forced in January 1906 emigrate (returned at the end of 1913). The peak of the writer’s conscious political engagement (social-democratic overtones) occurred in 1906-1907 years when the plays “Enemies” were published ( 1906 ), novel "Mother" ( 1906-1907 ), journalistic collections “My Interviews” and “In America” (both 1906 ).

A new turn in Gorky’s worldview and stylistic manner was revealed in the stories “The Town of Okurov” ( 1909-1910 ) and “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin” ( 1910-1911 ), as well as in autobiographical prose 1910s.: stories “Master” ( 1913 ), "Childhood" ( 1913-1914 ), "In people" ( 1916 ), collection of stories “Across Rus'” ( 1912-1917 ) etc.: Gorky addressed the problem of Russian national character. The same trends were reflected in the so-called. second dramaturgical cycle: plays “Eccentrics” ( 1910 ), “Vassa Zheleznova” (1st ed. – 1910 ), "Old Man" (created in 1915, published in 1918 ) and etc.

During the period of revolutions 1917 Gorky sought to fight the anti-humanistic and anti-cultural tyranny that the Bolsheviks relied on (series of articles “ Untimely thoughts"in the newspaper" New life»). After October 1917 on the one hand, he became involved in the cultural and community service new institutions, and on the other hand, he criticized the Bolshevik terror, tried to save representatives of the creative intelligentsia from arrests and executions (in some cases, successfully). Increasing disagreements with the policies of V. Lenin led Gorky to October 1921 to emigration (formally it was presented as going abroad for treatment), which actually (with interruptions) continued before 1933.

First half of the 1920s marked by Gorky's search for new principles of artistic worldview. The book “Notes from a Diary” was written in an experimental memoir-fragmentary form. Memories" ( 1924 ), at the center of which is the theme of the Russian national character and its contradictory complexity. Collection "Stories of 1922-1924" ( 1925 ) marked by an interest in secrets human soul, a psychologically complicated type of hero, gravitating towards conventionally fantastic vision angles that were unusual for the former Gorky. In the 1920s Gorky's work began on broad artistic canvases, covering the recent past of Russia: “My Universities” ( 1923 ), novel “The Artamonov Case” ( 1925 ), epic novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” (parts 1-3, 1927-1931 ; unfinished 4 hours, 1937 ). Later, this panorama was supplemented by a cycle of plays: “Yegor Bulychov and others” ( 1932 ), "Dostigaev and others" ( 1933 ), “Vassa Zheleznova” (2nd edition, 1936 ).

Finally returning to the USSR in May 1933, Gorky accepted Active participation in cultural construction, led the preparation of the 1st All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, participated in the creation of a number of institutes, publishing houses and magazines. His speeches and organizational efforts played a significant role in establishing the aesthetics of socialist realism. Journalism of these years characterizes Gorky as one of the ideologists of the Soviet system, indirectly and directly advocating the Stalinist regime. At the same time, he repeatedly appealed to Stalin with petitions on behalf of repressed figures of science, literature and art.

The pinnacle of M. Gorky’s creativity includes a series of memoir portraits of his contemporaries (L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov, L.N. Andreev, etc.), created by him in different time.

June 18, 1936 Maxim Gorky died in Moscow and was buried on Red Square (the urn with his ashes was buried in the Kremlin wall).

Message quote On March 28, 1868, Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov-Maxim Gorky was born.

Alexey Peshkov, better known as the writer Maxim Gorky, for Russian and Soviet literature iconic figure. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize five times, was the most published Soviet author throughout the existence of the USSR and was considered on a par with Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy as the main creator of Russian literary art.

Alexey Peshkov - future Maxim Gorky

He was born in the town of Kanavino, which at that time was located in Nizhny Novgorod province, and now is one of the districts of Nizhny Novgorod. His father Maxim Peshkov was a carpenter, and in the last years of his life he managed a shipping company. Mother Varvara Vasilievna died of consumption, so Alyosha Peshkova’s parents were replaced by grandmother Akulina Ivanovna. From the age of 11, the boy was forced to start working: Maxim Gorky was a messenger at a store, a barman on a ship, an assistant to a baker and an icon painter. The biography of Maxim Gorky is reflected in his stories “Childhood”, “In People” and “My Universities”.

After an unsuccessful attempt to become a student at Kazan University and arrest due to connections with a Marxist circle future writer became a watchman at railway. And at the age of 23, the young man set off to wander around the country and managed to reach the Caucasus on foot. It was during this journey that Maxim Gorky briefly wrote down his thoughts, which would later become the basis for future works. Gorky's first stories began to be published around that time.

In 1902, Gorky was elected an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences... But before he could take advantage of his new rights, his election was annulled by the government, since the newly elected academician “was under police surveillance.” In this regard, Chekhov and Korolenko refused membership in the Academy
Gorky published the poem “The Wallachian Legend,” which later became known as “The Legend of Marco.” According to contemporaries, Nikolai Gumilyov highly valued the last stanza of this poem:

And you will live on earth,

How blind worms live:

No fairy tales will be told about you,

They won't sing any songs about you.

Gorky was friends with Lenin. How could a great proletarian writer not be friends with the petrel of the revolution, Lenin? A legend was born about the closeness of two powerful figures. She was visualized numerous sculptures, paintings and even photographs. They show the leader’s conversations with the creator of socialist realism. But after the revolution, the writer’s political position was already ambiguous, he lost his influence. In 1918, Gorky found himself in an ambiguous situation in Petrograd, having begun to write essays critical of the new government, “Untimely Thoughts.” In Russia, this book was published only in 1990. Gorky was at odds with Grigory Zinoviev, the influential chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. Because of this, Gorky went into exile, albeit an honorable one. It was officially believed that Lenin insisted on the classic’s treatment abroad.

There was no place for the writer in post-revolutionary life. With such views and activities, he was threatened with arrest. Gorky himself helped this myth emerge. In his biographical essay “Lenin,” he rather sentimentally described his friendship with the leader. Lenin met Gorky back in 1905, quickly becoming close. However, then the revolutionary began to note the writer’s mistakes and hesitations. Gorky looked at the causes of the First World War differently; he could not wish his country to be defeated in it. Lenin believed that emigration and weakened ties with the Motherland were to blame. PublicationGorky in 1918in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn was openly criticized by Pravda. Lenin began to see Gorky as a temporarily erring comrade.

Alexey Peshkov, who took the pseudonym Gorky

The first published story by Maxim Gorky was the famous “Makar Chudra” (1892). The two-volume “Essays and Stories” brought fame to the writer. Interestingly, the circulation of these volumes was almost three times higher than what was usually accepted in those years. Of the most popular works From that period it is worth noting the stories “Old Woman Izergil”, “Former People”, “Chelkash”, “Twenty Six and One”, as well as the poem “Song of the Falcon”. Another poem, “Song of the Petrel,” has become a textbook. Maxim Gorky devoted a lot of time to children's literature. He wrote a number of fairy tales, for example, “Sparrow”, “Samovar”, “Tales of Italy”, published the first special children's magazine and organized holidays for children from poor families.

Legendary Soviet writer
Very important for understanding the writer’s work are Maxim Gorky’s plays “At the Lower Depths,” “The Bourgeois” and “Yegor Bulychov and Others,” in which he reveals the playwright’s talent and shows how he sees the life around him. Big cultural significance for Russian literature they have the stories “Childhood” and “In People”, social novels“Mother” and “The Artamonov Case”. Last job Gorky’s epic novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” is considered, which has a second title “Forty Years”. He worked on this manuscript for 11 years, but never managed to finish it.

The personal life of Maxim Gorky was quite stormy. He married for the first and officially only time at the age of 28. The young man met his wife Ekaterina Volzhina at the Samara Newspaper publishing house, where the girl worked as a proofreader. A year after the wedding, a son, Maxim, appeared, and soon a daughter, Ekaterina, named after her mother. The writer was also raised by his godson Zinovy ​​Sverdlov, who later took the surname Peshkov.

With his first wife Ekaterina Volzhina

Soon Gorky began to feel burdened family life and their marriage to Ekaterina Volzhina turned into a parental union: they lived together solely because of the children. When little daughter Katya died unexpectedly, it tragic event became the impetus for breaking family ties. However, Maxim Gorky and his wife remained friends until the end of their lives and maintained correspondence.

With his second wife, actress Maria Andreeva

After separating from his wife, Maxim Gorky, with the help of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, met the Moscow Art Theater actress Maria Andreeva, who became his de facto wife for the next 16 years. It was because of her work that the writer left for America and Italy. From her previous relationship, the actress had a daughter, Ekaterina, and a son, Andrei, who were raised by Maxim Peshkov-Gorky. But after the revolution, Andreeva became interested in party work and began to pay less attention to her family, so in 1919 this relationship came to an end.

With third wife Maria Budberg and writer H.G. Wells

Gorky himself put an end to it, declaring that he was leaving for Maria Budberg, a former baroness and part-time his secretary. The writer lived with this woman for 13 years. The marriage, like the previous one, was unregistered. Last wife Maxima Gorky was 24 years younger than him, and all his acquaintances were aware that she was “having affairs” on the side. One of Gorky's wife's lovers was an English science fiction writer H.G. Wells, to whom she left immediately after the death of her actual spouse. There is a huge possibility that Maria Budberg, who had a reputation as an adventurer and clearly collaborated with the NKVD, could be a double agent and also work for British intelligence.

After his final return to his homeland in 1932, Maxim Gorky worked in the publishing houses of newspapers and magazines, created a series of books “History of factories and factories”, “Poet’s Library”, “History civil war", organized and provol First All-Union Congress Soviet writers. After the unexpected death of his son from pneumonia, the writer wilted. During his next visit to Maxim’s grave, he caught a bad cold. Gorky had a fever for three weeks, which led to his death on June 18, 1936.

In the last years of life

Later, the question was raised several times that the legendary writer and his son could have been poisoned. By this case passed by People's Commissar Genrikh Yagoda, who was the lover of Maxim Peshkov's wife. The involvement of Leon Trotsky and even Joseph Stalin was also suspected. During the repressions and the consideration of the famous “Doctors’ Case,” three doctors were blamed, including the death of Maxim Gorky.