When Maxim Gorky's mother died. Biography – Maxim Gorky

The first 57 years of Soviet legal science (1917-1964) constitute the least fruitful and most tragic period of Russian jurisprudence. Russian legal scholars were denied not only the right to think freely and reveal the patterns and ways of forming the world's first proletarian state, but also the natural right to life. Only fascist bourgeois states dared to apply such cruel sanctions for the publication of thoughts that did not fully correspond to the ideology of the politically dominant class. Even under the conditions of political oppression that existed in Tsarist Russia, legal scholars had the opportunity to doubt the need to maintain the monarchy in the country and, within the framework determined by censorship, justified the advisability of carrying out fundamental political reforms in Russia.

The high scientific potential of Russian legal science, achieved by the beginning of the 20th century, did not receive further development in the conditions of the USSR. Moreover, the highly qualified teaching staff, formed in pre-revolutionary period, was criticized and persecuted due to reactionary nature and inability to understand and creatively apply Marxist teaching in the knowledge of state and law. Even venerable professors were suspended from teaching and could not publish their works. At the same time, the attempt to create a new Soviet professorship capable of concretizing and developing the Marxist doctrine of state and law in relation to the practice of building a socialist society in the USSR and other countries, by and large, ended in failure. It was not possible to create either a teaching or a professorship.

The new galaxy of Soviet “Marxist-Leninist”, and in reality Stalinist, legal scholars only managed to “comb” positivism into Marxism, supplementing the positivist theory of law with the use of such categories as “classes”, “dictatorship of the proletariat”, “socialism”, “economic relations”, “base”, “superstructure”, having previously deprived them of the truly revolutionary content inherent in the Marxist doctrine. But the party did not really trust these, its own legal scholars. From time to time, the most creative Soviet researchers and even apologists of the Stalinist regime were accused of developing the ideas of Trotskyism, left or legal opportunism, or even of treason, etc. serious crimes and were sentenced to severe criminal penalties, most often capital punishment. Approximately every fifth lawyer who published on legal topics was convicted, and most were sentenced to capital punishment - execution. Currently, all convicts have been rehabilitated.

From November 1917 to November 1964, Soviet legal science went through four stages, determined by the specific historical conditions of its existence in connection with the implementation of certain tasks of the party and state to build a socialist society or protect the gains of the proletariat from an external aggressor: 1) formation Soviet state And civil war; 2) NEP; 3) building a socialist society and the Great Patriotic War; 4) restoration of the national economy.

Characteristic and most notable feature stages of formation of the Soviet state and civil war(November 1917 - 1921) was that it was during this period that the most active, fruitful and creative theoretical and practical activity of V.I. Lenin as the founder of the world's first proletarian state and law occurred. It was during this period that his main works came out, laying the theoretical foundation of Soviet jurisprudence on the formation and development of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a union of the working class and the poor peasantry, as well as the formation and improvement of Soviet legislation, strengthening the rule of law and creating government agencies, capable of reliably protecting Soviet power from attacks by its external and internal enemies.

Significant, but to date not completely systematized, is V.I. Lenin’s contribution to understanding the essence of proletarian law, its role in strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat and implementing its policies, in the protection and defense of workers’ rights. However, the leader of the Russian proletariat, like K. Marx and F. Engels, did not abandon special labor on issues of legal theory, which significantly complicated the process of formation of the Marxist-Leninist theory of law by Russian and foreign jurists.

In the absence of systematic knowledge about the legal views of K. Marx and F. Engels, Soviet jurists (P. I. Stuchka, E. B. Pashukanis, I. P. Razumovsky, M. A. Reisner, N. V. Krylenko and others .) did not always accurately interpret certain provisions of the classics of Marxism on law and therefore came to different understanding the essence of law and its role in building a socialist society. Among Marxist jurists there was also a strong opinion that law would soon die out, and therefore its insignificant value under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Russian jurists, who did not accept Marxism, as well as Soviet power, published a number of works containing thorough critical analysis activities (dictatorship) of the Russian proletariat. Thus, in 1921, Professor I. A. Ilyin sharply criticized Bolshevism in lectures and public speeches, as well as in a number of brochures published in 1918-1921. In his speech “The main tasks of jurisprudence in Russia”, delivered at a meeting of the Moscow Law Society in 1921, he recognized the main task of Russian legal scholars to comprehend the tragic experience historical events, knowledge of the defects and ailments of one’s own and national legal consciousness, assistance in state renewal. P. A. Sorokin, who publicly recognized the Bolsheviks as “the curse of the Russian nation” and “Slavophilism in reverse,” N. A. Berdyaev, S. L. Frank and other opponents of the Soviet regime thought and wrote in unison with him.

NEP stage(1922-1929) was characterized by the expansion of private initiative in the economic and property spheres and directly opposite processes in legal science - a significant limitation on the ability of Russian lawyers to publish works containing critical assessments Soviet state and law. More than 200 scientists, the most active critics of the Soviet state and law, were arrested by the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission and in 1922 expelled outside the RSFSR. At the same time, thanks to state censorship, works containing a critical analysis of the activities of the Soviet government and the events it carried out were not allowed for publication. The commercialization of publishing activities has led to the fact that clear priority is given to popular editions of collections of current legislation, various kinds of commentaries on current regulations legal acts in the field of civil, labor, financial, cooperative law. Monographic publications were published extremely reluctantly and under the indispensable condition that their provisions propagated the Marxist-Leninist teaching and political and legal practice of the dictatorship of the Soviet proletariat. As a result, a number of creative monographs prepared by E. E. Pontovich, V. I. Boshko, I. D. Ilyinsky, dedicated to fundamental problems states and rights never reached a wide readership.

The NEP stage in the history of Soviet legal science was characterized by the following features that most clearly characterize its specificity: 1) the completion of the scientific and political activity of V. I. Lenin; 2) recognition of the possibility of building a socialist society in the USSR in the conditions of a capitalist environment; 3) outstanding research into problems of public administration and the development of the foundations of Soviet administrative law; 4) further development of problems of financial, cooperative, land law, as well as problems of state education of children and re-education of offenders; 5) completion of research related to the formation of the Marxist-Leninist theory of state and law; 6) justification for the need to simplify the Criminal Code and tighten sanctions for persons recognized as enemies of the people, as well as to completely simplify the procedure for bringing to criminal liability.

Since the 1930s. Soviet legal science enters the stage of building a socialist society and the Great Patriotic War. It is at this time that such major events, such as the adoption of the Stalinist Constitution of the USSR in 1936 and the Great Patriotic War of 1941 - 1945. Feature of this period is that the right to present problems of legal science and practice passed from scientists to party and statesmen, who, as a rule, did not have a special legal education and knew about the law only by hearsay, from the position of Stalinist-party principles and their direct practical experience. Workers, including legal scholars, had to constantly clarify their legal views in accordance with the statements and wishes of I.V. Stalin, A.A. Andreev, A.F. Gorkin, M.I. Kalinin, L.M. Kaganovich, S. M. Kirov, V. V. Kuibyshev, A. I. Mikoyan, V. M. Molotov, A. A. Zhdanov, and other prominent government and party figures. Particularly trusted legal ideologists of the party also made their contribution to the formation of legal science of the Stalinist period: A. Ya. Vyshinsky, S. B. Ingulov, V. A. Karpinsky, D. Z. Manuilsky, P. F. Yudin.

All like-minded people and comrades-in-arms of I.V. Stalin, whose works were distributed in significant circulations throughout the country as an example of the “Leninist-Stalinist” solution to pressing issues of the Soviet state and law and methodological guidance practical activities local party and Soviet bodies were not, in fact, creative researchers of the problems of legal science. Their creative potential limited himself to retelling the ideas and instructions of the “brilliant teacher and leader” Stalin. Most likely, his like-minded people and associates were not very keen on finding new ways to develop the state and law, so as not to conflict with the ideas of their teacher and leader. Most of their work consisted of a conscientious retelling of Stalin's ideas and instructions, with the main emphasis being on quoting Stalin's works and flattering statements about the great J.V. Stalin. Sometimes things got weird. Thus, A.I. Mikoyan, in a short speech at the 17th Party Congress, managed to mention Stalin’s name 41 times. At the same time, their proposals on issues of the Soviet state and law boiled down to ordinary demands to “strengthen the rule of law,” “increase responsibility,” and “put an end to the grossest violations of Soviet laws.” Similar requirements were put forward abstractly, without a serious objective analysis of existing political and legal practice, which is why they were mainly of a subjective nature, determined by the current situation, and did not in any way influence the development of legal science or the improvement of law enforcement practice.

In order to consolidate the efforts of Soviet legal scholars to generalize and promote the political and legal practice of the party and the Soviet state, carried out under the leadership of I.V. Stalin, an All-Union meeting on issues of science of the Soviet state and law was held in July 1938. The USSR prosecutor and part-time director of the Institute of Law of the USSR Academy of Sciences A. Ya. Vyshinsky made an extensive report, presenting a vision of the problems of legal science during the period of strengthening the foundations of socialism from the standpoint of Stalinist theory and methodology. A particularly significant event of this meeting was the official formulation of the question of the “Marxist understanding” of law in a positivist interpretation, reducing law to the will of the ruling class.

Legal positivism is in blatant contradiction with the dialectical-materialist worldview. Indeed, K. Marx and F. Engels never reduced law to law; on the contrary, they clearly and consistently explained to their readers and opponents the immutable fact that the real source of law is society and the production relations inherent in it. Nevertheless, the clearly non-Marxist definition of law given by A.V. Vyshinsky fell on fertile ground. The majority of Soviet legal scholars throughout the history of the Soviet state were in agreement with the definition of law given by A. Ya. Vyshinsky, recognizing it as Marxism of the highest standard.

However, some authors of publications on legal topics still preferred an objective analysis of political and legal realities and their truthful coverage in their publications over the scientific situation. The most in-depth and objective analysis of the actual state of affairs in the country was given by N. M. Ryutin in his work “Stalin and the Crisis of the Proletarian Dictatorship,” which was initially distributed in manuscript and was published only 60 years later. The author reasonably showed that in the early 1930s. the country is experiencing an acute political and economic crisis caused by the anti-Marxist, voluntarist decisions of the party. The Marxist-Leninist understanding of the most important theoretical and practical issues, emphasized N.V. Ryutin, has been replaced by an empty, deceitful and loud “leftist phrase”, which is in blatant contradiction with facts and reality. The theoretical, and at the same time practical, formulation of the decisive question for Bolshevism of the fight against opportunism was vulgarized, vulgarized to the last degree, turned into a caricature and simply a means to justify Stalin’s policies and terrorize dissidents.

Stage of restoration of the national economy begins with the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the expansion and improvement of legal education in the country” dated October 5, 1946 and ends with the report “On the cult of personality and its consequences”, which was delivered by the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N. S. Khrushchev at the 20th Congress parties. During this period, there was a slow revival of Soviet legal science, as evidenced by the publication of a number of original monographic works that have not lost their relevance today. Among them are studies by A. M. Arzhanov, M. M. Agarkov, A. V. Venediktov, S. N. Bratus, D. B. Grekov, M. N. Gernet, D. M. Gen-

Kin, L.I. Dembo, M.M. Isaev, I.B. Novitsky, L.I. Povolotsky. However, the methodology of scientific research remained unchanged, just as the persecution of Soviet jurists continued, albeit in a different, more gentle form.

After the death of I.V. Stalin in March 1953, Soviet jurists remained faithful to the previous style and methodology scientific work. Quotes from the works of “the great leader of the Soviet people and all humanity” continued to make up a significant proportion in their publications, and flattering assessments of his activities remained unchanged. Thus, A.I. Denisov, in the textbook “Theory of State and Law” of 1948, assured students that I.V. Stalin further developed the Marxist-Leninist theory of state and law and enriched it with a number of new important provisions. A similar provision was contained in the textbook “Theory of State and Law,” published in 1955 under the editorship of M. P. Kareva and G. I. Fedkin.

The situation with legal science was so bad that in 1964 the Party Central Committee adopted a special resolution “On measures to further development legal science and improvement of legal education in the country,” which marked the beginning of the revival of Soviet legal science. Soviet legal scholars were freed from the obligation to propagate the works of I.V. Stalin and were aimed at understanding the ways of development of the state and law in the conditions of both Soviet socialist society and other countries.

And yet, the “troika” sentences were a temporary phenomenon. After their liquidation, a high percentage of judicial acquittals in the Stalin era remained. It is fair to compare this indicator with that which occurs in modern Russia. Perhaps the reason for the colossal difference between the number of acquittals of the two eras lies not so much in the humanity of the Stalinist judicial system, but in the peculiarities of Russian legal proceedings. For example, today in the European Union the rate of acquittals ranges from 5% to 17%, which is comparable to data for the USSR in the late 1930s.

The lowest figure for the number of decisions in favor of the accused in Russia was observed in 1993 - 0.3%; by 2003 it reached 0.8%. But then he began to fall again. At the end of 2015, official representative of the Investigative Committee of Russia Vladimir Markin reported that the percentage of acquittals in criminal cases does not exceed 0.2%. Lawyer and human rights activist Violetta Volkova notes that in fact the rate of acquittals in Russia is lower, since, for example, in cases involving proceedings over a domestic quarrel, the court often simply terminates the proceedings due to lack of evidence. The reversal of such sentences by the Supreme Court occurs on formal grounds.

The human rights activist draws attention to the fact that one of the reasons for such a low number of acquittals may be related to the right of an illegally convicted person to rehabilitation. Firstly, after an acquittal, the prosecutor must make a public apology to the victim, and secondly, such a person has the right to monetary compensation for the damage suffered. Our judicial system Unlike the Western one, it is not yet ready to introduce such a practice. Lawyers often refer to such an article in Russian legislation as “illegal prosecution.” Everyone involved in a case in which the defendant’s guilt has not been proven must go through it. But this article remains on paper.

The above, according to lawyers, can indeed contribute to the trend of reducing the number of verdicts in favor of the accused. Stalin's time was not burdened with the costs of Russian legal proceedings, which affected the high rates of acquittals.

It must be said that the small number of acquittals in modern Russia is partly compensated by the small number of real prison terms. Thus, in recent years, just over 30% of defendants were sentenced to imprisonment; for approximately 68%, the story ended with a guilty verdict, after which they were released (they either received credit for the time spent in a pre-trial detention center or were given a suspended sentence). The picture is partly changed by the verdicts of the jury, which acquits about 15% of the defendants. However, according to the calculations of journalist Oleg Lurie, jury acquittals are overturned 800 times more often than guilty verdicts. If jury decisions are taken into account, this only slightly improves the statistics on acquittals. Thus, in 2010, a total of 845,000 people were convicted, and 9,000 were acquitted. Thus, the acquittal rate was 1.065%.

Stalin's real name is Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. He was born on December 9 (21 according to the new style) 1879 in the Georgian city of Gori.

For most immigrants, the years of Stalin’s reign and his personality are associated with the process of industrialization, victory in the Great Patriotic War, as well as with the terrifying scale of repression, the number of victims of which elevates him to the rank of the most cruel and merciless ruler of his country. More than three million people were shot or sentenced to prison political articles. Numerous cases of deportation, dispossession, and exile bring the number of victims of the Stalinist regime to twenty million people.

In today's times, most psychologists unanimously declare a significant impact on individuals as a whole. children's education and family environment. So what is the reason for such Stalin?

According to historians, the leader’s childhood was not joyful and cloudless. Frequent clarification of the parents' relationship, accompanied by beatings of the mother by the never-drying father, could not pass without leaving a trace and not affect the growing boy. In order to suppress the feeling of helplessness in front of a strong male fist, the mother looked for an emotional outlet with the future leader, therefore, Stalin learned what beatings and cruel treatment were as a child. Since then, he understood for himself the principle of life - the one who is stronger is right. It was this course that he adhered to throughout his life.

Stalin took his first political steps in 1902, organizing a demonstration in Batumi. Over time, he becomes the leader of the Bolsheviks, makes acquaintance with Lenin and is considered an ardent supporter of his revolutionary ideas. In 1913, Joseph Dzhugashvili signed his new pseudonym for the first time, which stuck with him until the very end of his life. So Stalin’s reign takes place under a name known to the whole world. And she was preceded by about thirty others who never took root.

The years of Stalin's reign as the sovereign leader of the state began in 1929 and were accompanied by a period of collectivization, which resulted in famine and numerous deaths. In 1932, a law was adopted, popularly known as the “three ears of corn.” In accordance with its norms, if a collective farmer dying of hunger stole ears of wheat that he had grown from the state, he was subject to execution. The saved grain was sent for export, thus preparing the ground for industrialization. The proceeds were used to purchase the latest equipment produced by different countries not only Europe, but also America.

The years of Stalin's reign were also characterized by numerous repressions that began in 1936, when Stalin's closest friend, Bukharin, was appointed to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs in 1938. This period is characterized by mass executions and exiles to Gulag camps.

No matter how cruel the ruler may be, such a policy is carried out for the benefit of the state, for its further development. What are the positive events that happened to the country during the years of Stalin's rule?

During his period, his authorities formed the social system of the state, with its economic, political and social institutions; carried out the modernization of the country, abandoning the NEP policy, and carrying out industrialization at the expense of the countryside; strategic decisions ensured victory in World War II; turned the Soviet Union into a superpower. The USSR became one of the world powers, a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

In 1953, Stalin passed away. The era of the reign of Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili came to an end, which was replaced by the changed course of N. Khrushchev.

Unknown facts from the life of Gorky. April 19th, 2009

There was a lot of mystery in Gorky. For example, he did not feel physical pain, but at the same time he experienced the pain of others so painfully that when he described the scene of how a woman was stabbed with a knife, a huge scar swelled on his body. From a young age he suffered from tuberculosis and smoked 75 cigarettes a day. He tried to commit suicide several times, and each time he was saved by an unknown force, for example, in 1887, which deflected a bullet aimed at the heart a millimeter from the target. He could drink as much alcohol as he wanted and never got drunk. In 1936 he died twice, on June 9 and 18. On June 9, the now virtually deceased writer was miraculously revived by the arrival of Stalin, who came to Gorky’s dacha in Gorki near Moscow to say goodbye to the deceased.

On the same day, Gorky organized a strange vote among his family and friends, asking them: should he die or not? In fact, he controlled the process of his dying...
Gorky's life is an amazing carnival that ended tragically. The question still remains unresolved: did Gorky die a natural death or was he killed on the orders of Stalin. Gorky's last days and hours were filled with some kind of horror. Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov drank champagne near the bed of the dying Russian writer. Gorky’s Nizhny Novgorod friend and then political emigrant Ekaterina Kuskova wrote: “But even over the silent writer they stood with a candle day and night...”
Leo Tolstoy at first mistook Gorky for a peasant and spoke obscenities to him, but then he realized that he had made a big mistake. “I can’t treat Gorky sincerely, I don’t know why, but I can’t,” he complained to Chekhov. “Gorky is an evil man. He has the soul of a spy, he came from somewhere in the land of Canaan that is foreign to him, he looks closely at everything, notices everything and reports everything to some god of his.”
Gorky paid the intelligentsia in the same coin. In letters to I. Repin and Tolstoy, he sang hymns to the glory of Man: “I don’t know anything better, more complicated, more interesting than a person..."; "I deeply believe that better than man there is nothing on earth..." And at the same time he wrote to his wife: "It would be better for me not to see all this bastard, all these pathetic little people..." (this is about those who in St. Petersburg raised their glasses in his honor (And who is his wife, an NKVD agent?)
He passed through Luka, the crafty wanderer,” wrote the poet Vladislav Khodasevich. This is as true as the fact that he was a wanderer always and everywhere, being connected and in correspondence with Lenin, Chekhov, Bryusov, Rozanov, Morozov, Gapon, Bunin, Artsybashev, Gippius, Mayakovsky, Panferov, realists, symbolists, priests, Bolsheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, monarchists, Zionists, anti-Semites, terrorists, academicians, collective farmers, GPE members and all the people on this sinful earth. “Gorky did not live, but examined.. "- noted Viktor Shklovsky.
Everyone saw him as “Gorky”, not a person, but a character that he himself invented while in Tiflis in 1892, when he signed his first story “Makar Chudra” with this pseudonym.
Contemporary of the writer, emigrant I.D. Surguchev seriously believed that Gorky once made an agreement with the devil - the same one that Christ refused in the desert. “And he, an average writer in general, was given success that neither Pushkin, nor Gogol, nor Leo Tolstoy, nor Dostoevsky knew during their lifetime. He had everything: fame, and money, and a woman’s sly love.” Maybe that's true. But this is none of our business.
The learned men on his planet, having read the report on the business trip, nevertheless asked:
- Did you see the man?
- Saw!
- What is he like?
- Ooh... That sounds proud!
- Yes, what does it look like?
And he drew a strange figure in the air with his wing.

Gorky was married to Ekaterina Pavlovna Volzhina, in marriage - Peshkova (1876-1965; public figure, employee of the International Red Cross).
Son - Maxim Maksimovich Peshkov (1896-1934). His sudden death They explained, like Gorky’s death, by poisoning.
The adopted son of Gorky, whose godfather he was, Zinovy ​​Mikhailovich Peshkov, a general of the French army, brother Ya. Sverdlova).
Among the women who enjoyed Gorky's special favor was Maria Ignatievna Budberg (1892-1974) - a baroness, née Countess Zakrevskaya, by her first marriage Benkendorf. Lev Nikulin writes about her in his memoirs; “When they ask us who “Klim Samgin” is dedicated to, who is Maria Ignatyevna Zakrevskaya, we think that her portrait stood on Gorky’s table until his last days” (Moscow. 1966. No. 2). She was with him and V last hours his life. A photograph has been preserved where Budberg, next to Stalin, walks behind Gorky’s coffin. It was she who, fulfilling the task of the GPU, brought Stalin Gorky’s Italian archive, which contained what Stalin was especially interested in - Gorky’s correspondence with Bukharin, Rykov and other Soviet figures who, having escaped from the USSR on a business trip, bombarded Gorky with letters about the atrocities of “himself.” wise and great" (about Budberg, see: Berberova N. The Iron Woman. New York, 1982).
http://belsoch.exe.by/bio2/04_16.shtml
Maria Andreeva was also M. Grky’s common-law wife.
YURKOVSKAYA MARIA FEDOROVNA (ANDREEVA, ZHELYABUZHSKAYA, PHENOMENON) 1868-1953 Born in St. Petersburg. Actress. On stage since 1886, in 1898-1905 at the Moscow Art Theater. Roles: Rautendelein ("The Sunken Bell" by G. Hauptmann, 1898), Natasha ("At the Lower Depths" by M. Gorky, 1902), etc. In 1904 she joined the Bolsheviks. Publisher of the Bolshevik newspaper "New Life" (1905). In 1906 she married an official Zhelyabuzhsky, but later became the common-law wife of Maxim Gorky and emigrated with him. In 1913 she returned to Moscow after breaking off relations with Gorky. Resumed acting work in Ukraine. Participated together with M. Gorky and A. A. Blok in the creation of the Bolshoi drama theater(Petrograd, 1919), actress of this theater until 1926. Commissioner of Theaters and Entertainment of Petrograd (1919-1921), Director of the Moscow House of Scientists (1931-1948).
What did Gorky bring to our world?

In 1895, he almost simultaneously published in the Samara Gazeta romantic fairy tale“About the Little Fairy and the Young Shepherd”, the famous “Old Woman Izergil” and the realistic story “On the Salt”, dedicated to the description of the hard work of tramps in the salt fields. Patterned, colored bright colors the fabric of the artistic narrative in the first two works does not harmonize in any way with the mundane everyday depiction of tramps, in one of which the author himself can be discerned. The text of the story “On the Salt” is replete with coarse, cruel images, common speech, swearing that conveys feelings of pain and resentment, the “senseless rage” of people brought to complete stupor in the salt penal servitude. The romantically colored landscape in “Old Woman Izergil” (“dark blue patches of sky, decorated with golden specks of stars”), the harmony of colors and sounds, the amazingly beautiful heroes of the legend about the little fairy (the shepherd resembles not a Wallachian shepherd, but a biblical prophet) create a sunny fairy tale about love and freedom. The story “On the Salt” also describes the sea, the sky, the shore of the estuary, but the flavor of the story is completely different: unbearably scorching heat, cracked gray earth, grass red-brown like blood, women and men swarming like worms in the greasy mud. Instead of a solemn symphony of sounds - the screeching of wheelbarrows, rude and angry swearing, groans and “sad protest”.
Larra is the son of a woman and an eagle. His mother brought him to people in the hope that he would live happily among his own kind. Larra was the same as everyone else, “only his eyes were cold and proud, like those of the king of birds.” The young man did not respect anyone, did not listen to anyone, and behaved arrogantly and proudly. He had both strength and beauty, but he pushed people away with his pride and coldness. Larra behaved among people as animals behave in a herd, where the strongest is allowed everything. He kills the “obstinate” girl right in front of the entire tribe, not knowing that by doing so he is signing his own sentence to be rejected for the rest of his life. The angry people decided that: “His punishment is in himself!” They released him and gave him freedom.
the theme of an ungrateful, capricious crowd, because people, having found themselves in the thickest darkness of the forest and swamp swamps, attacked Danko with reproaches and threats. They called him “an insignificant and harmful person” and decided to kill him. However, the young man forgave people for their anger and unfair reproaches. He tore out of his chest a heart that was burning with a bright fire of love for these same people, and illuminated their path: “It (the heart) burned as brightly as the sun, and brighter than the sun, and the whole forest fell silent, illuminated by this torch of the great love for people..."
Danko and Larra are antipodes, they are both young, strong and beautiful. But Larra is a slave to his egoism, and because of this he is lonely and rejected by everyone. Danko lives for people, therefore he is truly immortal.
The falcon is a symbol of a fearless fighter: “We sing glory to the madness of the brave.” And the Already is a symbol of a cautious and sane man in the street. The images of cowardly loons, penguins and seagulls, which frantically rush about, trying to hide from reality and its changes, are allegorical.
Chudra says: “You have chosen a glorious destiny for yourself, falcon. That’s how it should be: go and look, you’ve seen enough, lie down and die - that’s all!”
Izergil lives among people, looking for human love, ready for her sake heroic deeds. Why does the writer so cruelly emphasize the ugliness of her old age? She is “almost a shadow” - this is associated with Larra’s shadow. Apparently because her path is life strong man, but lived for himself.
“...O brave Falcon! In a battle with your enemies, you bled to death... But there will be time - and drops of your hot blood, like sparks, will flare up in the darkness of life and many brave hearts will be ignited with an insane thirst for freedom, light!.. We sing a song to the madness of the brave!..”
For him, a fact, an incident from reality, was always important. He was hostile to the human imagination and did not understand fairy tales.
Russian writers of the 19th century were mostly his personal enemies: he hated Dostoevsky, he despised Gogol as a sick person, he laughed at Turgenev.
His personal enemies were the Kamenev family.
- Trotsky’s sister, Olga Kameneva (Bronstein) is the wife of Lev Kamenev (Rosenfeld Lev Borisovich), who headed the Moscow Soviet from 1918 to 1924, and was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee. But the most interesting thing is that until December 1934 (before his arrest) Lev Kamenev was the director of the Institute of World Literature. M. Gorky (?!).
Olga Kameneva headed the theater department of the People's Commissariat for Education. In February 1920, she told Khodasevich: “I’m surprised how you can know Gorky. All he does is cover up scammers - and he himself is just as much a scammer. If it weren’t for Vladimir Ilyich, he would have been in prison a long time ago!” Gorky had a long-standing acquaintance with Lenin. But nevertheless, it was Lenin who advised Gorky to leave new Russia.

Having gone abroad in 1921, Gorky, in a letter to V. Khodasevich, sharply criticized N. Krupskaya’s circular on the removal from Soviet libraries for the mass reader of the works of Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer, V. Solovyov, L. Tolstoy and others.
One of the many pieces of evidence that Gorky was poisoned by Stalin, and perhaps the most convincing, albeit indirect, belongs to B. Gerland and was published in No. 6 of the Socialist Messenger in 1954. B. Gerland was a prisoner of the Gulag in Vorkuta and worked in the camp barracks together with Professor Pletnev, also exiled. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Gorky, later commuted to 25 years in prison. She recorded his story: “We treated Gorky for heart disease, but he suffered not so much physically as morally: he did not stop tormenting himself with self-reproaches. He no longer had anything to breathe in the USSR, he passionately strove to return to Italy. But the incredulous despot in The Kremlin was most afraid of open speech famous writer against his regime. And, as always, he came up with an effective remedy at the right time. It turned out to be a bonbonniere, yes, a light pink bonbonniere, decorated with a bright silk ribbon. She stood on the night table by the bed of Gorky, who loved to treat his visitors. This time he generously gave sweets to the two orderlies who worked with him, and ate a few sweets himself. An hour later, all three began to experience excruciating stomach pains, and an hour later, death occurred. An autopsy was immediately performed. Result? It lived up to our worst fears. All three died from poison."

Long before Gorky's death, Stalin tried to make him his political ally. Those who knew Gorky's integrity could imagine how hopeless this task was. But Stalin never believed in human integrity. On the contrary, he often pointed out to NKVD employees that in their activities they should proceed from the fact that incorruptible people do not exist at all. Everyone just has their own price.
Under the influence of these calls, Gorky returned to Moscow. From that moment on, a program of appeasement, designed in the Stalinist style, began to take effect. A mansion in Moscow and two comfortable villas were placed at his disposal - one in the Moscow region, the other in Crimea. Supplying the writer and his family with everything necessary was entrusted to the same NKVD department, which was responsible for providing for Stalin and members of the Politburo. For trips to Crimea and abroad, Gorky was allocated a specially equipped railway carriage. At the direction of Stalin, Yagoda (Enoch Gershonovich Yehuda) sought to catch Gorky’s slightest desires on the fly and fulfill them. His favorite flowers, specially delivered from abroad, were planted around his villas. He smoked special cigarettes ordered for him in Egypt. At his first request, any book from any country was delivered to him. Gorky, a modest and moderate man by nature, tried to protest against the provocative luxury with which he was surrounded, but he was told that Maxim Gorky was alone in the country.
Along with taking care of Gorky’s material well-being, Stalin entrusted Yagoda with his “re-education.” It was necessary to convince the old writer that Stalin was building real socialism and was doing everything in his power to raise the living standards of the working people.
He participated in the work of the so-called association proletarian writers, headed by Averbakh, married to Yagoda’s niece.

The famous book “The Stalin Canal,” written by a group of writers led by Maxim Gorky who visited the White Sea Canal, tells, in particular, about a meeting of canal builders - security officers and prisoners - in August 1933. M. Gorky also spoke there. He said with excitement: “I’m happy, shocked. Since 1928, I have been looking closely at how the OGPU re-educates people. You have done a great job, a tremendous job!”
Completely isolated from the people, he moved along the conveyor belt organized for him by Yagoda, in the constant company of security officers and several young writers who collaborated with the NKVD. Everyone who surrounded Gorky was obliged to tell him about the miracles of socialist construction and sing the praises of Stalin. Even the gardener and cook assigned to the writer knew that from time to time they had to tell him that they had “just” received a letter from their village relatives who reported that life there was becoming more and more beautiful.
Stalin was impatient for the popular Russian writer to immortalize his name. He decided to shower Gorky with royal gifts and honors and thus influence the content and, so to speak, tone of the future book.
Sun. Vishnevsky was at Gorky’s banquet and says that it even mattered who was sitting further and who was closest to Gorky. He says that this sight was so disgusting that Pasternak could not stand it and ran away from the middle of the banquet.”

They boast that there was never slavery in Russia, that it immediately stepped into feudalism. For mercy's sake, Russia hasn't moved anywhere. All attempts to reform the social structure were burned out in a slave psychology, so convenient for the bureaucratic-feudal state...
In a short time, Gorky received such honors that the world's greatest writers could not even dream of. Stalin ordered that a large industrial center, Nizhny Novgorod, be named after Gorky. Accordingly, the entire Nizhny Novgorod region was renamed Gorky. Gorky's name was given to the Moscow Art Theater, which, by the way, was founded and gained worldwide fame thanks to Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, and not Gorky.
The Council of People's Commissars, with a special resolution, noted his great services to Russian literature. Several businesses were named after him. The Moscow City Council decided to rename the main street of Moscow - Tverskaya - to Gorky Street.
The famous French writer, Russian by birth, Victor Serge, who stayed in Russia until 1936, in his diary, published in 1949 in the Parisian magazine Le Tan Modern, talked about his recent meetings with Gorky:
“I once met him on the street,” writes Serge, “and was shocked by his appearance. He was unrecognizable - it was a skeleton. He wrote official articles, truly disgusting, justifying the Bolshevik trials. But in an intimate setting he grumbled. He spoke with bitterness and contempt about the present, and entered or almost entered into conflicts with Stalin.” Serge also said that Gorky cried at night.

In Russia, Gorky lost his son, perhaps skillfully removed by Yagoda, who liked Maxim’s wife. There is a suspicion that Kryuchkov killed Maxim on behalf of Yagoda. From Kryuchkov’s confession: “I asked what I needed to do. To this he answered me: “Eliminate Maxim.” Yagoda said that he should be given as much alcohol as possible and then he should have caught a cold. Kryuchkov, according to him, did just that When it turned out that Maxim had pneumonia, they did not listen to Professor Speransky, but listened to Doctors Levin and Vinogradov (not brought to trial), who gave Maxim champagne, then a laxative, which accelerated his death.
In the last years of his life, Gorky became a dangerous burden for the Soviet government. He was forbidden to leave Moscow, Gorki and Crimea when he traveled to the south.
As an example of “socialist realism,” government critics usually point to Gorky’s story “Mother,” written by him in 1906. But Gorky himself in 1933 told his old friend and biographer V. A. Desnitsky that “Mother” was “long, boring and carelessly written.” And in a letter to Fyodor Gladkov, he wrote: “Mother” is a book, really only a bad one, written in a state of passion and irritation.”
“After Gorky’s death, NKVD officials found carefully hidden notes in his papers. When Yagoda finished reading these notes, he swore and said: “No matter how you feed the wolf, he keeps looking into the forest.”
« Untimely thoughts" is a series of articles by M. Gorky, published in 1917-1918 in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, where he, in particular, wrote: “Rumors are spreading more and more persistently that on October 20 there will be a “Bolshevik speech” - in other words: the disgusting scenes of July 3-5 may be repeated... An unorganized crowd will crawl out onto the street, poorly understanding what it wants, and, hiding behind it, adventurers, thieves, professional killers will begin to “make the history of the Russian revolution” (emphasis mine. - B .B.).

After the October Revolution, Gorky wrote: “Lenin, Trotsky and those accompanying them have already been poisoned by the rotten poison of power... The working class must know that it will face hunger, complete disruption of industry, the destruction of transport, prolonged bloody anarchy...”

“Imagining themselves to be the Napoleons of socialism, the Leninists tear and rush, completing the destruction of Russia - the Russian people will pay for this with lakes of blood.”

“To scare with terror and pogrom people who do not want to participate in Mr. Trotsky’s mad dance over the ruins of Russia is shameful and criminal.”

“People's Commissars treat Russia as material for experiment; the Russian people for them are the horse that bacteriologists inoculate with typhus so that the horse produces anti-typhoid serum in its blood. This is exactly the kind of cruel experiment doomed to failure that the commissars are carrying out on the Russian people, not thinking that an exhausted, half-starved horse might die.”
At Lubyanka, the investigator was called into the investigator’s office one at a time. Each signed a non-disclosure agreement. Each was warned that if he uttered even one word, even to his own wife, he would be immediately liquidated along with his entire family.
The notebook discovered in a mansion on Povarskaya Street was M. Gorky’s diary. Full text This diary was read only by the most responsible employee of the NKVD, someone from the Politburo and, of course, Stalin.”
Stalin, puffing on his pipe, sorted through photographs of pages from Gorky's diary lying in front of him. He fixed his heavy gaze on one.

“An idle mechanic calculated that if an ordinary vile flea is magnified hundreds of times, then the result is the most scary beast on earth, with which no one would be able to cope. With modern great technology, a giant flea can be seen in cinema. But the monstrous grimaces of history sometimes create similar exaggerations in the real world... Stalin is such a flea that Bolshevik propaganda and the hypnosis of fear have increased to incredible proportions.”
On the same day, June 18, 1936, Genrikh Yagoda went to Gorki, where Maxim Gorky was being treated for the flu, accompanied by several of his assistants, including mysterious woman in black. The People's Commissar of the NKVD visited Alexei Maksimovich for a very short time, but the woman, according to eyewitnesses, spent more than forty minutes at the writer's bedside...
It was a day solar eclipse.
On the morning of June 19, a mourning message was published in Soviet newspapers: the great proletarian writer Alexei Maksimovich Gorky died of pneumonia.
But here is other evidence. During Gorky’s last illness, M.I. Budberg was on duty at Gorky’s deathbed and, together with other people close to him (P.P. Kryuchkov, nurse O.D. Chertkova, his last affection) was an eyewitness to the last moments of his life. Particularly difficult for her were the night hours of duty, when Gorky often woke up and was tormented by attacks of suffocation. All these observations by M.I. Budberg are confirmed by the memoirs of E.P. Peshkova, P.P. Kryuchkov and M.I. Budberg herself, which were recorded by A.N. Tikhonov, Gorky’s friend and ally, immediately after the writer’s death.
Whether it really happened or not (there are many versions of why Gorky died, and the above is just one of them), we will probably never know.
MARIA Ignatievna Budberg, nee Zakrevskaya, Countess Benckendorff by her first marriage, a truly legendary woman, adventurer and double (or maybe triple, also German intelligence) agent of the GPU and British intelligence, mistress of Lockhart and Herbert Wells.
Being the mistress of the English envoy, Lockhart, she came to him for documents about the family's departure. But while she was in the capital, bandits attacked her estate in Estonia and killed her husband. But the security officers found Mura herself in bed with Lockhart and escorted her to the Lubyanka. The accusations were clearly not groundless, since the head of the English mission, Lockhart, rushed to help the countess. He failed to rescue his agent-mistress, and he himself ended up under arrest.
Most likely, not beauty (Maria Ignatievna was not a beauty in in every sense this word), and Zakrevskaya’s wayward character and independence captivated Gorky. But in general, her energy potential was enormous and immediately attracted men to her. At first he took her on as his literary secretary. But very soon, despite the big age difference (she was 24 years younger than the writer), he proposed his hand and heart. Maria did not want to officially marry the petrel of the revolution, and perhaps she did not receive the blessing of marriage from her “godparents” from the NKVD, however, be that as it may, for 16 years she remained Gorky’s common-law wife.
She is allegedly brought to the dying writer by NKVD agents, and specifically by the well-known Yagoda. Mura removes the nurse from the room, declaring that she will prepare the medicine herself (by the way, she has never studied medicine). The nurse sees Mura diluting some liquid in a glass and giving the writer a drink, and then quickly leaves, accompanied by Yagoda. The nurse, spying on her through the crack of the slightly open door, rushes to the patient and notices that the glass from which Gorky drank the medicine has disappeared from the writer’s table. This means that Mura took him with her. 20 minutes after her departure, Gorky dies. But this is most likely just another legend.
Although the NKVD really did have a huge secret laboratory involved in the production of poisons, and this project was supervised by Yagoda, a former pharmacist. In addition, it is necessary to remember one more episode: a few days before Gorky’s death, they sent him a box chocolates, which the writer loved very much. Without eating them, Gorky treats the two orderlies caring for him. A few minutes later, the orderlies show signs of poisoning and die. Subsequently, the death of these orderlies would become one of the main points of indictment in the “doctors’ case,” when Stalin accused the doctors who treated the writer of his murder.
In Russia, they bury according to seven categories, Kipnis joked. - The seventh is when the deceased himself controls the horse taking him to the cemetery.
Leon Trotsky, who was well versed in the Stalinist climate that reigned in Moscow, wrote:
“Gorky was neither a conspirator nor a politician. He was a kind and sensitive old man, protecting the weak, a sensitive Protestant. During the famine and the first two five-year plans, when general indignation threatened power, repression exceeded all limits... Gorky, who enjoyed influence at home and abroad, could not have tolerated the liquidation of the Old Bolsheviks, which was being prepared by Stalin. Gorky would have immediately protested, his voice would have been heard, and the Stalinist trials of the so-called “conspirators” would have been unfulfilled. It would also be absurd to attempt to impose silence on Gorky. His arrest, deportation or outright liquidation were even more unthinkable. There was only one possibility left: to hasten his death with poison, without shedding blood. The Kremlin dictator saw no other way out.”
But Trotsky himself could have wanted to eliminate the writer who knew too much and was unpleasant to him for family reasons.
In his book “Vladimir Lenin,” published in Leningrad in 1924, on page 23, Gorky wrote about Lenin:
“I often heard his praises to his comrades. And even about those who, according to rumors, allegedly did not enjoy his personal sympathies. Surprised by his assessment of one of these comrades, I noticed that for many this assessment would seem unexpected. “Yes, yes, I know,” said Lenin. - They are lying about my relationship with him. They lie a lot, and even especially a lot about me and Trotsky.” Slamming his hand on the table, Lenin said: “But they should point out another person who is capable of organizing an almost exemplary army in a year and even winning the respect of military specialists. We have such a person!”
The editors of the posthumous edition of Gorky’s collected works threw all this out, and instead inserted the following adjective: “But still, not ours! With us, not ours! Ambitious. And there is something bad in him, from Lassalle.” This was not in the book written by Gorky in 1924, shortly after Lenin’s death, and published the same year in Leningrad.
Gorky's book about Lenin ended (in 1924) with these words:
“In the end, what wins is what is honest and truthful, created by man, what wins is that without which there is no man.”
In the collected works of Gorky, these words of his were thrown out, and instead of them the party editors wrote the following adjective: “Vladimir Lenin died. The heirs of his mind and will are alive. They are alive and working as successfully as no one has ever worked anywhere in the world.”

Nadya Vvedenskaya stands down the aisle with her father’s resident doctor, Dr. Sinichkin. Around are the nine brothers of the young bride... The first wedding night. As soon as the groom approached the bride, at the moment when they were left alone in the room, she... jumped out the window and ran away to Maxim Peshkov, her first love...

Nadya met the son of Maxim Gorky in the last grade of the gymnasium, when one day she and her friends came to the skating rink. Maxim immediately struck her with his boundless kindness and equally boundless irresponsibility. They did not get married right away.
After October and the Civil War, Maxim Peshkov got ready to go to the Italian shores, to visit his father. And then Lenin gave Maxim Peshkov an important party assignment: to explain to his father the meaning of the “great proletarian revolution” - which the great proletarian writer mistook for an immoral massacre.

Together with Gorky’s son, Nadezhda Vvedenskaya went abroad in 1922. They got married in Berlin. The Peshkovs' daughters were born in Italy: Martha - in Sorrento, Daria two years later - in Naples. But family life things didn't work out for the young spouses. Writer Vladislav Khodasevich recalled: “Maxim was then about thirty years old, but by character it was difficult to give him more than thirteen.”

In Italy, Nadezhda Alekseevna discovered her husband’s strong addiction to strong drinks and women. However, here he followed in his father's footsteps...
The great writer did not hesitate there, in Italy, to show all sorts of signs of attention to Varvara Sheykevich, the wife of Andrei Diederichs. She was an amazing woman. After breaking up with Gorky, Varvara alternately became the wife of the publisher A. Tikhonov and the artist Z. Grzhebin. Gorky courted V. Sheykevich in the presence of his second wife, actress Maria Andreeva. Of course, the wife cried. However, Alexey Maksimovich also cried. In general, he liked to cry. But in fact, Gorky’s wife at this time was the famous adventurer associated with the security officers, Maria Benkendorf, who, after the writer left for his homeland, married another writer, H.G. Wells.

Maria Andreeva was not going to lag behind her “cheating” husband. She made her lover Pyotr Kryuchkov, Gorky's assistant, who was 21 years younger than her. In 1938, P. Kryuchkov, who undoubtedly was an agent of the OGPU, was accused of the “villainous killing” of Gorky and executed.
Before Kryuchkov, Andreeva’s lover was a certain Yakov Lvovich Izrailevich. Having learned about his unexpected resignation, he found nothing better than to beat his opponent, driving him under the table. The situation that reigned in the family is also evidenced by the following fact: M. Andreeva’s mother committed suicide, having previously gouged out the eyes of her granddaughter Katya in a portrait.
Gerling-Grudzinsky in his article “The Seven Deaths of Maxim Gorky” draws attention to the fact that “there is no reason to believe the indictment of the 1938 trial, which stated that Yagoda decided - partly for political, partly for personal reasons (it was known about his love to Nadezhda) - send Maxim Peshkov to the next world.”
Nadezhda Alekseevna’s daughter, Marfa Maksimovna Peshkova, was a friend of I.V.’s daughter. Stalin Svetlana and became the wife of Sergo Lavrentievich Beria (son of Lavrenty Pavlovich).
Well, Gorky and Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov knew each other from Nizhny Novgorod. In 1902, the son of Yakov Sverdlov, Zinovy, converted to Orthodoxy, his godfather was Gorky, and Zinovy ​​Mikhailovich Sverdlov became Zinovy ​​Alekseevich Peshkov, the adopted son of Maxim Gorky.
Subsequently, Gorky wrote in a letter to Peshkova: “This handsome boy has recently behaved surprisingly boorishly towards me, and my friendship with him is over. Very sad and difficult."
The fathers of Sverdlov and Yagoda were cousins
The berries are gone. But the security officers continued to influence Nadezhda Peshkova’s life. Just before the war she got ready to marry her longtime friend I.K. Lupol - one of the most educated people of his time, philosopher, historian, writer, director of the Institute of World Literature. Gorky - how her chosen one ended up in the dungeons of the NKVD and died in a camp in 1943. After the war, Nadezhda Alekseevna married the architect Miron Merzhanov. Six months later, in 1946, her husband was arrested. After Stalin’s death, in 1953, N.A. Peshkova agreed to become the wife of engineer V.F. Popov... The groom is arrested...
Nadezhda Alekseevna bore the cross of an “untouchable” until the end of her days. As soon as a man who might have serious intentions was near her, he disappeared. Most often - forever. All the years in the USSR she lived under a magnifying glass, which the “organs” were constantly holding in her hands... The daughter-in-law of Maxim Gorky was supposed to go to the grave as his daughter-in-law.
Gorky's son Maxim Alekseevich Peshkov. The monument by sculptor Mukhina is so good, so similar to the original, that when Maxim’s mother saw it, she had an attack. “You extended my date with my son,” she said to Mukhina. I spent hours sitting near the monument. Now rests nearby.
Maxim Alekseevich's wife, Gorky's daughter-in-law - Nadezhda. There was a woman of dazzling beauty. She drew beautifully. Around Gorky, it was customary to give humorous nicknames: his second common-law wife actress of the Bolshoi Drama Theater in Petrograd Maria Fedorovna Andreeva had the nickname “Phenomenon”, Maxim’s son was called “Singing Worm”, the wife of Gorky’s secretary Kryuchkov was called “Tse-tse”... Gorky gave the wife of Maxim’s son Nadezhda the nickname “Timosha”. Why? For unruly curls sticking out in all directions. First there was a scythe that could break the spine of a teenage calf. Nadezhda secretly cut it off and in a hairdresser (this was in Italy) they laid out what was left after the haircut. The first half hour seemed to look good, but in the morning... Gorky, seeing his son’s wife, named her Timosha - in honor of the coachman Timofey, whose unkempt hair always caused everyone’s admiration. However, Nadezhda-Timosha was so good that Genrikh Yagoda fell in love with her. (For the country's chief security officer by occupation, it seems that falling in love meant betraying the Motherland. Assess Yagoda's risk - he openly gave Gorky's daughter-in-law orchids).
Maxim died early - at 37 years old. He died strangely. His daughter Marfa, sharing memories with the poetess Larisa Vasilyeva, suspects poisoning. Maxim loved to drink (they even quarreled with the patient but proud Timosha on this basis). But on that ill-fated day (early May 1934) I didn’t taste a drop. We were returning from Yagoda's dacha. I felt bad. Gorky's secretary Kryuchkov left Maxim on the bench - in only his shirt; there was still snow in Gorki.

Initially, Gorky was skeptical about the October Revolution. However, after several years of cultural work in Soviet Russia(in Petrograd he headed the publishing house " World literature", interceded with the Bolsheviks for those arrested) and life abroad in the 1920s (Marienbad, Sorrento), returned to the USSR, where the last years of his life he was surrounded by official recognition as a "petrel of the revolution" and a "great proletarian writer", the founder of socialist realism .

Biography

Alexey Maksimovich came up with the pseudonym “Gorky” himself. Subsequently, he told Kalyuzhny: “I shouldn’t write Peshkov in literature...”. More information about his biography can be found in his autobiographical stories“Childhood”, “In People”, “My Universities”.

Childhood

Alexey Peshkov was born in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a carpenter (according to another version, the manager of the Astrakhan office of the shipping company I. S. Kolchin) - Maxim Savvatyevich Peshkov (1839-1871). Mother - Varvara Vasilievna, nee Kashirina (1842-1879). Gorky’s grandfather Savvaty Peshkov rose to the rank of officer, but was demoted and exiled to Siberia “for cruel treatment of lower ranks,” after which he enrolled as a bourgeois. His son Maxim ran away from his father five times and at the age of 17 left home forever. Orphaned early, Gorky spent his childhood in the house of his grandfather Kashirin. From the age of 11 he was forced to go “into the people”: he worked as a “boy” in a store, as a buffet cook on a steamship, as a baker, studied in an icon-painting workshop, etc.

Youth

• In 1884 he tried to enter Kazan University. I became acquainted with Marxist literature and propaganda work.
• In 1888, he was arrested for connections with N. E. Fedoseev’s circle. He was under constant police surveillance. In October 1888 he became a watchman at the Dobrinka station in Gryaze-Tsaritsynskaya railway. Impressions from your stay in Dobrinka will serve as the basis for autobiographical story“The Watchman” and the story “For Boredom’s Sake.”
• In January 1889, at a personal request (a complaint in verse), he was transferred to the Borisoglebsk station, then as a weighmaster to the Krutaya station.
• In the spring of 1891, he set out to wander around the country and reached the Caucasus.

Literary and social activities

• In 1892 he first appeared in print with the story “Makar Chudra”. Returning to Nizhny Novgorod, he publishes reviews and feuilletons in Volzhsky Vestnik, Samara Gazeta, Nizhny Novgorod Listok, etc.
• 1895 - “Chelkash”, “Old Woman Izergil”.
• 1896 - Gorky writes a response to the first cinematic session in Nizhny Novgorod:

• 1897 - “Former People”, “The Orlov Spouses”, “Malva”, “Konovalov”.
• From October 1897 to mid-January 1898, he lived in the village of Kamenka (now the city of Kuvshinovo, Tver Region) in the apartment of his friend Nikolai Zakharovich Vasiliev, who worked at the Kamensk paper factory and led an illegal workers' Marxist circle. Subsequently, the life impressions of this period served the writer as material for the novel “The Life of Klim Samgin.”
• 1898 - The publishing house of Dorovatsky and A.P. Charushnikov published the first volume of Gorky's works. In those years, the circulation of the young author's first book rarely exceeded 1000 copies. A. I. Bogdanovich advised to release the first two volumes of M. Gorky’s “Essays and Stories”, 1200 copies each. Publishers “took a chance” and released more. The first volume of the 1st edition of “Essays and Stories” was published in a circulation of 3,000 copies.
• 1899 - novel “Foma Gordeev”, prose poem “Song of the Falcon”.
• 1900-1901 - the novel “Three”, personal acquaintance with Chekhov and Tolstoy.

• 1900-1913 - participates in the work of the publishing house "Knowledge"
• March 1901 - “Song of the Petrel” was created by M. Gorky in Nizhny Novgorod. Participation in Marxist workers' circles in Nizhny Novgorod, Sormovo, St. Petersburg, wrote a proclamation calling for the fight against autocracy. Arrested and expelled from Nizhny Novgorod. According to contemporaries, Nikolai Gumilyov highly valued the last stanza of this poem.

• In 1901, M. Gorky turned to drama. Creates the plays “The Bourgeois” (1901), “At the Lower Depths” (1902). In 1902, he became the godfather and adoptive father of the Jew Zinovy ​​Sverdlov, who took the surname Peshkov and converted to Orthodoxy. This was necessary in order for Zinovy ​​to receive the right to live in Moscow.
• February 21 - election of M. Gorky to honorary academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature.

• 1904-1905 - writes the plays “Summer Residents”, “Children of the Sun”, “Varvars”. Meets Lenin. He was arrested for the revolutionary proclamation and in connection with the execution on January 9, but then released under public pressure. Participant in the revolution of 1905-1907. In the fall of 1905 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.

• 1906 - travels abroad, creates satirical pamphlets about the “bourgeois” culture of France and the USA (“My Interviews”, “In America”). He writes the play “Enemies” and creates the novel “Mother”. Due to tuberculosis, he settled in Italy on the island of Capri, where he lived for 7 years (from 1906 to 1913). Checked into the prestigious Quisisana Hotel. From March 1909 to February 1911 he lived at the Villa Spinola (now Bering), stayed at the villas (they have commemorative plaques about his stay) Blesius (from 1906 to 1909) and Serfina (now Pierina) ). On Capri, Gorky wrote “Confession” (1908), where his philosophical differences with Lenin and rapprochement with Lunacharsky and Bogdanov were clearly outlined.

• 1907 - delegate to the V Congress of the RSDLP.
• 1908 - play “The Last”, story “The Life of an Useless Person”.
• 1909 - the stories “The Town of Okurov”, “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin”.
• 1913 - Gorky edits the Bolshevik newspapers Zvezda and Pravda, the art department of the Bolshevik magazine Prosveshchenie, and publishes the first collection of proletarian writers. Writes "Tales of Italy".
• 1912-1916 - M. Gorky creates a series of stories and essays that made up the collection “Across Rus'”, autobiographical stories “Childhood”, “In People”. The last part of the trilogy, “My Universities,” was written in 1923.
• 1917-1919 - M. Gorky does a lot of social and political work, criticizes the “methods” of the Bolsheviks, condemns their attitude towards the old intelligentsia, saves many of its representatives from Bolshevik repression and famine.

Abroad

• 1921 - M. Gorky’s departure abroad. IN Soviet literature a myth has developed that the reason for his departure was the resumption of his illness and the need, at Lenin’s insistence, for treatment abroad. In fact, A. M. Gorky was forced to leave due to an exacerbation ideological differences with established power. In 1921-1923 lived in Helsingfors, Berlin, Prague.
• Since 1924 he lived in Italy, in Sorrento. Published memoirs about Lenin.
• 1925 - novel “The Artamonov Case”.

• 1928 - at the invitation of the Soviet government and Stalin personally, he tours the country, during which Gorky is shown the achievements of the USSR, which are reflected in the series of essays “Around the Soviet Union.”
• 1931 - Gorky visits the Solovetsky special purpose camp and writes a laudatory review of its regime. A fragment of A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s work “The Gulag Archipelago” is dedicated to this fact.

Return to the USSR

• 1932 - Gorky returns to the Soviet Union. The government provided him former mansion Ryabushinsky on Spiridonovka, dachas in Gorki and Teselli (Crimea). Here he receives Stalin’s order - to prepare the ground for the 1st Congress of Soviet Writers, and for this to carry out preparatory work among them. Gorky created many newspapers and magazines: the book series “History of Factories”, “History of the Civil War”, “The Poet’s Library”, “The History of a Young Man” XIX century", the magazine "Literary Studies", he writes the plays "Yegor Bulychev and others" (1932), "Dostigaev and others" (1933).

• 1934 - Gorky conducts I All-Union Congress Soviet writers, gives a keynote speech.
• 1934 - co-editor of the book “Stalin Canal”
• In 1925-1936 he wrote the novel “The Life of Klim Samgin”, which remained unfinished.
• On May 11, 1934, Gorky’s son, Maxim Peshkov, unexpectedly dies. M. Gorky died on June 18, 1936 in Gorki, having outlived his son by a little more than two years. After his death, he was cremated and his ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow. Before cremation, M. Gorky's brain was removed and taken to the Moscow Brain Institute for further study.

Death

The circumstances of the death of Maxim Gorky and his son are considered “suspicious” by many; there were rumors of poisoning, which, however, were not confirmed. At the funeral, among others, Molotov and Stalin carried Gorky’s coffin. It is interesting that among other accusations against Genrikh Yagoda at the Third Moscow Trial in 1938 was the accusation of poisoning Gorky’s son. According to Yagoda's interrogations, Maxim Gorky was killed on Trotsky's orders, and the murder of Gorky's son, Maxim Peshkov, was his personal initiative.

Some publications blame Stalin for Gorky's death. An important precedent for the medical side of the accusations in the “Doctors' Case” was the Third Moscow Trial (1938), where among the defendants were three doctors (Kazakov, Levin and Pletnev), accused of the murders of Gorky and others.

Family and personal life

1. Wife - Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova (nee Volozhina).
   1. Son - Maxim Alekseevich Peshkov (1897-1934) + Vvedenskaya, Nadezhda Alekseevna (“Timosha”)
      1. Peshkova, Marfa Maksimovna + Beria, Sergo Lavrentievich
         1. daughters Nina and Nadezhda, son Sergei (they bore the surname “Peshkov” because of the fate of Beria)
      2. Peshkova, Daria Maksimovna + Grave, Alexander Konstantinovich
         1. Maxim and Ekaterina (carried the surname Peshkov)
            1. Alexey Peshkov, son of Catherine
   2. Daughter - Ekaterina Alekseevna Peshkova (died as a child)
   3. Peshkov, Zinovy ​​Alekseevich, brother of Yakov Sverdlov, godson of Peshkov, who took his last name, and de facto adopted son + (1) Lydia Burago
2. Concubine 1906-1913 - Maria Fedorovna Andreeva (1872-1953)
   1. Ekaterina Andreevna Zhelyabuzhskaya (Andreeva’s daughter from her first marriage, Gorky’s stepdaughter) + Abram Garmant
   2. Zhelyabuzhsky, Yuri Andreevich (stepson)
   3. Evgeniy G. Kyakist, Andreeva’s nephew
   4. A. L. Zhelyabuzhsky, nephew of Andreeva’s first husband
3. Long-term life partner - Budberg, Maria Ignatievna

Environment

• Shaikevich Varvara Vasilievna - the wife of A.N. Tikhonov-Serebrova, Gorky’s lover, who allegedly had a child from him.
• Tikhonov-Serebrov Alexander Nikolaevich - assistant.
• Rakitsky, Ivan Nikolaevich - artist.
• Khodasevichi: Valentin, his wife Nina Berberova; niece Valentina Mikhailovna, her husband Andrey Diederichs.
• Yakov Izrailevich.
• Kryuchkov, Pyotr Petrovich - secretary, later, together with Yagoda,