Maxim Gorky childhood when it was written. “Childhood” by Maxim Gorky as an autobiographical story

The biography of Maxim Gorky is set out in his works: “Childhood”, “In People”, “My Universities”, or rather, the beginning of his life. Maxim Gorky is the pseudonym of the outstanding Russian writer and playwright Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov. In his creative biography there was another pseudonym: Yehudiel Chlamida.

The nugget of talent has been awarded five times Nobel Prize on literature. He is usually called a proletarian, revolutionary writer for his struggle against autocracy. The biography of Maxim Gorky was not easy. This will be discussed in this article.

Maxim Gorky was born in 1868. His biography began in Nizhny Novgorod. His maternal grandfather, Kashirin, was a demoted officer due to harsh treatment of his subordinates. After returning from exile, he became a tradesman and ran a dyeing workshop. His daughter married a carpenter and left with her husband for Astrakhan. There they had two children.

The eldest of them, Alyosha, fell ill with cholera at the age of four. Since the mother was pregnant with her second child, the father took care of the sick child and became infected from him. He soon died, and the boy recovered. Due to her worries, the mother gave birth prematurely. She decided to return to her parents' home with the children. On the way, her youngest child died.

They settled in her father's house in Nizhny Novgorod. Now there is a museum there - Kashirin’s house. The furnishings and furniture of those years have been preserved, even the rods with which the grandfather flogged Alyosha. He had a tough, hot-tempered character and could whip anyone in his anger, even his little grandson.

Maxim Gorky was educated at home. His mother taught him to read, and his grandfather taught him to read and write in church. Despite his temper, my grandfather was a very pious man. He often visited church and took his grandson there, usually against his will, by force. This is how a negative attitude towards religion arose in little Alyosha, as well as a spirit of resistance, which would later develop into a revolutionary trend in his works.

One day a boy took revenge on his grandfather by cutting up his favorite “Lives of the Saints” with scissors. For which, of course, he received it properly.

Maxim did not attend parish school for long. But due to illness he was forced to stop studying there. Maxim Gorky also studied at the Sloboda school for two years. That, perhaps, is all his education is. All his life he wrote with errors, which were then corrected by his wife, a proofreader by profession.

Alyosha’s mother remarried and moved in with her husband, taking her son with her. But his relationship with his stepfather did not work out. One day Alyosha saw him beating his mother. The boy attacked his stepfather and beat him. After that I had to run away to my grandfather, which was, of course, not the best option.

For a long time, Alyosha’s school of life was the street where he got the nickname “Bashlyk”. For some time he stole firewood to heat the house, food, and looked for rags in a landfill. After his classmates complained to the teacher that it was impossible to sit next to him because of the bad smell emanating from him, Maxim Gorky was offended and no longer came to school. He never received secondary education.

Youth years

Soon Alexei’s mother fell ill with Czech fever and died. Left orphaned, Alyosha was forced to earn his living. By that time my grandfather was completely broke. Gorky himself writes well about this time: “...my grandfather told me:

- Well, Lexey, you are not a medal, there is no place for you on my neck, but go join the people...

And I went among the people." This is how the story “Childhood” ends. The adult, independent period of the biography of Maxim Gorky begins. And he was only eleven years old then!

Alexey worked in different places: in a shop as a helper, as a cook, on a ship as a cook, in an icon-painting workshop as an apprentice.

When he was sixteen years old, he decided to try to enter Kazan University. But, to his great regret, he was refused. Firstly, low-income people were not accepted there, and secondly, he didn’t even have a certificate.

Then Alexey went to work at the pier. There he met revolutionary-minded youth, began to attend their circles, and read Marxist literature.

When the young man worked in a bakery, he met the populist Derenkov. He sent income from the sale of products to support the popular movement.

In 1987, Alexei’s grandmother and grandfather died. He loved his grandmother very much, who often protected him from his grandfather’s outbursts of anger and told him fairy tales. At her grave in Nizhny Novgorod, a monument was erected depicting her telling a fairy tale to her beloved grandson Alyosha.

The young man was very worried about her death. He developed depression, during which he attempted suicide. Alexei shot himself in the chest with a gun. But the watchman managed to call medical help. The unfortunate man was taken to the hospital, where he was urgently operated on. He lived, but the consequences of this wound would cause him lifelong lung disease.

Later, in the hospital, Alexey made another suicide attempt. He drank poison from a medical vessel. They managed to pump him out again, washing his stomach. Here psychiatrists had to examine the young man. Many mental disorders were found that were later rejected. For attempting suicide, Alexei was excommunicated from church communion for four years.

In 1988, Alexey, together with other revolutionaries, left for Krasnovidovo to conduct revolutionary propaganda. He joins Fedoseev's circle, for which he is arrested. From that moment on, the police begin to follow him. At that time he was a farm laborer, worked as a watchman at the station, then moved to the Caspian Sea, where he began working among other fishermen.

In 1989, he wrote a petition in verse with the aim of transferring him to Borisoglebsk. Then he worked at the Krutaya station. Here Alexey first fell in love with the daughter of the station chief. His feeling was so strong that he decided to propose marriage. He, of course, was refused. But he remembered the girl all his life.

Alexey was fascinated by the ideas of Leo Tolstoy. He even went to see him in Yasnaya Polyana. But the writer’s wife ordered the walker to be driven away.

The beginning of a creative career

In 1989, Maxim Gorky met the writer Korolenko and took the risk of showing him his work. The beginning of his creative biography was very unsuccessful. The writer criticized his “Song of the Old Oak”. But the young man did not despair and continued to write.

This year Peshkov goes to prison for participating in the revolutionary youth movement. Coming out of captivity, he decides to go on a journey through Mother Rus'. He visited the Volga region, Crimea, the Caucasus, Ukraine (where he was hospitalized). I traveled what is now called “hitchhiking” - on passing convoys, walked a lot, climbed into empty freight cars. The young romantic liked this free life. The opportunity to see the world and feel the happiness of freedom - all this is easily the basis of the works of a beginning writer.

Then the manuscript “Makara Chudra” was born. In Georgia, Peshkov met the revolutionary Kalyuzhny. He published this work in the newspaper. Then the pseudonym Maxim Gorky was born. Maxim - in honor of his father, and Gorky - because bitterness was constantly present in his biography.

His works began to be readily published in newspapers and magazines. Soon everyone was talking about the new talent. By that time he had already settled down and got married.

Splash of fame

In 1998, two volumes of the writer’s works were published. They brought him not only great glory, but also trouble. Gorky was arrested for revolutionary views and imprisoned in a castle in the capital of Georgia.

After his release, the writer settled in St. Petersburg. There they were created by him best works: “Song about the Petrel”, “At the Bottom”, “Philistines”, “Three” and others. In 1902 he was elected honorary academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. The emperor himself highly appreciated the writer’s work, despite his struggle with the autocracy. His sharp, direct language, courage, freedom, and the genius of thought present in his works could not leave anyone indifferent. The talent was obvious.

During that period, Gorky continued to take part in the revolutionary movement, attended circles, and distributed Marxist literature. As if the lessons of past arrests had no effect on him. Such courage simply infuriated the police.

Now famous writer already communicated freely with the idol of his youth, Leo Tolstoy. They talked for a long time in Yasnaya Polyana. He also met other writers: Kuprin, Bunin and others.

In 1902, Gorky and his family, which already had two children, moved to Nizhny Novgorod. He rents a spacious house in the city center. Now there is a museum there. This apartment was a haven for creative people of that time. Such famous people as Chekhov, Tolstoy, Stanislavsky, Andreev, Bunin, Repin and, of course, his friend Fyodor Chaliapin gathered there and communicated for a long time, exchanging new works. He played the piano and sang pieces of music.

Here he finished “At the Bottom”, wrote “Mother”, “Man”, “Summer Residents”. He was good not only in prose, but also in poetry. But some of them, for example “The Song of the Storm Petrel,” are, as you know, written in blank verse. The revolutionary, proud spirit, the call to fight are present in almost all of his works.

Last years

In 1904, Gorky joined the RSDLP, next year met Lenin. The writer is arrested again and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. But soon, under public pressure, he was released. In 1906, Gorky was forced to leave the country and became a political emigrant.

He lived first in the USA. Then, due to a serious illness (tuberculosis) that tormented him for a long time, he settled in Italy. Everywhere he carried out revolutionary propaganda. Concerned authorities recommended that he settle on the island of Capri, where he lived for about seven years.

On the roof of the Izvestia newspaper editorial office building

Many Russian writers and revolutionaries visited him here. Once a week, a seminar for aspiring writers was even held in his villa.

Gorky wrote his “Tales of Italy” here. In 12, he went to Paris, where he talked with Lenin.

In 13, Gorky returned to Russia. He settled in St. Petersburg for five years. Relatives and acquaintances found refuge in his spacious house. One day a woman named Maria Budberg brought him papers to sign and fainted from hunger. Gorky fed her and left her in his house. She would later become his mistress.

With writer Romain Rolland

Gorky, who was active in revolutionary activities, oddly enough had a negative attitude towards the October coup in the country. He was struck by the cruelty of the revolution and interceded for the arrested whites. After the assassination attempt on Lenin, Gorky sent him a sympathetic telegram.

In 21, Gorky left his homeland again. According to one version, the reason for this was deteriorating health, according to another, disagreement with politics in the country.

In 1928, the writer was invited to the USSR. He traveled around the country for five weeks, then returned back to Italy. And in 1933 he returned to his homeland, where he lived until his death.

In the last years of his life, he created the book “The Life of Klim Samgin,” which is striking in its philosophy of life.

In 1934, Gorky held the First Congress of the USSR Writers' Union.

In recent years he lived in Crimea. In 1936, Gorky visited his sick grandchildren in Moscow. Apparently he got infected from them or caught a cold on the way. But his health condition deteriorated sharply. The writer fell ill, it was clear that he would not recover.

Stalin visited the dying Gorky. The writer died on June 18. At the autopsy it turned out that his lungs were in terrible condition.

The writer's coffin was carried by Molotov and Stalin. Both of Gorky's wives followed the coffin. The city of Nizhny Novgorod, where the writer was born, bore his name from 1932 until 1990.

Personal life

Gorky always possessed enviable masculine strength, according to surviving information, despite his chronic illness.

The writer's first unofficial marriage was with midwife Olga Kamenskaya. Her mother, also a midwife, delivered the baby to Peshkov’s mother. It seemed interesting to him that his mother-in-law helped bring him into the world. But they did not live long with Olga. Gorky left her after she fell asleep while the author was reading “The Old Woman Izergil.”

In 1996, Alexey married Ekaterina Volzhina. She was the only official wife of the writer. They had two children: Ekaterina and Maxim. Katya died soon after. The son died two years before Gorky.

In 1903, he became friends with actress Maria Andreeva, who left her husband and two children for his sake. He lived with her until his death. Moreover, there was never a divorce from Gorky’s first wife.

(estimates: 5 , average: 2,80 out of 5)

Name: Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov
Nicknames: Maxim Gorky, Yehudiel Chlamida
Birthday: March 16, 1868
Place of Birth: Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire
Date of death: June 18, 1936
A place of death: Gorki, Moscow region, RSFSR, USSR

Biography of Maxim Gorky

Maxim Gorky was born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1868. In fact, the writer’s name was Alexey, but his father was Maxim, and the writer’s last name was Peshkov. The father worked as a simple carpenter, so the family could not be called wealthy. At the age of 7 he went to school, but after a couple of months he had to quit his studies due to smallpox. As a result, the boy received a home education, and he also studied all subjects independently.

Gorky had a rather difficult childhood. His parents died too early, and the boy lived with his grandfather , who had a very difficult character. Already at 11 years old future writer went to earn his own bread, working part-time in a bread store or in a canteen on a ship.

In 1884, Gorky found himself in Kazan and tried to get an education, but this attempt failed, and he had to work hard again to earn money to feed himself. At the age of 19, Gorky even tries to commit suicide due to poverty and fatigue.

Here he becomes interested in Marxism and tries to agitate. In 1888 he was arrested for the first time. He gets a job at an iron job where the authorities keep a close eye on him.

In 1889, Gorky returned to Nizhny Novgorod and got a job as a clerk for lawyer Lanin. It was during this period that he wrote “The Song of the Old Oak” and turned to Korolenko to evaluate the work.

In 1891, Gorky went to travel around the country. His story “Makar Chudra” was published for the first time in Tiflis.

In 1892, Gorky again travels to Nizhny Novgorod and returns to the service of lawyer Lanin. Here he is already published in many publications in Samara and Kazan. In 1895 he moved to Samara. At this time he actively wrote and his works were constantly published. The two-volume “Essays and Stories,” published in 1898, is in great demand and is very actively discussed and criticized. In the period from 1900 to 1901 he met Tolstoy and Chekhov.

In 1901, Gorky created his first plays “The Bourgeois” and “At the Depths”. They were very popular, and “The Bourgeois” was even staged in Vienna and Berlin. The writer has already become famous internationally. From this moment on, his works are translated into different languages ​​of the world, and he and his works become the object of close attention of foreign critics.

Gorky became a participant in the revolution in 1905, and since 1906 he left his country in connection with political events. He has lived on the Italian island of Capri for a long time. Here he writes the novel “Mother”. This work influenced the emergence of a new direction in literature, like socialist realism.

In 1913, Maxim Gorky was finally able to return to his homeland. During this period, he actively worked on his autobiography. He also works as an editor for two newspapers. At the same time, he gathered proletarian writers around him and published a collection of their works.

The period of the revolution in 1917 was controversial for Gorky. As a result, he joins the ranks of the Bolsheviks, even despite doubts and torment. However, he does not support some of their views and actions. In particular, regarding the intelligentsia. Thanks to Gorky, most of the intelligentsia in those days avoided hunger and painful death.

In 1921, Gorky left his country. There is a version that he does this because Lenin was too worried about the health of the great writer, whose tuberculosis had worsened. However, the reason could also be Gorky’s contradictions with the authorities. He lived in Prague, Berlin and Sorrento.

When Gorky turned 60, Stalin himself invited him to the USSR. The writer was given a warm welcome. He traveled around the country, where he spoke at meetings and rallies. They honor him in every possible way and take him to the Communist Academy.

In 1932, Gorky returned to the USSR for good. He is very active in literary activities, organizes the All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, publishes a large number of newspapers.

In 1936, terrible news spread throughout the country: Maxim Gorky left this world. The writer caught a cold when he visited his son’s grave. However, there is an opinion that both son and father were poisoned due to political views, but this has never been proven.

Documentary

Your attention documentary, biography of Maxim Gorky.

Bibliography of Maxim Gorky

Novels

1899
Foma Gordeev
1900-1901
Three
1906
Mother (second edition - 1907)
1925
Artamonov case
1925-1936
Life of Klim Samgin

Stories

1908
The life of an unnecessary person
1908
Confession
1909
Okurov town
Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin
1913-1914
Childhood
1915-1916
In people
1923
My universities

Stories, essays

1892
The Girl and Death
1892
Makar Chudra
1895
Chelkash
Old Isergil
1897
Former people
The Orlov couple
Mallow
Konovalov
1898
Essays and stories (collection)
1899
Song of the Falcon (prose poem)
Twenty six and one
1901
Song of the Petrel (prose poem)
1903
Man (prose poem)
1913
Tales of Italy
1912-1917
In Rus' (cycle of stories)
1924
Stories from 1922-1924
1924
Notes from a diary (series of stories)

Plays

1901
Bourgeois
1902
At the bottom
1904
Summer residents
1905
Children of the Sun
Barbarians
1906
Enemies
1910
Vassa Zheleznova (reworked in December 1935)
1915
Old man
1930-1931
Somov and others
1932
Egor Bulychov and others
1933
Dostigaev and others

Journalism

1906
My interviews
In America" ​​(pamphlets)
1917-1918
series of articles “Untimely Thoughts” in the newspaper “ New life»
1922
About the Russian peasantry

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

Student's message about Gorky's biography

Childhood

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

"In people"

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

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

"My Universities"

Start literary activity

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

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

The origins of Gorky's prose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trip to America and Europe

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Childhood"

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

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

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

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

"Untimely Thoughts"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gorky's activities in the first post-revolutionary years

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

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

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

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

Treatment abroad

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

Return to Moscow, last years of life

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

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

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

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

Literature

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

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

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

Really, oh early years Alexei Maksimovich Gorky (Peshkov) is known only from the autobiographies he himself wrote (there are several versions) and works of art - autobiographical trilogy: “Childhood”, “In People”, “My Universities”.

To what extent the “leaden abominations of wild Russian life” set forth in the mentioned works correspond to reality, and to what extent they are the author’s literary fiction is unknown to this day. We can only compare the texts of Gorky's early autobiographies with his other literary texts, but there is also no need to talk about the reliability of this information.

According to the memoirs of Vladislav Khodasevich, Gorky once told with a laugh how one clever Nizhny Novgorod publisher of “books for the people” persuaded him to write his biography, saying: “Your life, Alexey Maksimovich, is pure money.”

It seems that the writer took this advice, but left the prerogative to earn this “money” for himself.

In his first autobiography in 1897, written at the request of the literary critic and bibliographer S.A. Vengerov, M. Gorky wrote about his parents:

In subsequent autobiographies of writers, there is a lot of confusion in dates and inconsistencies with documented facts. Even with the day and year of his birth, Gorky cannot decide unambiguously. In his autobiography of 1897, he indicates the date March 14, 1869, in the next version (1899) - “born on March 14, either 1867 or 1868.”

It is documented that A.M. Peshkov was born on March 16 (28), 1868 in the city of Nizhny Novgorod. Father - cabinetmaker Maxim Savvatievich Peshkov (1839-1871), the son of an officer demoted to soldier. Mother - Varvara Vasilievna (1844-1879), nee Kashirina, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, the owner of a dyeing establishment, who was a shop foreman and was more than once elected as a deputy of the Nizhny Novgorod Duma. Despite the fact that Gorky's parents got married against the wishes of the bride's father, the conflict between the families was soon successfully resolved. In the spring of 1871, M.S. Peshkov was appointed manager of the Kolchin Shipping Company office, and the young family moved from Nizhny Novgorod to Astrakhan. Soon the father died of cholera, and the mother and Alexei returned to Nizhny.

Gorky himself dates the date of his father’s death and mother’s return to the Kashirin family first to the summer of 1873, then to the autumn of 1871. The autobiographies also differ in information about Gorky’s life “in public.” For example, in one version he ran away from the shoe store where he worked as a “boy”, in another, repeated later in the story “In People” (1916), he was scalded with cabbage soup and his grandfather took him from the shoemaker, etc., etc. .…

In autobiographical works written by an already mature writer, in the period from 1912 to 1925, literary fiction is closely intertwined with childhood memories and early impressions of a still unformed personality. As if driven by long-standing childhood grievances that he was unable to overcome throughout his life, Gorky sometimes deliberately exaggerates the colors, adds unnecessary drama, trying again and again to justify the once chosen pseudonym.

In his Autobiography of 1897, the almost thirty-year-old writer allows himself to express himself this way about his own mother:

Did he seriously believe that an adult woman could consider her little son to be the cause of the death of her loved one? Blame your child for your unsettled personal life?

In the story “Childhood” (1912-1913), Gorky fulfills the obvious social order of the Russian progressive public of the early twentieth century: he describes the misfortunes of the people in good literary language, not forgetting to add personal childhood grievances here.

It is worth remembering with what deliberate antipathy Alyosha Peshkov’s stepfather Maksimov is described on the pages of the story, who did not give the boy anything good, but did not do anything bad either. The mother’s second marriage was clearly regarded by the hero of “Childhood” as a betrayal, and the writer himself spared neither causticity nor gloomy colors to describe his stepfather’s relatives - impoverished nobles. On the pages of the works of her famous son, Varvara Vasilievna Peshkova-Maximova is denied even that bright, largely mythologized memory that was preserved for her early deceased father.

Gorky's grandfather, the respected shop foreman V.V. Kashirin, appears before the reader in the image of a kind of monster with which to frighten naughty children. Most likely, Vasily Vasilyevich had an explosive, despotic character and was not very pleasant to talk to, but he loved his grandson in his own way and sincerely cared about his upbringing and education. The grandfather himself taught six-year-old Alyosha first Church Slavonic literacy, then modern, civil literacy. In 1877, he sent his grandson to the Nizhny Novgorod Kunavinsky School, where he studied until 1879, receiving a certificate of commendation upon entering the third grade for “excellent success in science and good behavior compared to others.” That is, the future writer still completed two classes of college, and with honors. In one of his autobiographies, Gorky claims that he attended school for about five months, received only “twos”, and sincerely hated studies, books and any printed texts, even his passport.

What is this? Resentment towards your not so “hopeless” past? Voluntary self-deprecation or a way to assure the reader that “from the aspen tree oranges will be born”? The desire to present oneself as an absolute “nugget,” a self-made man, was inherent in many “proletarian” writers and poets. Even S.A. Yesenin, having received a decent education at a teacher’s school, worked as a proofreader in a Moscow printing house, attended classes at the Shanyavsky People’s University, but all his life, obeying political fashion, he tried to present himself as an illiterate “peasant” and a hillbilly...

The only bright spot against the background of the general " dark kingdom Gorky's autobiographical stories focus on his relationship with his grandmother, Akulina Ivanovna. Obviously, this illiterate, but kind and honest woman was able to completely replace the mother who “betrayed” him in the boy’s mind. She gave her grandson all her love and participation, perhaps awakening in the soul of the future writer the desire to see the beauty behind the gray reality surrounding him.

Grandfather Kashirin soon went bankrupt: the division of the family enterprise with his sons and subsequent failures in business led him to complete poverty. Unable to survive the blow of fate, he fell ill with mental illness. Eleven-year-old Alyosha was forced to leave school and go “to the people,” that is, to learn some kind of craft.

From 1879 to 1884, he was a “boy” in a shoe shop, a student in a drawing and icon-painting workshop, and a dishwasher in the galleys of the Perm and Dobry steamships. Here an event took place that Alexey Maksimovich himself is inclined to consider “the starting point” on his path to Maxim Gorky: meeting a cook named Smury. This remarkable cook, despite his illiteracy, was obsessed with collecting books, mainly leather-bound. The range of his “leather” collection turned out to be very unique - from the Gothic novels of Anna Radcliffe and the poems of Nekrasov to literature in the Little Russian language. Thanks to this, according to the writer, “the strangest library in the world” (Autobiography, 1897), Alyosha Peshkov became addicted to reading and “read everything that came to hand”: Gogol, Nekrasov, Scott, Dumas, Flaubert, Balzac, Dickens, magazines “Sovremennik” and “Iskra”, popular print books and Freemasonic literature.

However, according to Gorky himself, he began reading books much earlier. In his autobiography there is a mention that from the age of ten the future writer kept a diary in which he recorded impressions not only from life, but also from the books he read. Agree, it is difficult to imagine a teenager living a miserable life as a servant, merchant, dishwasher, but at the same time keeping diary entries, reading serious literature and dreaming of going to university.

Such fantasy “inconsistencies”, worthy of embodiment in Soviet cinema of the mid-1930s (“Shining Path”, “Jolly Fellows”, etc.), are constantly present on the pages of M. Gorky’s “autobiographical” works.

In 1912-1917, even before the Glavpolitprosvet and the People's Commissariat for Education, the revolutionary writer had already firmly taken the path that was later called “socialist realism.” He knew perfectly well what and how to display in his works in order to fit into the future reality.

In 1884, the “tramp” Alexey Peshkov actually went to Kazan with the intention of entering the university:

How fifteen-year-old Peshkov learned about the existence of the university, and why he decided that he could be accepted there, is also a mystery. Living in Kazan, he communicated not only with “former people” - tramps and prostitutes. In 1885, the baker’s assistant Peshkov began attending self-education circles (usually Marxist), student gatherings, and using the library of illegal books and proclamations at Derenkov’s bakery, who hired him. Soon a mentor appeared - one of the first Marxists in Russia, Nikolai Fedoseev...

And suddenly, having already found the “fateful” revolutionary vein, on December 12, 1887, Alexei Peshkov tries to commit suicide (shoots himself in the lung). Some biographers find the reason for this in his unrequited love for Derenkov’s sister Maria, others - in the beginning of repressions against student circles. These explanations seem formal, since they do not at all fit the psychophysical makeup of Alexei Peshkov. By nature he was a fighter, and all the obstacles along the way only refreshed his strength.

Some biographers of Gorky believe that the reason for his unsuccessful suicide could have been an internal struggle in his soul young man. Under the influence of haphazardly read books and Marxist ideas, there was a reshaping of the consciousness of the future writer, ousting from him that boy who began life with a Church Slavonic literacy, and then the insanity of rationalistic materialism fell upon him...

This “demon” appeared, by the way, in Alexei’s farewell note:

In order to master his chosen path, Alexei Peshkov had to become a different person, and he became one. Here a fragment from Dostoevsky’s “Demons” involuntarily comes to mind: “... lately he has been noticed in the most impossible oddities. For example, he threw two of his master’s images out of his apartment and chopped one of them with an ax; in his own room he laid out on stands, in the form of three lecterns, the works of Vocht, Moleschott and Buchner and lit wax church candles in front of each lectern.”

For attempting suicide, the Kazan Spiritual Consistory excommunicated Peshkov from the Church for seven years.

In the summer of 1888, Alexei Peshkov began his famous four-year “walk around Rus'” in order to return from it as Maxim Gorky. Volga region, Don, Ukraine, Crimea, Caucasus, Kharkov, Kursk, Zadonsk (where he visited the Zadonsk Monastery), Voronezh, Poltava, Mirgorod, Kiev, Nikolaev, Odessa, Bessarabia, Kerch, Taman, Kuban, Tiflis - this is an incomplete list of his travel routes .

During his wanderings, he worked as a loader, a railway watchman, a dishwasher, worked as a laborer in villages, mined salt, was beaten by men and was hospitalized, served in repair shops, and was arrested several times - for vagrancy and for revolutionary propaganda. “I water the bucket of enlightenment with benign ideas, and they bring known results"- wrote A. Peshkov at that time to one of his addressees.

During these same years, Gorky experienced a passion for populism and Tolstoyism (in 1889 he visited Yasnaya Polyana with the intention of asking Leo Tolstoy for a plot of land for an “agricultural colony,” but their meeting did not take place), became ill with Nietzsche’s teaching about the superman, which forever left its “pockmarks” in his views.

Start

The first story, “Makar Chudra,” signed by a new name - Maxim Gorky, was published in 1892 in the Tiflis newspaper “Caucasus” and marked the end of his wanderings. Gorky returned to Nizhny Novgorod. With his literary godfather he considered Vladimir Korolenko. Under his patronage, since 1893, the aspiring writer has been publishing essays in Volga newspapers, and a few years later he becomes a permanent employee of the Samara Newspaper. More than two hundred of his feuilletons signed by Yehudiel Chlamida were published here, as well as the stories “Song of the Falcon”, “On Rafts”, “Old Woman Izergil”, etc. At the editorial office of the Samara Newspaper, Gorky met the proofreader Ekaterina Pavlovna Volzhina. Having successfully overcome his mother’s resistance to the marriage of his noblewoman daughter to the “Nizhny Novgorod guild,” in 1896 Alexey Maksimovich married her.

The following year, despite worsening tuberculosis and concerns with the birth of his son Maxim, Gorky released new novels and short stories, most of which would become textbooks: “Konovalov”, “Zazubrina”, “Fair in Goltva”, “The Orlov Spouses”, “Malva” , “Former People”, etc. Gorky’s first two-volume book “Essays and Stories” (1898), published in St. Petersburg, had unprecedented success both in Russia and abroad. The demand for it was so great that a re-edition was immediately required - released in 1899 in three volumes. Gorky sent his first book to A.P. Chekhov, whom I was in awe of. He responded with a more than generous compliment: “Undoubted talent, and a real, great talent at that.”

In the same year, the debutant came to St. Petersburg and caused a standing ovation from the capital: the enthusiastic public organized banquets and literary evenings in his honor. He was greeted by people from a variety of countries: the populist critic Nikolai Mikhailovsky, the decadents Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius, academician Andrei Nikolaevich Beketov (grandfather of Alexander Blok), Ilya Repin, who painted his portrait... “Essays and Stories” were perceived as the frontier of public self-determination , and Gorky immediately became one of the most influential and popular Russian writers. Of course, interest in him was also fueled by the legendary biography of Gorky the tramp, Gorky the nugget, Gorky the sufferer (by this time he had already been in prison several times for revolutionary activities and was under police supervision)...

"Lord of Thoughts"

“Essays and Stories”, as well as the writer’s four-volume work “Stories”, which began to be published by the publishing house “Znanie”, produced a huge critical literature- from 1900 to 1904, 91 books were published about Gorky! Neither Turgenev, nor Leo Tolstoy, nor Dostoevsky had such fame during their lifetime. What is the reason?

IN late XIX- at the beginning of the 20th century, against the background of decadence (decadence), as a reaction to it, two powerful magnetic ideas began to take root: the cult of a strong personality, inspired by Nietzsche, and the socialist reorganization of the world (Marx). These were the ideas of the era. And Gorky, who walked all over Russia, with the brilliant instinct of an animal, felt the rhythms of his time and the smells of new ideas in the air. Gorky’s artistic expression, going beyond the boundaries of art, “opened a new dialogue with reality” (Petr Palievsky). The innovative writer introduced into literature an offensive style unusual for Russian classics, designed to invade reality and radically change life. He also brought a new hero - “a talented spokesman for the protesting masses,” as the Iskra newspaper wrote. Heroic-romantic the parables “Old Woman Izergil”, “Song of the Falcon”, “Song of the Petrel” (1901) became revolutionary appeals in the rising proletarian movement. Critics of the previous generation accused Gorky of apologizing for tramping and preaching Nietzsche's individualism. But they argued with the will of history itself, and therefore they lost this argument.

In 1900, Gorky joined the publishing partnership “Znanie” and for ten years he was its ideological leader, uniting around himself writers whom he considered “advanced.” At his instigation, books by Serafimovich, Leonid Andreev, Bunin, Skitalets, Garin-Mikhailovsky, Veresaev, Mamin-Sibiryak, Kuprin and others were published here. Social work did not slow down creativity at all: the magazine “Life” published the story “Twenty Six and One” ( 1899), novels “Foma Gordeev” (1899), “Three” (1900-1901).

On February 25, 1902, thirty-four-year-old Gorky was elected honorary academician in the category of fine literature, but the election was declared invalid. Suspecting the Academy of Sciences of collusion with the authorities, Korolenko and Chekhov renounced the title of honorary academicians as a sign of protest.

In 1902, “Knowledge” published Gorky’s first play “The Bourgeois” as a separate edition, which premiered that same year at the famous Moscow Art Theater (MAT), and six months later there was the triumphant premiere of the play “At the Depths.” The play “Summer Residents” (1904) was performed a few months later in the fashionable St. Petersburg theater of Vera Komissarzhevskaya. Subsequently, Gorky's new plays were staged on the same stage: “Children of the Sun” (1905) and “Barbarians” (1906).

Gorky in the 1905 revolution

Intense creative work did not prevent the writer from becoming closer to the Bolsheviks and Iskra before the first Russian revolution. Gorky organized fundraisers for them and himself made generous donations to the party treasury. In this affection, apparently, not last role played one of the most beautiful actresses Moscow Art Theater Maria Fedorovna Andreeva, a convinced Marxist, closely associated with the RSDLP. In 1903 she became common-law wife Gorky. She also brought the philanthropist Savva Morozov, her ardent admirer and admirer of M. Gorky’s talent, to the Bolsheviks. A wealthy Moscow industrialist who financed the Moscow Art Theater, he began to allocate significant sums to revolutionary movement. In 1905, Savva Morozov shot himself in Nice due to a mental disorder. Nemirovich-Danchenko explained it this way: “Human nature cannot tolerate two equally strong opposing passions. A merchant... must be true to his element.". The image of Savva Morozov and his strange suicide were reflected on the pages of M. Gorky’s late novel “The Life of Klim Samgin.”

Gorky took an active part in the events of January 8-9, 1905, which still have not found their own clear historical version. It is known that on the night of January 9, the writer, together with a group of intellectuals, visited the Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers S.Yu. Witte to prevent the impending bloodshed. The question arises: how did Gorky know that there would be bloodshed? The workers' march was initially planned as a peaceful demonstration. But martial law was introduced in the capital, at the same time G.A. himself was hiding in Gorky’s apartment. Gapon...

Together with a group of Bolsheviks, Maxim Gorky took part in the march of workers to Winter Palace and witnessed the dispersal of the demonstration. On the same day, he wrote an appeal “To all Russian citizens and public opinion of European states.” The writer accused the ministers and Nicholas II “of the premeditated and senseless murder of many Russian citizens.” What could I oppose to force? artistic word Gorky's unfortunate monarch? Make excuses for your absence in the capital? Put the blame for the shooting on your uncle, the St. Petersburg Governor General? Largely thanks to Gorky, Nicholas II received his nickname the Bloody, the authority of the monarchy in the eyes of the people was undermined forever, and the “petrel of the revolution” acquired the status of a human rights activist and fighter for the people. Considering Gorky’s early awareness of the impending events, all this looks strange and resembles a carefully planned provocation...

On January 11, Gorky was arrested in Riga, taken to St. Petersburg and imprisoned in a separate cell in the Trubetskoy bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress as a state criminal. During a month spent in solitary confinement, he wrote the play “Children of the Sun”, conceived the novel “Mother” and the play “Enemies”. Gerhard Hauptmann, Anatole France, Auguste Rodin, Thomas Hardy and others immediately spoke out in defense of the captive Gorky. The European noise forced the government to release him and stop the case “under an amnesty.”

Returning to Moscow, Gorky began publishing his “Notes on Philistinism” (1905) in the Bolshevik newspaper Novaya Zhizn, in which he condemned “Dostoevshchina” and “Tolstoyism”, calling the preaching of non-resistance to evil and moral improvement philistine. During the December uprising of 1905, Gorky's Moscow apartment, guarded by the Caucasian squad, became the center where weapons for combat detachments were brought and all information was delivered.

First emigration

After the suppression of the Moscow uprising due to the threat of a new arrest in early 1906, Gorky and Andreeva emigrated to America, where they began collecting money for the Bolsheviks. Gorky protested against the provision of foreign loans to the tsarist government to fight the revolution, publishing an appeal “Do not give money to the Russian government.” The United States, which does not allow itself any liberalism when it comes to defending its statehood, launched a newspaper campaign against Gorky as a carrier of the “revolutionary infection.” The reason was his unofficial marriage with Andreeva. Not a single hotel agreed to accept Gorky and the people accompanying him. He settled thanks to letter of recommendation The Executive Committee of the RSDLP and Lenin's personal note, from private individuals.

During his tour of America, Gorky spoke at rallies, gave interviews, and met Mark Twain, Herbert Wells, and other famous figures with the help of whom public opinion about the tsarist government was created. He managed to collect only 10 thousand dollars for revolutionary needs, but a more serious result of his trip was the US refusal to provide Russia with a loan of half a billion dollars. There, Gorky wrote his journalistic works “My Interviews” and “In America” (which he called the country of the “yellow devil”), as well as the play “Enemies” and the novel “Mother” (1906). In the last two things (Soviet criticism long called them “artistic lessons of the first Russian revolution”) many Russian writers saw “the end of Gorky.”

“What kind of literature this is! - wrote Zinaida Gippius. “It wasn’t even the revolution, but the Russian Social Democratic Party that chewed up Gorky without a trace.” Alexander Blok rightly called “Mother” artistically weak, and “My Interviews” flat and uninteresting.

Six months later, Maxim Gorky left the United States and settled in Capri (Italy), where he lived until 1913. Gorky's Italian house became a refuge for many Russian political emigrants and a place of pilgrimage for his admirers. In 1909, a party school was organized in Capri for workers sent from Russia by party organizations. Gorky gave lectures here on the history of Russian literature. Lenin also came to visit Gorky, with whom the writer met at the 5th (London) Congress of the RSDLP and has been corresponding since then. At that time, Gorky was closer to Plekhanov and Lunacharsky, who represented Marxism as new religion with the revelation of the “real god” - the proletarian collective. In this they differed from Lenin, for whom the word “God” in any interpretation caused rage.

In Capri, in addition to a huge number of journalistic works, Gorky wrote the stories “The Life of an Useless Person,” “Confession” (1908), “Summer” (1909), “The Town of Okurov,” “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin” (1910), and the plays “The Last "(1908), "Meeting" (1910), "Eccentrics", "Vassa Zheleznova" (1910), cycle of stories "Complaints", autobiographical story“Childhood” (1912-1913), as well as stories that would later be included in the cycle “Across Rus'” (1923). In 1911, Gorky began working on the satire “Russian Fairy Tales” (finished in 1917), in which he exposed the Black Hundreds, chauvinism, and decadence.

Return to Russia

In 1913, in connection with the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov, a political amnesty was declared. Gorky returned to Russia. Having settled in St. Petersburg, he began extensive publishing activity, which pushed back artistic creativity to the background. He publishes the “Collection of Proletarian Writers” (1914), organizes the publishing house “Parus”, publishes the magazine “Chronicle”, which from the very beginning of the First World War took an anti-militarist position and opposed the “world massacre” - here Gorky agreed with the Bolsheviks. The list of magazine employees included writers from the most different directions: Bunin, Trenev, Prishvin, Lunacharsky, Eikhenbaum, Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Babel, etc. At the same time, the second part of his autobiographical prose “In People” (1916) was written.

1917 and second emigration

In 1917, Gorky's views sharply diverged from those of the Bolsheviks. He considered the October Revolution a political adventure and published a series of essays in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn about the events of 1917-1918, where he painted terrible pictures of the savagery of morals in Petrograd, engulfed in the Red Terror. In 1918, the essays were published as a separate publication, Untimely Thoughts. Notes on revolution and culture". The newspaper “New Life” was immediately closed by the authorities as counter-revolutionary. Gorky himself was not touched: the fame of the “petrel of the revolution” and personal acquaintance with Lenin allowed him, as they say, to open the door to the offices of all high-ranking comrades. In August 1918, Gorky organized the publishing house "World Literature", which in the most hungry years fed many Russian writers with translations and editorial work. On Gorky’s initiative, a Commission was created to improve the living conditions of scientists.

As Vladislav Khodasevich testifies, during these difficult times there was a crush in Gorky’s apartment from morning to night:

Only once did the memoirist see how Gorky refused the request of the clown Delvari, who asked the writer to become the godfather of his child. This contradicted the carefully created image of the “petrel of the revolution,” and Gorky did not intend to spoil his biography.

Against the backdrop of the growing Red Terror, the writer’s skepticism about the possibility of “building socialism and communism” in Russia deepened. His authority among political bosses began to decline, especially after a quarrel with the all-powerful commissar Northern capital G.E. Zinoviev. Gorky’s dramatic satire “Hard Worker Slovotekov” was directed against him, staged at the Petrograd Theater of Folk Comedy in 1920 and immediately banned by the prototype of the protagonist.

On October 16, 1921, Maxim Gorky left Russia. At first he lived in Germany and Czechoslovakia, and in 1924 he settled in a villa in Sorrento (Italy). His position was ambiguous: on the one hand, he rather sharply criticized Soviet power for violation of freedom of speech and bans on dissent, and on the other hand, opposed the absolute majority of Russian political emigration his commitment to the idea of ​​socialism.

At this time, the “Russian Mata-Hari”, Maria Ignatievna Benkendorf (later Baroness Budberg), became the sovereign mistress of the Gorky house. According to Khodasevich, it was Maria Ignatievna who persuaded Gorky to reconcile with Soviet Russia. Not surprising: she, as it turned out, was an agent of the INO OGPU.

Gorky with his son

Under Gorky, his son Maxim lived with his family, someone was sure to visit - Russian emigrants and Soviet leaders, eminent foreigners and admirers of talent, petitioners and aspiring writers, fugitives from Soviet Russia and just wanderers. Judging by many memoirs, Gorky never refused financial assistance to anyone. Only large circulations of Russian publications could provide Gorky with sufficient funds to maintain his home and family. In emigration, even such figures as Denikin and Wrangel could not count on large circulations. The “proletarian” writer could not afford to quarrel with the Soviets.

During the period of his second emigration, Gorky's leading genre became artistic memoirs. He completed the third part of his autobiography “My Universities”, memories of V.G. Korolenko, L.N. Tolstoy, L.N. Andreev, A.P. Chekhov, N.G. Garine-Mikhailovsky and others. In 1925, Gorky finished the novel “The Artamonov Case” and began work on the grandiose epic “The Life of Klim Samgin” - about the Russian intelligentsia during a turning point in Russian history. Despite the fact that this work remained unfinished, many critics consider it central to the writer’s work.

In 1928, Maxim Gorky returned to his homeland. He was greeted with great honor. On state level his tour was organized Soviet country: The south of Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Volga region, new construction projects, the Solovetsky camps... All this made a great impression on Gorky, which was reflected in his book “According to the Union of Soviets” (1929). In Moscow, the writer was allocated the famous Ryabushinsky mansion for housing, and for recreation - dachas in Crimea and near Moscow (Gorki), for trips to Italy and Crimea - a special carriage. Numerous renamings of streets and cities began (Nizhny Novgorod was named Gorky), and on December 1, 1933, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Maxim Gorky’s literary activity, the first Literary Institute in Russia named after him was opened. On the initiative of the writer, the magazines “Our Achievements”, “ Literary studies", the famous series "Poet's Library" was created, the Writers' Union was formed, etc.

The last years of Maxim Gorky’s life, as well as the death of his son and the death of the writer himself, are covered in all sorts of rumors, guesses and legends. Today, when many documents were opened, it became known that after returning to his homeland, Gorky was under the strict tutelage of the GPU, headed by G.G. Berry. Secretary of Gorky P.P. Kryuchkov, who was connected with the authorities, managed all his publishing and financial affairs, trying to isolate the writer from the Soviet and world community, since Gorky did not like everything in his “new life.” In May 1934, his beloved son Maxim died under mysterious circumstances.

A.M. Gorky and G.G. Berry

In his memoirs, Khodasevich recalls that back in 1924, through Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, Maxim was invited to return to Russia by Felix Dzerzhinsky, offering a job in his department, Gorky did not allow this, uttering a phrase similar to the prophetic: “When they start a squabble there, they will finish him off.” together with others - but I feel sorry for this fool.”

The same V. Khodasevich also expressed his version of Maxim’s murder: he considered the reason for this to be Yagoda’s love for Maxim’s beautiful wife (rumors about their relationship circulated among the Russian emigration after Maxim’s death). Gorky’s son, who loved to drink, seemed to have been deliberately left drunk in the forest by his drinking companions, GPU officers. The night was cold, and Maxim died of a severe cold. This death completely undermined the strength of his sick father.

Alexei Maksimovich Gorky died on July 18, 1936, at the age of 68, from a long-standing lung disease, but was soon declared a victim of the “Trotskyist-Bukharin conspiracy.” A high-profile lawsuit was opened against the doctors who treated the writer... Much later, his last “love”, GPU-NKVD agent Maria Ignatievna Budberg, was accused of poisoning the elderly Gorky. Why might the NKVD need to poison an already half-dead writer? No one has answered this question clearly.

In conclusion, I would like to add that some researchers of Gorky’s work believe that the “negative” Luke from the play “At the Lower Depths” - the “evil old man” with his comforting lies - is the subconscious “I” of Gorky himself. Alexey Maksimovich, like most writers of that difficult era, loved to indulge in elevating deceptions in life. It is no coincidence that Luka is so passionately defended by the “positive” tramp Satin: “I understand the old man... yes! He lied... but it was out of pity for you, damn you!”

Yes, the “most realistic writer” and “petrel of the revolution” lied more than once, rewriting and altering the facts of his own biography for political purposes. The writer and publicist Gorky lied even more, overestimating and “distorting” new way undeniable facts from the history of a great country. Was it a lie dictated by pity for humanity? Rather, it is the same elevating self-deception that allows the artist to create great masterpieces from ordinary dirt...

Elena Shirokova

Born March 28 (March 16, old style) 1868 in Kunavino Nizhny Novgorod province Russian Empire (since 1919 the city of Kanavino, since 1928 it became part of Nizhny Novgorod). Maxim Gorky is the writer’s pseudonym, real name Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov.
Father - Maxim Savvatyevich Peshkov (1840-1871) a carpenter, the last years of his life - the manager of a shipping company.
Mother - Varvara Vasilievna Kashirina (1842-1879) from a bourgeois family.
Alexey Maksimovich was orphaned early. In 1871 he fell ill with cholera, the father was able to nurse his son, but he himself became infected and died. After the death of his father, Alexey moves with his mother from Astrakhan to Nizhny Novgorod. The mother took little care of her son and the grandmother, Akulina Ivanovna, replaced Alexei’s parents. At this time, Alexey did not attend school for long, and entered the third grade with a certificate of merit. In 1879, after the death of Varvara Vasilievna, his grandfather sent Alexei “to the people” - to earn his living. He worked as a “boy” in a store, as a pantry cook on a ship, as a baker, studied in an icon-painting workshop, etc. You can read more about the writer’s childhood and youth in his autobiographical stories “Childhood” and “In People.”
In 1884, Alexey went to Kazan, hoping to enter Kazan University. But he didn’t have money to study and had to go to work. The Kazan period was the most difficult in Gorky's life. Here he experienced acute need and hunger. In Kazan, he gets acquainted with Marxist literature and tries himself in the role of an educator and propagandist. In 1888, he was arrested for connections with revolutionaries and was soon released, but continued to be under constant police surveillance. In 1891 he went on a journey and even reached the Caucasus. During this period, he made many acquaintances among the intelligentsia.
In 1892, his work “Makar Chudra” was published for the first time.
In 1896 he married Ekaterina Pavlovna Volzhina (1876-1965). From the marriage there was a son, Maxim (1897-1934), and a daughter, Ekaterina (1898-1903).
1897-1898 lived in the village of Kamenka (now the village of Kuvshinovo in the Tver region Russian Federation) from a friend Vasiliev. This period of his life served as material for his novel “The Life of Klim Samgin.”

In 1902, Gorky was elected an honorary academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature. But due to the fact that he was under police surveillance, his election was annulled. In this regard, Chekhov and Korolenko refused membership in the Academy.
By 1902, Gorky gained worldwide fame. In 1902, 260 newspaper and 50 magazine articles were published about Gorky, and more than 100 monographs were published.
In 1903, after the death of their daughter, Alexey Maksimovich and Ekaterina Pavlovna decided to separate, but not to formalize a divorce. At that time, divorce was possible only through the church, and Gorky was excommunicated from the church. In 1903 he married Maria Fedorovna Andreeva(1868-1953), whom he had known since 1900.
After “Bloody Sunday” (the shooting of a procession of workers on January 9, 1905), he issued a revolutionary proclamation, for which he was arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Many famous European representatives of the creative and scientific world came out in defense of Gorky. Under their pressure, Gorky was released on February 14, 1905 on bail.
From 1906 to 1913, together with Maria Andreeva, he lived abroad in Italy, first in Naples, and then on the island of Capri. According to the official version, due to tuberculosis. There is also a version that due to political persecution.
In 1907, he took part in the V Congress of the RSDLP (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party), which was held in London, as a delegate with an advisory vote.
At the end of 1913, on the occasion of the three hundredth anniversary of the House of Romanov, a general amnesty was declared. After this, Gorky returns to Russia to St. Petersburg.
From 1917 to 1919 he was active in social and political activities. In 1919 he separated from Maria Andreeva and in 1920 he began to live with Maria Ignatievna Budberg (1892-1974). In 1921, at the insistence of Lenin, he went abroad. One version is due to the resumption of the disease. According to another version, due to the aggravation of ideological differences with the Bolsheviks. Since 1924 he lived in Sorrento in Italy.
In 1928, by invitation Soviet government and Stalin personally comes to the USSR for the first time. But he doesn’t stay and leaves for Italy. In 1929, on his second visit to the Union, he visited the Solovetsky special purpose camp and wrote a positive review of its regime. In October 1929 he returned to Italy. And in 1932 he finally returned to the Soviet Union.
In 1934, with the help of Gorky, the Union of Writers of the USSR was organized. The Charter of the Writers' Union was adopted at I All-Union Congress Soviet writers, at which Gorky gave the keynote address.
In 1934, Gorky's son Maxim died.
At the end of May 1936, Gorky caught a cold and after three weeks of illness, he died on June 18, 1936. After cremation, his ashes were placed in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.
There are many rumors associated with the death of Gorky and his son. There were rumors of poisoning. According to Yagoda's interrogations, Gorky was killed on Trotsky's orders. Some blame Stalin for the death. In 1938, three doctors were involved in the “Doctors' Case” and were accused of murdering Gorky.
Now the circumstances and causes of death of Gorky and his son Maxim remain the subject of debate.