Gorky who is he. Gorky's works: complete list

Real name Peshkov Alexei Maksimovich (1868), prose writer, playwright, publicist.

Born in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a cabinetmaker, after the death of his father he lived in the family of his grandfather V. Kashirin, the owner of a dyeing establishment.

At the age of eleven, having become an orphan, he begins to work, replacing many "owners": messengers at shoe store, utensils on ships, a draftsman, etc. Only reading books saved from the despair of a hopeless life.

In 1884 he came to Kazan to fulfill his dream of studying at the university, but very soon he realized the whole unreality of such a plan. Started to work. Gorky would later write: "I did not expect help from outside and did not hope for Lucky case... I realized very early that a person is created by his resistance environment". At the age of 16, he already knew a lot about life, but the four years spent in Kazan shaped his personality, determined his path. He began to conduct propaganda work among the workers and peasants (with the populist M. Romas in the village of Krasnovidovo). From 1888 Gorky's wanderings around Russia began in order to get to know her better and get to know the life of the people better.

Gorky passed through the Don steppes, through Ukraine, to the Danube, from there through the Crimea and North Caucasus to Tiflis, where he spent a year working as a hammerman, then as a clerk in railway workshops, communicating with revolutionary leaders and participating in illegal circles. At this time, he wrote his first story "Makar Chudra", published in the Tiflis newspaper, and the poem "The Girl and Death" (published in 1917).

Since 1892, having returned to Nizhny Novgorod, he took up literary work, publishing in the Volga newspapers. Since 1895, Gorky's stories appeared in the capital's magazines, in the "Samarskaya Gazeta" he became known as a feuilletonist, speaking under the pseudonym Yehudiel Khlamida. In 1898, Gorky's Essays and Stories were published, which made him widely known in Russia. He works hard, quickly growing into a great artist, an innovator, able to lead. His romantic stories called to fight, brought up heroic optimism ("Old Woman Izergil", "Song of the Falcon", "Song of the Petrel").

In 1899, the novel Foma Gordeev was published, which put Gorky in the ranks of world-class writers. In the autumn of this year, he arrived in St. Petersburg, where he met Mikhailovsky and Veresaev, with Repin; later in Moscow S.L. Tolstoy, L. Andreev, A. Chekhov, I. Bunin, A. Kuprin and other writers. He agrees with revolutionary circles and was exiled to Arzamas for writing a proclamation calling for the overthrow of the tsarist government in connection with the dispersal of a student demonstration.

In 1901 1902 he wrote his first plays, The Petty Bourgeoisie and At the Bottom, which were staged at the Moscow Art Theatre. In 1904, the plays "Summer Residents", "Children of the Sun", "Barbarians".

IN revolutionary events 1905 Gorky took an active part, was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress for anti-tsarist proclamations. The protest of the Russian and world community forced the government to release the writer. For helping with money and weapons during the Moscow December armed uprising, Gorky was threatened with reprisals from the official authorities, so it was decided to send him abroad. At the beginning of 1906 he arrived in America, where he stayed until autumn. Pamphlets "My Interviews" and essays "In America" ​​were written here.

Upon his return to Russia, he created the play "Enemies" and the novel "Mother" (1906). In the same year, Gorky went to Italy, to Capri, where he lived until 1913, devoting all his strength to literary creativity. During these years, the plays "The Last" (1908), "Vassa Zheleznova" (1910), the novels "Summer", "The Town of Okurov" (1909), the novel "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin" (1910 11) were written.

Using the amnesty, in 1913 the writer returned to St. Petersburg, collaborated in the Bolshevik newspapers Zvezda and Pravda. In 1915 he founded the journal Letopis, directed the literary department of the journal, uniting around him such writers as Shishkov, Prishvin, Trenev, Gladkoe, and others.

After February Revolution Gorky participated in the publication of the newspaper " New life", which was an organ of the Social Democrats, where he published articles under the general title "Untimely Thoughts." He expressed fears of being unprepared October revolution, was afraid that "the dictatorship of the proletariat would lead to the death of politically educated Bolshevik workers ...", reflected on the role of the intelligentsia in saving the nation: "The Russian intelligentsia must again take on the great work of spiritual healing of the people."

Soon, Gorky became actively involved in the construction of a new culture: he helped organize the First Workers 'and Peasants' University, the Bolshoi Drama Theater in St. Petersburg, and created the World Literature publishing house. In the years civil war, hunger and devastation, he took care of the Russian intelligentsia, and many scientists, writers and artists were saved by him from starvation.

In 1921, at the insistence of Lenin, Gorky went abroad for treatment (tuberculosis resumed). First he lived in the resorts of Germany and Czechoslovakia, then moved to Italy in Sorrento. He continues to work hard: he completed the trilogy "My Universities" ("Childhood" and "In People" came out in 1913 16), wrote the novel "The Artamonov Case" (1925). He began work on the book "The Life of Klim Samgin", which he continued to write until the end of his life. In 1931 Gorky returned to his homeland. In the 1930s he again turned to dramaturgy: Yegor Bulychev and Others (1932), Dostigaev and Others (1933).

Summing up the acquaintance and communication with the great people of his time. Gorky created literary portraits of L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov, V. Korolenko, the essay "V. I. Lenin" (new edition 1930). In 1934, through the efforts of M. Gorky, the 1st All-Union Congress was prepared and held. Soviet writers. On June 18, 1936, M. Gorky died in Gorki and was buried in Red Square.

Indeed, the early years of Alexei Maksimovich Gorky (Peshkov) are known only from autobiographies written by him (there are several versions) and works of art - autobiographical trilogy: "Childhood", "In people", "My universities".

How much " lead abominations wild Russian life”, set forth in the mentioned works, correspond to reality, and to what extent they are the literary fiction of the author is unknown to this day. We can only compare the texts of Gorky's early autobiographies with his other artistic texts, but it is also not necessary to speak 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, Alexei Maksimovich, is pure money."

It seems that the writer took this advice, but left the prerogative to earn this "money".

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

In subsequent autobiographies of the writer, there is a very big confusion in dates and inconsistencies with documented facts. Even with the day and year of his birth, Gorky cannot unambiguously decide. In his autobiography of 1897, he indicates the date March 14, 1869, in the next version (1899) - "was born on March 14, 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 the soldiers. Mother - Varvara Vasilievna (1844-1879), nee Kashirina, daughter of a wealthy merchant, owner of a dyeing establishment, who was a shop foreman and was repeatedly elected 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, and the young family moved from Nizhny Novgorod to Astrakhan. Soon his father died of cholera, and his mother and Alexei returned to Nizhny.

Gorky himself attributes the date of his father's death and his mother's return to the Kashirin family first to the summer of 1873, then to the autumn of 1871. In autobiographies, information about Gorky's life "in people" also differs. 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 scalded himself 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 an unformed personality. As if driven by long-standing childhood grievances that he was unable to endure in his entire life, Gorky sometimes deliberately exaggerates, adds unnecessary drama, trying again and again to justify the once chosen pseudonym.

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

Did he really think that adult woman could consider a small son the cause of the death of a loved one? Blame the child for your unfinished personal life?

In the story "Childhood" (1912-1913), Gorky fulfills a clear social order of the Russian progressive public of the early twentieth century: a good literary language describes the disasters of the people, not forgetting to add here personal childhood grievances.

It is worth remembering with what deliberate antipathy the stepfather of Alyosha Peshkov Maximov is described on the pages of the story, who did not give the boy anything good, but did not do anything bad either. The second marriage of the mother is unequivocally regarded by the hero of "Childhood" as a betrayal, and the writer himself did not spare either causticity or gloomy colors to describe his stepfather's relatives - impoverished nobles. Varvara Vasilievna Peshkova-Maximova on the pages of her famous son's works is denied even that bright, largely mythologized memory that was preserved for her father who died early.

Gorky's grandfather, the respected shop foreman V.V. Kashirin, appears before the reader in the form of a certain monster with which to frighten naughty children. Most likely, Vasily Vasilyevich had an explosive, despotic character and was not very pleasant in communication, but he loved his grandson in his own way, sincerely cared about his upbringing and education. Grandfather himself taught the six-year-old Alyosha, first the Church Slavonic literacy, then the modern civil one. In 1877, he sent his grandson to the Nizhny Novgorod Kunavinsky School, where he studied until 1879, having received a commendable diploma for “excellent progress in science and good manners” when he moved to the third grade. That is, two classes of the school future writer I still graduated, and even with honors. In one of his autobiographies, Gorky assures that he attended school for about five months, received only "deuces", studies, books and any printed texts, up to the passport, he sincerely hated.

What is this? Resentment at your not so “gloomy” past? Voluntary self-deprecation or a way to assure the reader that "oranges will be born from aspen"? The desire to present oneself as an absolute "nugget", a man who made himself, 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 the political fashion, he strove to present himself as an illiterate "muzhik" and a redneck ...

The only bright spot against the background of the universal " dark kingdom"Gorky's autobiographical stories are relations 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 mind of the boy. She gave her grandson all her love and participation, perhaps awakened in the soul of the future writer the desire to see beauty behind the gray reality surrounding him.

Grandfather Kashirin soon went bankrupt: the division of the family business with his sons and subsequent failures in business led him to complete poverty. Unable to survive the blow of fate, he fell ill mental illness. Eleven-year-old Alyosha was forced to leave the 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, a dishwasher on the galleys of the Perm and Dobry steamships. Here an event took place that Alexei Maksimovich himself is inclined to consider the “starting point” on his way to Maxim Gorky: an acquaintance with a cook named Smury. This cook, remarkable in his own way, despite being illiterate, was obsessed with a passion for collecting books, mostly in leather bindings. The range of his "leather" collection turned out to be very peculiar - from the gothic novels of Anna Radcliffe and Nekrasov's poems 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 prints and Freemasonic literature.

However, according to Gorky himself, he began to read 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 entered 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 the Soviet cinema of the mid-1930s ("Bright Path", "Jolly Fellows", etc.) are constantly present on the pages of Gorky's "autobiographical" works.

In the years 1912-1917, even before the Main Political Education and the People's Commissariat of Education, the revolutionary writer had already firmly embarked on the path 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" Alexei Peshkov actually went to Kazan with the intention of entering the university:

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

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

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

This "demon" flashed, by the way, in farewell note Alexey:

In order to master the 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: "... recently he was noticed in the most impossible oddities. He threw out, for example, two images of the master from his apartment and chopped one of them with an ax; in his own room he laid out on stands, in the form of three layers, the works of Focht, Moleschott and Buchner, and before each layer he lit wax church candles.

For a suicide attempt, 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 Zadonsky 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, labored in the villages, mined salt, was beaten by peasants and lay in the hospital, served in repair shops, and was arrested several times - for vagrancy and for revolutionary propaganda. “I pour good-quality ideas from the bucket of enlightenment, and those bring known results”, - A. Peshkov wrote at that time to one of his addressees.

In the same years, Gorky experienced a passion for populism, Tolstoyism (in 1889 he visited Yasnaya Polyana with the intention of asking Leo Tolstoy for a piece of land for an “agricultural colony”, but their meeting did not take place), he was ill with Nietzsche’s teaching about the superman, which forever left his “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 wandering with its appearance. Gorky returned to Nizhny Novgorod. With his literary godfather he considered Vladimir Korolenko. Under his patronage, since 1893, the novice writer publishes essays in the Volga newspapers, and a few years later he becomes a permanent employee of the Samara Newspaper. More than two hundred of his feuilletons were published here signed by Yehudiel Khlamida, as well as the stories “The Song of the Falcon”, “On the Rafts”, “The Old Woman Izergil”, etc. In the editorial office of the Samarskaya Gazeta, Gorky met the proofreader Ekaterina Pavlovna Volzhina. Having successfully overcome his mother's resistance to the marriage of his daughter-noblewoman with the "Nizhny Novgorod guild", in 1896 Alexei Maksimovich married her.

The following year, despite aggravated tuberculosis and worries with the birth of his son Maxim, Gorky publishes new novels and stories, most of which will become textbooks: Konovalov, Notch, Fair in Goltva, Spouses Orlovs, Malva , " former people” and others. Gorky’s first two-volume essay “Essays and Stories” (1898), published in St. Petersburg, was an unprecedented success both in Russia and abroad. The demand for it was so great that it immediately required a second edition - released in 1899 in three volumes. Gorky sent his first book to A.P. Chekhov, before whom he revered. He responded with a more than generous compliment: "Undeniable talent, and, moreover, a real, great talent."

In the same year, the debutant arrived in St. Petersburg and caused a standing ovation: an enthusiastic audience arranged banquets and literary evenings in his honor. He was greeted by people from various camps: populist critic Nikolai Mikhailovsky, 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 a frontier of public self-determination , and Gorky immediately became one of the most influential and popular Russian writers. Of course, interest in him was warmed up and legendary biography Gorky the tramp, Gorky the nugget, Gorky the sufferer (by this time he had already been to prison several times for revolutionary activity and was under police surveillance).

"Lord of Thoughts"

"Essays and Stories", as well as the four-volume writer's "Stories", which began to appear in the publishing house "Knowledge", produced a huge critical literature - from 1900 to 1904, 91 books about Gorky were published! 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 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 ingenious instinct of the beast, felt the rhythms of his time and the smells of new ideas floating in the air. Gorky's artistic word, having gone beyond art, "opened a new dialogue with reality" (Pyotr 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 in 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 an apologia for bosyatstvo, of preaching Nietzsche's individualism. But they argued with the will of history itself, and therefore lost this argument.

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

On February 25, 1902, the thirty-four-year-old Gorky was elected an honorary academician by category. belles-lettres However, the elections were declared invalid. Suspecting the Academy of Sciences in collusion with the authorities, Korolenko and Chekhov refused the title of honorary academicians in protest.

In 1902, Znanie published Gorky's first play, Petty Bourgeois, in a separate edition, which premiered in the same year at the famous Moscow Art Theater (MKhT), six months later, the triumphant premiere of the play At the Bottom was here. The play "Summer Residents" (1904) a few months later was played in the fashionable St. Petersburg theater of Vera Komissarzhevskaya. Subsequently, productions of Gorky's new plays, Children of the Sun (1905) and Barbarians (1906), were staged on the same stage.

Gorky in the Revolution of 1905

Intense creative work did not prevent the writer from getting closer before the first Russian revolution with the Bolsheviks and Iskra. Gorky arranged fees for them Money and he himself made generous donations to the party fund. In this affection, apparently, one of the most beautiful actresses of the Moscow Art Theater, Maria Fedorovna Andreeva, a staunch Marxist closely associated with the RSDLP, played an important role. In 1903 she became Gorky's civil wife. She also brought to the Bolsheviks the philanthropist Savva Morozov, her ardent admirer and admirer of the talent of M. Gorky. A wealthy Moscow industrialist who financed the Moscow Art Theater, he began to allocate significant amounts to the revolutionary movement. In 1905, Savva Morozov on the soil mental disorder shot himself in Nice. Nemirovich-Danchenko explained it this way: « Human nature cannot bear two equally opposing passions. A merchant... must be true to his element.. The image of Savva Morozov and his strange suicide are reflected on the pages late novel M. Gorky "The Life of Klim Samgin".

Gorky took an active part in the events of January 8-9, 1905, which still have not found their intelligible 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 originally 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 participated in the procession 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 the 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 the unfortunate monarch oppose to the power of Gorky's artistic word? Justify your absence in the capital? To shift the blame for the execution on his uncle - the St. Petersburg Governor-General? Largely thanks to Gorky, Nicholas II received his nickname Bloody, the authority of the monarchy in the eyes of the people was forever undermined, and the “petrel of the revolution” gained the status of a human rights activist and fighter for the people. Given Gorky's early awareness of the upcoming 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 of the Trubetskoy bastion. Peter and Paul Fortress like a state criminal. For 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 in defense of the captive Gorky. The European uproar 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 "Dostoevism" and "Tolstoyism", calling the preaching of non-resistance to evil and moral perfection bourgeois. During the December uprising of 1905, Gorky's Moscow apartment, guarded by the Caucasian squad, became the center where weapons were brought for combat units 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 raising money for the Bolsheviks. Gorky protested against the provision of foreign loans to the tsarist government to fight the revolution by publishing the appeal "Don't 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 "revolutionary contagion." The reason was his unofficial marriage with Andreeva. Not a single hotel agreed to receive Gorky and the people accompanying him. He settled thanks to recommendation letter Executive Committee of the RSDLP and Lenin's personal note, from private individuals.

During his tour of America, Gorky spoke at rallies, gave interviews, met Mark Twain, H. G. Wells, and others. well-known figures, with the help of which public opinion was created about the tsarist government. Only 10,000 dollars were raised for revolutionary needs, but the more serious result of his trip was the refusal of the United States to provide Russia with a loan of half a billion dollars. In the same place, Gorky wrote the publicistic 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 (for a long time Soviet critics called them "the artistic lessons of the first Russian revolution") many Russian writers saw the "end of Gorky."

“What kind of literature is this! - wrote Zinaida Gippius. “Not even a revolution, but the Russian Social Democratic Party 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 on the basis of Capri (Italy), where he lived until 1913. The Italian house of Gorky 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 lectured here on the history of Russian literature. Lenin also came to visit Gorky, whom the writer met at the 5th (London) Congress of the RSDLP and since then has been in correspondence. At that time, Gorky was closer to Plekhanov and Lunacharsky, who presented Marxism as a new religion with a revelation about the "real god" - the proletarian collective. In this they differed from Lenin, who in any interpretation of the word "God" evoked rage.

In Capri, in addition to huge amount journalistic works, Gorky wrote the novels “The Life of an Unnecessary Man”, “Confession” (1908), “Summer” (1909), “The Town of Okurov”, “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin” (1910), the plays “The Last” (1908), “ Meeting "(1910)," Eccentrics "," Vassa Zheleznova "(1910), a cycle of stories" Complaints ", an autobiographical story" Childhood "(1912-1913), as well as stories that would later be included in the cycle" Through Russia "(1923 ). In 1911, Gorky began working on the satire Russian 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 Romanov dynasty, a political amnesty was announced. Gorky returned to Russia. Having settled in St. Petersburg, he begins a big publishing that pushed back artistic creativity to the background. He publishes the "Collection of Proletarian Writers" (1914), organizes the Parus publishing house, publishes the Chronicle magazine, which from the very beginning of the First World War took an anti-militarist position and opposed the "world massacre" - here Gorky converged with the Bolsheviks. The list of the magazine's employees included writers of various directions: Bunin, Trenev, Prishvin, Lunacharsky, Eikhenbaum, Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Babel, and others. 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 diverged sharply from those of the Bolsheviks. He considered the October coup a political adventure and published in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn a series of essays on the events of 1917-1918, where he painted terrible pictures of the savagery of morals in Petrograd, engulfed in 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 glory of the “petrel of the revolution” and personal acquaintance with Lenin allowed him, as they say, to open the door with his foot to the offices of all high-ranking comrades. In August 1918, Gorky organized the World Literature publishing house, which in the most hungry years fed many Russian writers with translations and editorial work. At the initiative of Gorky, a Commission was also created to improve the life of scientists.

As Vladislav Khodasevich testifies, in these hard times there was a crowd in Gorky's apartment from morning till 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 was not going 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 more and more. His authority among political bosses began to decline, especially after a quarrel with the all-powerful commissar of the Northern capital, G.E. Zinoviev. Gorky's dramatic satire "Hard worker Slovotekov" was directed against him, staged at the Petrograd Theater of People's 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 ambivalent: on the one hand, he rather sharply criticized the Soviet government for violating freedom of speech and prohibitions on dissent, and on the other, he opposed the absolute majority of Russian political emigration with 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. It was Maria Ignatievna who persuaded Gorky to reconcile with Soviet Russia, according to Khodasevich. No wonder: she, as it turned out, was an agent of the INO OGPU.

Gorky with his son

When Gorky lived with his family, his son Maxim, certainly someone was visiting - Russian emigrants and Soviet leaders, eminent foreigners and admirers of talent, petitioners and novice writers, fugitives from Soviet Russia and just wanderers. Judging by many recollections, Gorky never refused anyone financial assistance. Sufficient funds for the maintenance of the house and family could give Gorky only large circulations of Russian publications. In emigration, even such figures as Denikin and Wrangel could not count on large print runs. The "proletarian" writer could not quarrel with the Soviets.

During his second emigration, artistic memoirs became Gorky's leading genre. He completed the third part of his autobiography "My Universities", a memoir about V.G. Korolenko, L.N. Tolstoy, L.N. Andreev, A.P. Chekhov, N.G. Garin-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 in turning point 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. They met him with great respect. At the state level, his tour of Soviet country: South of Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Volga region, new construction sites, the Solovetsky camps ... All this made a grandiose impression on Gorky, which was reflected in his book “According to the Union of Soviets” (1929) In Moscow, the writer was given the famous Ryabushinsky mansion for housing, for recreation - dachas in the Crimea and near Moscow (Gorki), for trips to Italy and the Crimea - a special car. Numerous renaming of streets and cities began (Nizhny Novgorod was named Gorky), on December 1, 1933, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of literary activity Maxim Gorky was opened the first in Russia Literary Institute named after him. At the initiative of the writer, the journals Our Achievements and Literary Studies are organized, the famous series Poet's Library is created, the Union of Writers is 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 with all sorts of rumors, conjectures and legends. Today, when many documents have been opened, it became known that after returning to his homeland, Gorky was under the strict guardianship of the GPU, headed by G.G. Berry. Gorky's secretary P.P. Kryuchkov, 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 the "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 kill him together with others - but I feel sorry for this fool.

The same V. Khodasevich also expressed his version of Maxim's murder: he considered Yagoda's love for Maxim's beautiful wife to be the reason for this (rumors of their relationship already after Maxim's death were circulating among the Russian emigration). Gorky's son, who loved to drink, was deliberately left drunk in the forest by his drinking buddies - employees of the GPU. The night was cold, and Maxim died of a severe cold. This death finally 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 "Trotsky-Bukharin conspiracy." A high-profile lawsuit was opened against the doctors who treated the writer ... Much later, his last "love" - ​​the agent of the GPU-NKVD Maria Ignatievna Budberg, was accused of poisoning the elderly Gorky. Why might the NKVD need to persecute an already half-dead writer? No one has clearly answered this question.

In conclusion, I would like to add that some researchers of Gorky's work believe that the "negative" Luke from the play "At the Bottom" - the "sly old man" with his comforting lies - this is the subconscious "I" of Gorky himself. Alexei Maksimovich loved, like most writers of that difficult era, to indulge in elevating deceptions in life. It is no coincidence that the “positive” tramp Satin defends Luka so earnestly: “I understand the old man ... yes! He lied ... but - it's out of pity for you, damn you!

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

Elena Shirokova

Real name and surname - Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov.

Russian writer, publicist, public figure. Maxim Gorky was born March 16 (28), 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod in a petty-bourgeois family. He lost his parents early, was brought up in the family of his grandfather. He graduated from two classes of a suburban elementary school in Kunavin (now Kanavino), a suburb of Nizhny Novgorod, but could not continue his education due to poverty (his grandfather's dyeing establishment went bankrupt). M. Gorky was forced to work from the age of ten. Possessing a unique memory, Gorky was intensely engaged in self-education all his life. In 1884 went to Kazan, where he participated in the work of underground populist circles; connection with the revolutionary movement largely determined his life and creative aspirations. In 1888-1889 and 1891-1892. wandered around the south of Russia; impressions from these "walks in Rus'" subsequently became the most important source of plots and images for his work (primarily early).

The first publication is the story "Makar Chudra", published in the Tiflis newspaper "Kavkaz" September 12, 1892. In 1893-1896. Gorky actively collaborated with the Volga newspapers, where he published many feuilletons and stories. The name of Gorky received all-Russian and all-European fame shortly after the release of his first collection, Essays and Stories (vols. 1-2, 1898 ), in which the sharpness and brightness in the transfer of life's realities were combined with neo-romantic pathos, with a passionate call for the transformation of man and the world ("Old Woman Izergil", "Konovalov", "Chelkash", "Malva", "On Rafts", "Song of Sokole, etc.). The symbol of the growing revolutionary movement in Russia was the "Song of the Petrel" ( 1901 ).

With the beginning of Gorky's work in 1900 in the publishing house "Knowledge" began his many years of literary and organizational activities. He expanded the publishing program, organized from 1904 the release of the famous collections "Knowledge", rallied around the publishing house of the largest writers close to realistic direction(I. Bunin, L. Andreev, A. Kuprin and others), and actually led this trend in its opposition to modernism.

At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. the first novels of M. Gorky "Foma Gordeev" were published (1899) and "Three" ( 1900) . In 1902 in the Moscow Art Theater, his first plays were staged - "Petty Bourgeois" and "At the Bottom". Together with the plays "Summer Residents" ( 1904 ), "Children of the Sun" ( 1905 ), "Barbarians" ( 1906 ) they identified a kind of Gorky type of Russian realistic theater of the early 20th century, based on acute social conflict and clearly expressed ideological characters. The play "At the Bottom" is still preserved in the repertoire of many theaters around the world.

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

A new turn in Gorky's worldview and style was revealed in the stories "The Town of Okurov" ( 1909-1910 ) and "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin" ( 1910-1911 ), as well as in autobiographical prose 1910s.: stories "The Master" ( 1913 ), "Childhood" ( 1913-1914 ), "In people" ( 1916 ), a collection of short stories "In Rus'" ( 1912-1917 ) and others: Gorky turned to the problem of the Russian national character. The same trends were reflected in the so-called. second dramatic cycle: plays "Eccentrics" ( 1910 ), "Vassa Zheleznova" (1st edition - 1910 ), "Old Man" (created in 1915, published in 1918 ) and etc.

During the revolutions 1917 Gorky sought to fight the anti-humanistic and anti-cultural arbitrariness, which the Bolsheviks staked on (a series of articles "Untimely Thoughts" in the newspaper "New Life"). After October 1917 he, on the one hand, joined the cultural and community service new institutions, and on the other hand, he criticized the Bolshevik terror, tried to save from arrests and executions (in some cases successfully) representatives creative intelligentsia. The intensified disagreements with the policies of V. Lenin led Gorky to October 1921 to emigration (formally it was presented as going abroad for treatment), which actually (with interruptions) continued before 1933.

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

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

The peaks of M. Gorky's work include a cycle of memoir portraits of his contemporaries (L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov, L.N. Andreev, etc.), created by him at different times.

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

Abroad

Return to Soviet Union

Bibliography

Stories, essays

Publicism

Movie incarnations

Also known as Alexei Maksimovich Gorky(at birth Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov; March 16 (28), 1868, Nizhny Novgorod, Russian empire- June 18, 1936, Gorki, Moscow region, USSR) - Russian writer, prose writer, playwright. One of the most popular authors turn of XIX and XX centuries, famous for the image of a romanticized declassed character (“tramp”), the author of works with a revolutionary tendency, personally close to the Social Democrats, who was in opposition to the tsarist regime, Gorky quickly gained world fame.

At first, Gorky was skeptical about the Bolshevik revolution. After several years cultural work in Soviet Russia, Petrograd (Vsemirnaya Literatura publishing house, petition to the Bolsheviks for those arrested) and life abroad in the 1920s (Marienbad, Sorrento) Gorky returned to the USSR, where last years life was surrounded by official recognition as "petrel of the revolution" and "great proletarian writer", the founder of socialist realism.

Member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR (1929).

Biography

Aleksey Maksimovich invented his pseudonym himself. Subsequently, he told me: “Don’t write to me in literature - Peshkov ...” (A. Kalyuzhny) More details 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 shipping company I. S. Kolchin) - Maxim Savvatevich 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 the lower ranks", after which he signed up as a tradesman. His son Maxim ran away from his father-satrap five times and left home forever at the age of 17. Orphaned at an early age, Gorky spent his childhood in the house of his grandfather Kashirin. From the age of 11 he was forced to go "to the people"; worked as a "boy" at a store, as a buffet utensil on a steamer, as a baker, studied at an icon-painting workshop, etc.

Youth

• In 1884 he tried to enter Kazan University. He got acquainted with Marxist literature and propaganda work.
• In 1888 he was arrested for his connection with the circle of N. E. Fedoseev. He was under constant police surveillance. In October 1888 he entered as a watchman at the Dobrinka Gryaz-Tsaritsynskaya station. railway. Impressions from staying in Dobrinka will serve as the basis for the autobiographical story "The Watchman" and the story "For the sake of boredom".
• In January 1889, by personal request (a complaint in verse), he was transferred to the Borisoglebsk station, then as a weigher to the Krutaya station.
• In the spring of 1891 he set off to wander around the country and reached the Caucasus.

Literary and social activities

• 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 working Marxist circle. Subsequently, the life impressions of this period served as material for the writer's novel "The Life of Klim Samgin".
• 1898 - The publishing house of Dorovatsky and Charushnikov A.P. published the first volume of Gorky's works. In those years, the circulation of the first book young author rarely exceeded 1,000 copies. A. I. Bogdanovich advised to publish the first two volumes of “Essays and Stories” by M. Gorky, 1,200 copies each. Publishers "took a chance" and released more. The first volume of the 1st edition of Essays and Stories was published with a circulation of 3,000.
• 1899 - the novel "Foma Gordeev", a poem in prose "The Song of the Falcon".
• 1900-1901 - the novel "Three", a personal acquaintance with Chekhov, Tolstoy.
• 1900-1913 - participates in the work of the publishing house "Knowledge"
• March 1901 - "The Song of the Petrel" was created by M. Gorky in Nizhny Novgorod. Participation in the Marxist workers' circles of Nizhny Novgorod, Sormov, St. Petersburg, wrote a proclamation calling for a fight against the autocracy. Arrested and expelled from Nizhny Novgorod.

According to contemporaries, Nikolai Gumilyov highly appreciated the last stanza of this poem (“Gumilyov without gloss”, St. Petersburg, 2009).

• In 1901, M. Gorky turned to dramaturgy. Creates the plays "Petty Bourgeois" (1901), "At the bottom" (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 - the election of M. Gorky to the honorary academicians of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature. "In 1902, Gorky was elected an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. But before Gorky could exercise his new rights, his election was annulled by the government, since the newly elected academician “was under police surveillance.” In connection with this, Chekhov and Korolenko refused membership in the Academy.
• 1904-1905 - writes the plays "Summer Residents", "Children of the Sun", "Barbarians". Meets Lenin. For the revolutionary proclamation and in connection with the execution on January 9, he was arrested, but then released under pressure from the public. Member of the revolution of 1905-1907. In the autumn of 1905 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.
• 1906 - M. Gorky travels abroad, creates satirical pamphlets about the "bourgeois" culture of France and the USA ("My Interviews", "In America"). He writes the play "Enemies", creates the novel "Mother". Because of tuberculosis, Gorky settled in Italy on the island of Capri, where he lived for 7 years. Here he writes "Confession" (1908), where his philosophical differences with Lenin and rapprochement with Lunacharsky and Bogdanov were clearly identified.
• 1907 - delegate to the V Congress of the RSDLP.
• 1908 - the play "The Last", the story "The Life of an Unnecessary Man".
• 1909 - the novels "The Town of Okurov", "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin".
• 1913 - M. Gorky edits the Bolshevik newspapers Zvezda and Pravda, the art department of the Bolshevik magazine Enlightenment, publishes the first collection of proletarian writers. Writes Tales of Italy.

• 1912-1916 - M. Gorky creates a series of stories and essays that compiled the collection "Across Rus'", autobiographical stories "Childhood", "In People". the last part trilogy "My Universities" was written in 1923.
• 1917-1919 - M. Gorky conducts 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 hunger. In 1917, having disagreed with the Bolsheviks on the issue of the timeliness of the socialist revolution in Russia, he did not pass the re-registration of party members and formally dropped out of it.

Abroad

• 1921 - M. Gorky's departure abroad. A myth developed in Soviet literature that the reason for his departure was the resumption of his illness and the need, at Lenin's insistence, to be treated abroad. In reality, A. M. Gorky was forced to leave because of the aggravation of ideological differences with the established government. In 1921-1923. lived in Helsingfors, Berlin, Prague.
• Since 1924 he lived in Italy, in Sorrento. Published memoirs about Lenin.
• 1925 - the novel "The Artamonov Case".

• 1928 - at the invitation of the Soviet government and Stalin personally, he makes a trip around the country, during which Gorky is shown the achievements of the USSR, which are reflected in the cycle of essays "On the Soviet Union".
• 1931 - Gorky visits the Solovetsky Camp Special Purpose and writes a laudatory review of his regime. A fragment of the work of A. I. Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago" is devoted to this fact.

• 1932 - Gorky returns to the Soviet Union. The government provided him with the former Ryabushinsky mansion on Spiridonovka, dachas in Gorki and Teselli (Crimea). Here he also receives an order from Stalin - 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 "The History of Factories and Plants", "The History of the Civil War", "The Poet's Library", "The History of the Young human XIX centuries”, the journal “Literary Studies”, he writes the plays “Egor Bulychev and Others” (1932), “Dostigaev and Others” (1933).
• 1934 - Gorky "conducts" the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, makes a keynote speech at it.
• 1934 - co-editor of the book "Stalin's Channel"
• In 1925-1936 he wrote the novel The Life of Klim Samgin, which was never completed.
• On May 11, 1934, Gorky's son, Maxim Peshkov, died unexpectedly. 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, the ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow. Before cremation, the brain of M. Gorky was removed and taken to the Moscow Brain Institute for further study.

Death

The circumstances of the death of Gorky and his son are considered by many to be "suspicious", there were rumors of poisoning, which, however, were not confirmed. At the funeral, among others, the coffin with the body of Gorky was carried by Molotov and Stalin. Interestingly, among other accusations of Genrikh Yagoda at the so-called Third Moscow Trial in 1938, there was an accusation of poisoning Gorky's son. According to Yagoda's interrogations, Maxim Gorky was killed on the orders of Trotsky, 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), who were accused of killing Gorky and others.

Family

1. First wife - Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova(née Volozhina).
1. Son - Maxim Alekseevich Peshkov (1897—1934) + Vvedenskaya, Nadezhda Alekseevna("Timosha")
1. Peshkova, Marfa Maksimovna + Beria, Sergo Lavrentievich
1. daughters Nina And Hope, son Sergey
2. Peshkova, Daria Maksimovna
2. Second wife - Maria Fedorovna Andreeva(1872-1953; civil marriage)
3. Life companion for many years Budberg, Maria Ignatievna

Addresses in St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad

• 09.1899 - V. A. Posse's apartment in Trofimov's house - Nadezhdinskaya street, 11;
• 02. - spring 1901 - the apartment of V. A. Posse in the house of Trofimov - Nadezhdinskaya street, 11;
• 11.1902 - K. P. Pyatnitsky's apartment in an apartment building - Nikolaevskaya street, 4;
• 1903 - autumn 1904 - the apartment of K. P. Pyatnitsky in an apartment building - Nikolaevskaya street, 4;
• autumn 1904-1906 - apartment of K. P. Pyatnitsky in an apartment building - Znamenskaya street, 20, apt. 29;
• beginning 03.1914 - autumn 1921 - tenement house E.K. Barsovoy - Kronverksky Prospekt, 23;
• 30.08. - 09/07/1928 - the hotel "European" - Rakov street, 7;
• 18.06. - 07/11/1929 - the hotel "European" - Rakov street, 7;
• end of 09.1931 - hotel "European" - Rakov street, 7.

Bibliography

Novels

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

Tale

• 1908 - "The life of an unnecessary person."
• 1908 - "Confession"
• 1909 - "The Town of Okurov", "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin".
• 1913-1914 - "Childhood"
• 1915-1916 - "In people"
• 1923 - "My Universities"

Stories, essays

• 1892 - "The Girl and Death" (a fairy tale poem, published in July 1917 in the New Life newspaper)
• 1892 - "Makar Chudra"
• 1895 - "Chelkash", "Old Woman Izergil".
• 1897 - "Former People", "The Orlov Spouses", "Malva", "Konovalov".
• 1898 - Essays and Stories (collection)
• 1899 - "Song of the Falcon" (poem in prose), "Twenty-six and one"
• 1901 - "The Song of the Petrel" (poem in prose)
• 1903 - "Man" (poem in prose)
• 1911 - "Tales of Italy"
• 1912-1917 - "In Rus'" (a cycle of stories)
• 1924 - "Stories 1922-1924"
• 1924 - "Notes from a diary" (a cycle of stories)

Plays

Publicism

• 1906 - "My Interviews", "In America" ​​(pamphlets)
• 1917-1918 - a series of articles "Untimely Thoughts" in the newspaper "New Life" (in 1918 it was published as a separate edition)
• 1922 - "On the Russian peasantry"

He initiated the creation of a series of books "The History of Factories and Plants" (IFZ), took the initiative to revive the pre-revolutionary series "Life wonderful people»

Movie incarnations

• Alexei Lyarsky ("Gorky's Childhood", 1938)
• Alexey Lyarsky ("In People", 1938)
• Nikolai Walbert (My Universities, 1939)
• Pavel Kadochnikov ("Yakov Sverdlov", 1940, "Pedagogical Poem", 1955, "Prologue", 1956)
• Nikolai Cherkasov (Lenin in 1918, 1939, Academician Ivan Pavlov, 1949)
• Vladimir Emelyanov (Appasionata, 1963)
• Afanasy Kochetkov (This is how a song is born, 1957, Mayakovsky began like this ..., 1958, Through the icy mist, 1965, The Incredible Yehudiel Khlamida, 1969, The Kotsiubinsky Family, 1970, “Red Diplomat”, 1971, Trust, 1975, “I am an actress”, 1980)
• Valery Poroshin ("Enemy of the People - Bukharin", 1990, "Under the Sign of Scorpio", 1995)
• Alexey Fedkin ("Empire Under Attack", 2000)
• Alexey Osipov ("Two Loves", 2004)
• Nikolai Kachura (Yesenin, 2005)
• Georgy Taratorkin ("Captivity of Passion", 2010)
• Nikolay Svanidze 1907. Maksim Gorky. " Historical chronicles with Nikolai Svanidze

Memory

• In 1932, Nizhny Novgorod was renamed the city of Gorky. The historical name was returned to the city in 1990.
• In Nizhny Novgorod, the central district children's library bears the name of Gorky, Theatre of Drama, a street, as well as a square in the center of which there is a monument to the writer by sculptor V.I. Mukhina. But the most remarkable is the museum-apartment of M. Gorky.
• In 1934, in Voronezh, a Soviet propaganda passenger multi-seat 8-engine aircraft was built at an aviation plant, the largest aircraft of its time with a land chassis - ANT-20 "Maxim Gorky".

• In Moscow, there was Maxim Gorky lane (now Khitrovsky), Maxim Gorky embankment (now Kosmodamianskaya), Maxim Gorky square (formerly Khitrovskaya), Gorkovskaya metro station (now Tverskaya) of the Gorkovsko-Zamoskvoretskaya (now Zamoskvoretskaya) line, Gorky street ( now divided into Tverskaya and 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya streets).

Also, the name of M. Gorky bears a number of streets in other settlements states of the former USSR.

The name of Maxim Gorky is probably familiar to any Russian person. In honor of this writer, cities and streets were named in Soviet time. The outstanding revolutionary prose writer came from common people, self-taught, but the talent he possessed made him world famous. Such nuggets appear once in a hundred years. The life story of this man is very instructive, because it clearly shows what a person from the bottom can achieve without any outside support.

Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov (this was the real name of Maxim Gorky) was born in Nizhny Novgorod. This city was renamed in his honor, and only in the 90s of the last century it was returned to its former name.

The biography of the future writer began on March 28, 1868. The most important thing that he remembered from childhood, Alexei Maksimovich described in his work "Childhood". Alyosha's father, whom he hardly remembered, worked as a carpenter.

He died of cholera when the boy was very young. Alyosha's mother was then pregnant, she gave birth to another son, who died in infancy.

The Peshkov family lived at that time in Astrakhan, because the father had to work in the last years of his life in a steamship company. However, literary critics are arguing about who Maxim Gorky's father was.

Taking two children, the mother decided to return to her homeland, to Nizhny Novgorod. There her father, Vasily Kashirin, kept a dye workshop. Alexei spent his childhood in his house (now there is a museum). Alyosha's grandfather was a rather domineering person, had a stern character, often punished the boy for nothing, using rods. Once Alyosha was whipped so badly that he lay down in bed for a long time. After that, the grandfather repented and asked for forgiveness from the boy, treating him with a candy.

The autobiography described in the story "Childhood" says that the grandfather's house was always full of people. Numerous relatives lived in it, everyone was busy with business.

Important! Little Alyosha also had his own obedience, the boy helped dye the fabrics. But for poorly done work, grandfather severely punished.

Mom taught Alexei to read, then his grandfather taught his grandson the Church Slavonic language. Despite his harsh nature, Kashirin was a very religious person, often went to church. He forced Alyosha to go to church almost by force, but the child did not like this activity. Atheistic views that manifested themselves in Alyosha in childhood, he carried through his whole life. Therefore, his work was revolutionary, the writer Maxim Gorky in his works often said that "God is invented."

As a child, Alyosha attended a parish school, but then became seriously ill and left school. Then his mother married a second time and took her son to her new home in Kanavino. There the boy went to elementary school, but the relationship with the teacher and the priest did not work out.

One day, coming home, Alyosha saw a terrible picture: his stepfather was kicking his mother. Then the boy grabbed a knife to intercede. She reassured her son, who was about to kill his stepfather. After this incident, Alexei decided to return to his grandfather's house. By that time, the old man was completely ruined. Alexey attended a school for poor children for some time, but was expelled because the young man looked untidy, he smelled bad. Alyosha most spent time on the street, stole to feed himself, found clothes for himself in a landfill. Because the teenager got in touch with a bad company, where he received the nickname "Bashlyk".

Alexei Peshkov did not study anywhere else, never having received a secondary education. Despite this, he had strong desire to self-education, independently reading and briefly memorizing the works of many philosophers, such as:

• Nietzsche;
• Hartmann;
• Selly;
• Caro;
• Schopenhauer.

Important! All his life, Alexei Maksimovich Gorky wrote with spelling and grammatical errors, which were corrected by his wife, a proofreader by education.

First independent steps

When Alyosha was 11 years old, his mother died of consumption. Grandfather, finally impoverished, was forced to let go of his grandson in peace. The old man could not feed the young man and told him to go "to the people." Alexei was alone in this big world. The young man decided to go to Kazan to enter the university, but was refused.

Firstly, because that year the enrollment of applicants from the lower strata of society was limited, and secondly, because Alexei did not have a certificate of secondary education.

Then the young man went to work on the pier. It was then that a meeting took place in Gorky's life that influenced his further worldview and creativity. He met with a revolutionary group, which briefly explained what the essence of this progressive doctrine. Alexey began to attend revolutionary meetings, was engaged in propaganda. Then the young man got a job in a bakery, the owner of which sent income to support the revolutionary development in the city.

Alexey has always been a mentally unbalanced person. Upon learning of the death of his beloved grandmother, the young man fell into a severe depressive state. Once, near the monastery, Alexei tried to commit suicide by shooting a lung with a gun. The watchman, who witnessed this, called the police. The young man was taken urgently to the hospital and managed to save his life. However, in the hospital, Alexei made another attempt at suicide by swallowing poison from a medical vessel. The young man was again saved by washing his stomach. The psychiatrist established many mental disorders in Alexei.

Wanderings

Further, the life of the writer Maxim Gorky was no less difficult, briefly we can say that various misfortunes befell him. At the age of 20, for the first time, Alexei was imprisoned for revolutionary activities. After that, the police conducted constant surveillance of the disadvantaged citizen. Then M. Gorky went to the Caspian Sea, where he worked as a fisherman.

Then he went to Borisoglebsk, where he became a weigher. There he first fell in love with a girl, the boss's daughter, and even asked for her hand. Having been refused, Alexey, however, remembered his first love all his life. Gorky tried to organize a Tolstoy movement among the peasants, for this he even went to meet Tolstoy himself, but the writer's wife did not let the poor young man see the living classics.

In the early 90s, Alexei met the writer Korolenko in Nizhny Novgorod. By that time, Peshkov was already writing his first works, he showed one of them to a famous writer. It is interesting that Korolenko criticized the work of the novice writer, but this could not in any way affect the firm desire to write.

Peshkov was then imprisoned again for his revolutionary activities. Coming out of prison, he decided to go wandering around Rus', visited different cities, in the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Ukraine. In Tiflis, he met a revolutionary who advised him to write down all his adventures. This is how the story "Makar Chudra" appeared, which was published in 1892 in the newspaper "Kavkaz".

Creativity Gorky

The heyday of creativity

It was then that the writer took the pseudonym Maxim Gorky, hiding his real name. Then a few more stories appeared in the Nizhny Novgorod newspapers. By that time, Alex decided to settle in his homeland. All Interesting Facts from Gorky's life were the basis of his works. He wrote down the most important thing that happened to him, and interesting and truthful stories were obtained.

Again, Korolenko became the mentor of the beginning writer. Gradually, Maxim Gorky gained popularity among readers. The talented and original author was talked about in literary circles. The writer met Tolstoy and.

In a short period of time, Gorky wrote the most talented works:

• "Old Woman Izergil" (1895);
• "Essays and Stories" (1898);
• "Three", a novel (1901);
• "The Philistines" (1901);
• (1902).

Interesting! Soon, Maxim Gorky was awarded the title of member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, but Emperor Nicholas II personally canceled this decision.

Useful video: Maxim Gorky - biography, life

Moving abroad

In 1906, Maxim Gorky decided to go abroad. He first settled in the United States. Then, for health reasons (he was diagnosed with tuberculosis), he moved to Italy. Here he wrote much in defense of the revolution. Then the writer briefly returned to Russia, but in 1921 he again went abroad due to conflicts with the authorities and an aggravated illness. He returned to Russia only ten years later.

In 1936, at the age of 68, writer Maxim Gorky completed his earth path. In his death, some saw the poisoning of ill-wishers, although this version was not confirmed. The life of the writer was not easy, but filled with diverse adventures. Sites with biographies different writers, you can see the table chronological events life.

Personal life

M. Gorky had a rather interesting appearance, which can be seen by looking at his photo. He had high growth, expressive eyes, thin hands with long fingers, which he waved when talking. He enjoyed success with women, and, knowing this, he knew how to show his attractiveness in the photo.

Alexei Maksimovich had many admirers, many of those with whom he was close. For the first time Maxim Gorky married in 1896 Ekaterina Volgina. Two children were born from her: son Maxim and daughter Katya (she died at the age of five). In 1903, Gorky became friends with the actress Ekaterina Andreeva. Without filing a divorce from their first wife, they began to live as husband and wife. He spent many years with her abroad.

In 1920, the writer met Maria Budberg, Baroness, with whom he had an intimate relationship, they were together until 1933. There were rumors that she worked for British intelligence.

Gorky had two adopted children: Ekaterina and Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky, the latter became a famous Soviet director and cameraman.

Useful video: interesting facts from the life of M. Gorky

Conclusion

The work of Alexei Maksimovich Gorky made an invaluable contribution to Russian and Soviet literature. It is peculiar, original, surprising in its beauty of words and power, especially considering that the writer was illiterate and uneducated. Until now, his works are admired by descendants, they are studied in high school. The work of this outstanding writer is also known and revered abroad.