Maxim Gorky biography years of life. Literary and historical notes of a young technician

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

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

Alexey Peshkov - future Maxim Gorky

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

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

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

And you will live on earth,

How blind worms live:

No fairy tales will be told about you,

They won't sing any songs about you.

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

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

Alexey Peshkov, who took the pseudonym Gorky

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

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

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

With his first wife Ekaterina Volzhina

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

With his second wife, actress Maria Andreeva

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

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

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

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

In the last years of life

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

The name of Maxim Gorky is probably familiar to any Russian person. Cities and streets were named after this writer. 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 every hundred years. The life story of this man is very instructive, since it clearly shows what a person from the bottom can achieve without any outside support.

Alexey 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 given back its original name.

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

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

The Peshkov family lived at that time in Astrakhan, because his father had to work in the last years of his life in a shipping company. However, literary scholars are debating who Maxim Gorky’s father was.

Having taken two children, the mother decided to return to her homeland, to Nizhny Novgorod. There her father, Vasily Kashirin, ran a dyeing workshop. Alexey spent his childhood in his house (now there is a museum there). Alyosha's grandfather was a rather domineering man, had a stern character, and often punished the boy for trifles, using rods. One day Alyosha was whipped so severely that he was confined to bed for a long time. After this, the grandfather repented and asked the boy for forgiveness, treating him with 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 fabrics. But my grandfather severely punished me for poorly done work.

Alexei’s mother taught him to read, then his grandfather taught his grandson the Church Slavonic language. Despite his stern character, Kashirin was a very religious person and often went to church. He forced Alyosha to go to church almost by force, but the child did not like this activity. He carried the atheistic views that Alyosha showed in childhood throughout his entire life. Therefore, his work was revolutionary; the writer Maxim Gorky in his works often said that “God is made up.”

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

One day, coming home, Alyosha saw scary picture: stepfather kicked mother. Then the boy grabbed a knife to intercede. She calmed her son, who was about to kill his stepfather. After this incident, Alexey decided to return to his grandfather's house. By that time the old man was completely broke. Alexey attended a school for poor children for some time, but was expelled because the young man was unkempt and smelled bad. Alyosha most spent time on the street, stole to feed himself, and found clothes for himself in a landfill. Therefore, the teenager got involved with a bad company, where he received the nickname “Bashlyk”.

Alexey Peshkov did not study anywhere else, never receiving 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;
• Karo;
• Schopenhauer.

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

First independent steps

When Alyosha was 11 years old, her mother died of consumption. The grandfather, having become completely impoverished, was forced to let his grandson go in peace. The old man could not feed the young man and told him to go “to the people.” Alexey found himself alone in this big world. The young man decided to go to Kazan to enter university, but was refused.

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

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

Alexey has always been a mentally unstable person. Upon learning of the death of his beloved grandmother, the young man fell into a severe depression. One day, near the monastery, Alexey tried to commit suicide by shooting his lung with a gun. A watchman who witnessed this called the police. The young man was rushed to the hospital and managed to save his life. However, in the hospital, Alexey made a second suicide attempt by swallowing poison from a medical vessel. The young man was saved again by washing his stomach. The psychiatrist diagnosed Alexey with many mental disorders.

Wanderings

Further, the life of the writer Maxim Gorky was no less difficult; in short, we can say that he suffered from various misfortunes. At the age of 20, Alexei was first imprisoned for revolutionary activities. After this, the police conducted constant surveillance of the troubled 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 allow the poor man to see the living classic young man.

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

Peshkov was then imprisoned again for revolutionary activities. After leaving prison, he decided to go wandering around Rus', visited different cities, in Crimea, the Caucasus, Ukraine. In Tiflis I met a revolutionary who advised me to write down all my adventures. This is how the story “Makar Chudra” appeared, which was published in 1892 in the newspaper “Caucasus”.

Gorky's work

Creativity flourishes

It was then that the writer took the pseudonym Maxim Gorky, hiding his real name. Then several more stories appeared in Nizhny Novgorod newspapers. By that time, Alexey decided to settle in his homeland. All Interesting Facts from Gorky's life were used as the basis for his works. He wrote down the most important things that happened to him, and the results were interesting and truthful stories.

Korolenko again became the mentor of the aspiring 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", novel (1901);
• "The Bourgeois" (1901);
• (1902).

Interesting! Soon Maxim Gorky was awarded the title of member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, but Emperor Nicholas II personally reversed 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 a lot in defense of the revolution. Then the writer returned to Russia for a short time, but in 1921 he went abroad again due to conflicts with the authorities and worsening illness. He returned to Russia only ten years later.

In 1936, at the age of 68, the writer Maxim Gorky completed his earthly path. Some saw his death as the poisoning of ill-wishers, although this version was not confirmed. The writer's life was not easy, but filled with varied adventures. On sites where biographies are published different writers, you can see a table of chronological life events.

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 brushes with long fingers, which he waved while talking. He enjoyed success with women, and, knowing this, he knew how to show his attractiveness in the photo.

Alexei Maksimovich had many fans, many of whom he was close to. Maxim Gorky first married in 1896 to Ekaterina Volgina. She gave birth to two children: son Maxim and daughter Katya (died at age five). In 1903, Gorky became involved with actress Ekaterina Andreeva. Without filing a divorce from their first wife, they began to live as husband and wife. He spent many years abroad with her.

In 1920, the writer met Maria Budberg, a baroness, with whom he entered into 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 original, original, amazing in its beauty of words and power, especially considering that the writer was illiterate and uneducated. His works are still admired by his descendants and are studied in high school. The work of this outstanding writer is also known and revered abroad.

Abroad

Return to the Soviet Union

Bibliography

Stories, essays

Journalism

Film incarnations

Also known as Alexey 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 the XIX century and 20th centuries, famous for his portrayal 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 worldwide fame.

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

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

Biography

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

Childhood

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

Youth

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

Literary and social activities

• 1897 - “Former People”, “The Orlov Spouses”, “Malva”, “Konovalov”.
• From October 1897 to mid-January 1898, he lived in the village of Kamenka (now the city of Kuvshinovo, Tver Region) in the apartment of his friend Nikolai Zakharovich Vasiliev, who worked at the Kamensk paper factory and led an illegal workers' Marxist circle. Subsequently, the life impressions of this period served the writer as material for the novel “The Life of Klim Samgin.”
• 1898 - The publishing house of Dorovatsky and A.P. Charushnikov published the first volume of Gorky’s works. In those years, the circulation of the first book young author rarely exceeded 1,000 copies. A. I. Bogdanovich advised to release the first two volumes of M. Gorky’s “Essays and Stories” in 1,200 copies each. Publishers “took a chance” and released more. The first volume of the 1st edition of “Essays and Stories” was published in a circulation of 3,000.
• 1899 - novel “Foma Gordeev”, prose poem “Song of the Falcon”.
• 1900-1901 - novel “Three”, personal acquaintance with Chekhov and Tolstoy.
• 1900-1913 - participates in the work of the publishing house "Knowledge"
• March 1901 - “Song of the Petrel” was created by M. Gorky in Nizhny Novgorod. Participation in Marxist workers' circles in Nizhny Novgorod, Sormovo, St. Petersburg, wrote a proclamation calling for the fight against autocracy. Arrested and expelled from Nizhny Novgorod.

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

• In 1901, M. Gorky turned to drama. Creates the plays “The Bourgeois” (1901), “At the Lower Depths” (1902). In 1902, he became the godfather and adoptive father of the Jew Zinovy ​​Sverdlov, who took the surname Peshkov and converted to Orthodoxy. This was necessary in order for Zinovy ​​to receive the right to live in Moscow.
• February 21 - election of M. Gorky to honorary academician Imperial Academy Sciences in the category of belles-lettres."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 with this, Chekhov and Korolenko refused membership in the Academy.
• 1904-1905 - writes the plays “Summer Residents”, “Children of the Sun”, “Barbarians”. Meets Lenin. He was arrested for the revolutionary proclamation and in connection with the execution on January 9, but then released under public pressure. Participant in the revolution of 1905-1907. In the fall of 1905 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.
• 1906 - 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” and creates the novel “Mother”. Due to 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 outlined.
• 1907 - delegate to the V Congress of the RSDLP.
• 1908 - play “The Last”, story “The Life of an Useless Person”.
• 1909 - the stories “The Town of Okurov”, “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin”.
• 1913 - M. Gorky edits the Bolshevik newspapers Zvezda and Pravda, the art department of the Bolshevik magazine Prosveshchenie, and publishes the first collection of proletarian writers. Writes "Tales of Italy".

• 1912-1916 - M. Gorky creates a series of stories and essays that made up the collection “Across Rus'”, autobiographical stories “Childhood”, “In People”. The last part of the trilogy, “My Universities,” was written in 1923.
• 1917-1919 - M. Gorky does a lot of social and political work, criticizes the “methods” of the Bolsheviks, condemns their attitude towards the old intelligentsia, saves many of its representatives from Bolshevik repression and famine. In 1917, having disagreed with the Bolsheviks on the issue of the timeliness of the socialist revolution in Russia, he did not undergo re-registration of party members and formally dropped out of it.

Abroad

• 1921 - M. Gorky’s departure abroad. IN Soviet literature a myth has developed that the reason for his departure was the resumption of his illness and the need, at Lenin’s insistence, for treatment abroad. In fact, A. M. Gorky was forced to leave due to worsening 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 - novel “The Artamonov Case”.

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

• 1932 - Gorky returns to the Soviet Union. The government provided him former mansion Ryabushinsky on Spiridonovka, dachas in Gorki and Teselli (Crimea). Here he receives Stalin’s order - to prepare the ground for the 1st Congress of Soviet Writers, and to do this, to hold among them preparatory work. Gorky created many newspapers and magazines: the book series “History of Factories”, “History of the Civil War”, “The Poet’s Library”, “The History of a Young Man” XIX century", magazine " Literary studies", he writes the plays "Yegor Bulychev and others" (1932), "Dostigaev and others" (1933).
• 1934 - Gorky “conducts” the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, giving the main report at it.
• 1934 - co-editor of the book “Stalin Canal”
• In 1925-1936 he wrote the novel “The Life of Klim Samgin,” which was never finished.
• On May 11, 1934, Gorky’s son, Maxim Peshkov, unexpectedly dies. M. Gorky died on June 18, 1936 in Gorki, having outlived his son by a little more than two years. After his death, he was cremated and his ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow. Before cremation, M. Gorky's brain was removed and taken to the Moscow Brain Institute for further study.

Death

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

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

Family

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

Addresses in St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad

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

Stories

• 1908 - “The Life of an Useless Man.”
• 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” (fairy tale poem, published in July 1917 in the newspaper “New Life”)
• 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” (prose poem), “Twenty-six and one”
• 1901 - “Song of the Petrel” (prose poem)
• 1903 - “Man” (prose poem)
• 1911 — “Tales of Italy”
• 1912-1917 - “Across Rus'” (cycle of stories)
• 1924 - “Stories of 1922-1924”
• 1924 - “Notes from a Diary” (series of stories)

Plays

Journalism

• 1906 - “My Interviews”, “In America” (pamphlets)
• 1917-1918 - a series of articles “Untimely Thoughts” in the newspaper “New Life” (published in a separate publication in 1918)
• 1922 — “On the Russian peasantry”

Initiated the creation of a series of books “History of factories and factories” (IFZ), took the initiative to revive the pre-revolutionary series “Life wonderful people»

Film incarnations

• Alexey Lyarsky (“Gorky’s Childhood”, 1938)
• Alexey Lyarsky (“In People”, 1938)
• Nikolai Valbert (“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 darkness, 1965, The incredible Yehudiel Chlamida, 1969, The Kotsyubinsky 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 (“Captive of Passion”, 2010)
• Nikolai Svanidze 1907. Maksim Gorky. " Historical chronicles with Nikolai Svanidze

Memory

• In 1932, Nizhny Novgorod was renamed the city of Gorky. Historical name returned to the city in 1990.
• In Nizhny Novgorod, the central regional children's library bears the name of Gorky, Theatre of Drama, 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 interesting thing is the museum-apartment of M. Gorky.
• In 1934, at the Voronezh aviation plant, a Soviet propaganda passenger multi-seat 8-engine aircraft was built, the largest aircraft of its time with a land landing gear - the ANT-20 Maxim Gorky.

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

Also, a number of streets in other cities bear the name of M. Gorky populated areas states of the former USSR.

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

Biography

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

Childhood

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

Youth

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

Literary and social activities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abroad

• 1921 - M. Gorky’s departure abroad. In Soviet literature, there was a myth that the reason for his departure was the resumption of his illness and the need, at Lenin’s insistence, for treatment abroad. In fact, A. M. Gorky was forced to leave due to worsening 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 - novel “The Artamonov Case”.

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

Return to the USSR

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

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

Death

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

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

Family and personal life

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

Environment

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