Maksim Gorky. Ten major works. Works of Gorky: complete list. Maxim Gorky: early romantic works

Maxim Gorky is just a pseudonym for the writer. His real name is Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov. This is a famous prose writer, playwright, an outstanding personality in Russian literature. He gained enormous popularity and gained authority not only at home, but also in Europe. His hometown is Nizhny Novgorod. He was born on March 28, 1868. His father was a carpenter, and Maxim Gorky’s family did not earn much. At the age of 7, Alexey went to school, but his studies ended very soon, and forever, because a few months later the boy fell ill with smallpox. Alexey acquired all his knowledge and skills only through self-education.

The most popular version of why Alexey took such a pseudonym for himself is that he could not sign with his real last name, and “gorky” was an allusion to hard life.

Youth

Gorky's childhood was extremely difficult. He was left an orphan very early, after which he lived with his grandfather, who had a very tough and rude disposition. Already at the age of 11, Alexey set out to earn his living in completely different areas. These were shops, shops, bakeries, icon painting workshops, as well as buffets on ships and much more. In the summer of 1884, Gorky decided to visit Kazan to enroll there and begin studying. However, his idea to go to university failed. So he was forced to continue to work hard.

Suicide attempt

Constant need and excessive fatigue drove the 19-year-old boy to attempt suicide, which he attempted at the end of 1887. He tried to shoot himself with a revolver, aiming it at his heart. However, the bullet missed a vital organ a few millimeters. During his life, Gorky repeatedly tried to commit suicide; he had extreme suicidal tendencies. Nevertheless, each time he managed to successfully avoid death.

It is possible that he did not want to kill himself. In one of the stories of his wife, it is mentioned that, while doing housework, she heard a strong roar in her husband’s office. When she ran to the place, she saw her husband covered in blood. When asked what happened, the writer only replied that he deliberately hurt himself so that he could feel the sensations of the character he was writing about. The personal life of Maxim Gorky, by the way, was very unrestrained. He was popular with women and was extremely unfaithful to his wives.

The biography of M. Gorky contains many acquaintances with revolutionary personalities. In Kazan, he met and became close to various representatives of revolutionary populism and Marxists. He often goes to circles and makes attempts at campaigning on his own. The following year he was arrested for the first time, but not for the last time. Alexey is working at this time railway under the strict supervision of the police.

In 1889, Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov returned to hometown, where he gets a job with lawyer Lanin as a clerk. However, he did not lose his connection with radicals and revolutionaries. It was at this time that Gorky composed the poem “The Song of the Old Oak,” which he asked his friend Korolenko to evaluate.

First edition

In the spring of 1891, Gorky left Nizhny Novgorod and traveled around the country. Already in November he reached Tiflis. It was there that one of the newspapers published his first story in September 1892. Twenty-four-year-old Maxim Gorky published his Makar Chudra.

Afterwards, Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov returns to Nizhny Novgorod and again goes to work for Lanin. His works are published not only in Nizhny Novgorod, but also in Kazan and Samara. In 1895, he moved to Samara and worked there in the city newspaper, sometimes acting as an editor. His works are actively published. In 1898, a large enough edition of his two-volume “Essays and Stories” was published for a novice author. The work became the subject of active discussion in the world. In 1899, Gorky completed his first novel, Foma Gordeev, and a year later he had a personal meeting with such outstanding luminaries of Russian literature as Chekhov and Tolstoy.

In 1901, for the first time he wrote a work in the genre of drama, because before that the work of Maxim Gorky was mainly in prose. He writes the plays "The Bourgeois" and "At the Bottom." Transferred to the stage, his works were very popular with the public. “The Bourgeois” was even staged in Berlin and Vienna, thanks to which Gorky received enormous gratitude in European countries. From that moment on, his works began to be translated abroad, and European critics began to pay a lot of attention to his person.

Revolutionary life

The biography of M. Gorky is filled with revolutionary events. He did not stand aside from the events of the 1905 Revolution. The writer joined the Russian Social Democratic workers' party. A year later, his first emigration from Russia began in his biography. Until 1913 he lived on the island of Capri. It was then that he worked on the novel “Mother,” thanks to which a new literary direction was laid - socialist realism.

After a political amnesty was declared, the writer returned to Russia. In the same year he begins work on his artistic biography. For three years he worked on the trilogy “My Universities”, which he completed only in 1923. At this time he worked as editor of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda and Zvezda. Many proletarian writers united around him, together with whom he published a collection of their works.

October Revolution

Maxim Gorky had a very positive attitude towards the 1905 revolution, but the events of the October Revolution were contradictory for him. The writer eloquently expressed his hesitations and fears in the newspaper “ New life”, which was published from May of the seventeenth year to March of the eighteenth. However, already in the second half of 1918, he became an ally of the Bolshevik government, although he showed some disagreement with the principles and methods, which in particular concerns the intelligentsia. Thanks to the writer's efforts a large number of intelligentsia people were able to avoid hunger and reprisals. Gorky also makes a lot of efforts to Hard times the culture was not only preserved, but also continued to develop.

Emigration period

In 1921, Gorky left Russia. According to the well-known version, he did this on the recommendation of Lenin, who was worried about the writer’s health, in particular because of his acute tuberculosis. However, deeper reasons may be based on ideological contradictions in Gorky’s positions with the leaders of the proletariat. For a long time Alexey lives in different countries Europe, such as Germany, Czech Republic and Italy.

Return of the emigrant

In honor of his 60th birthday, the writer was personally invited to the Soviet Union by Comrade Stalin. A ceremonial arrival was organized for him. The writer travels around the country, where he is shown the successes of socialism and given the opportunity to speak at meetings and rallies. Gorky is celebrated for his literary merits, accepted into the Communist Academy, and given other honors.

In 1932, the last turn in the biography of M. Gorky took place, the writer finally returned to his homeland, becoming the leader of the new Soviet literature. Gorky leads an active social life, launches many printed publications, literary series and much more. He continues to write and improve his creativity. In 1934, under the leadership of Gorky, the first All-Union Congress of Writers was held. He spent a lot of effort preparing for this event.

The work of Maxim Gorky made him a five-time nominee for Nobel Prize in the field of literature.

Death of a Writer

In 1936, on June 18, the biography of M. Gorky ended. The country was filled with news that Maxim Gorky had passed away at his dacha. The place of his burial was Moscow. There are many theories surrounding his death, as well as that of his son, about possible poisoning in connection with political conspiracies, but no official confirmation has ever been found.

Years of life of Maxim Gorky: 1868 - 1936.

Personal life

Alexey was married more than once. The personal life of Maxim Gorky is filled with passions. His first marriage was with Ekaterina Volzhina. From this union he had a daughter, Ekaterina, who, much to the writer’s regret, died in infancy, as well as a son, Maxim, who became an amateur artist.

The young man died in 1934, quite unexpectedly. His death gave rise to rumors about the violent death of the young man.

The second time Alexey was in a civil marriage with actress and revolutionary Maria Andreeva. The third family of Maxim Gorky, the writer, was his marriage to Maria Budberg, who spent time with him last years his life.

The Gorky myth, having formed in its basic outlines even before the revolution, was cemented by the Soviet canon, and then debunked by dissident and perestroika criticism. The true figure of the writer has blurred to absolute indistinguishability under the layers contradictory friends friend of mythologization and demythologization, and his biography, full of fascinating episodes, has successfully replaced his work in the collective imagination. Arzamas has collected controversial aspects of the biography and work of the tramp writer, petrel of the revolution, founder of socialist realism, close friend of Lenin, Soviet boss, singer of the White Sea Canal and Solovetsky camp.

1. Gorky is an insignificant writer

The most famous formulation of this thesis apparently belongs to Vladimir Nabokov. " Artistic talent Gorky has no great value” and “is not without interest” only “as a bright phenomenon of Russian social life”, Gorky is “pseudo-intelligent”, “deprived of visual acuity and imagination”, he “completely lacks intellectual scope”, and his gift is “poor” . He strives for “flat” sentimentalism
“in the worst case scenario,” there is “not a single living word” in his works, “just ready-made cliches,” “all molasses with a small amount of soot.” Merezhkovsky spoke no less caustically about Gorky’s talent as a writer:

“It’s not worth saying more than two words about Gorky as an artist. The truth about the tramp, told by Gorky, deserves the greatest attention; but poetry, with which he, unfortunately, sometimes considers it necessary to decorate this truth, deserves nothing but condescending oblivion.”

Dmitry Merezhkovsky. "Chekhov and Gorky" (1906)

Another recognized bearer of high literary taste, I. A. Bunin, directly wrote about the “unparalleled undeservedness” of Gorky’s world fame (“Gorky”, 1936), accusing him of almost falsifying his own tramp biography.

But next to these derogatory characteristics it is easy to put others - exactly the opposite, breathing love for Gorky and admiration for his talent. According to Chekhov, Gorky is a “real”, “rolling” talent, Blok calls him a “Russian artist”, the always caustic and reserved Khodasevich writes about Gorky as a writer of high standard, and Marina Tsvetaeva notes on the occasion of Bunin being awarded the Nobel Prize: “I I’m not protesting, I just don’t agree, because Gorky is incomparably greater than Bunin: greater, and more humane, and more original, and more necessary. Gorky is an era, and Bunin is the end of an era” (in a letter to A.A. Teskova dated November 24, 1933).

2. Gorky - creator of socialist realism

Soviet literary criticism interpreted the development of realistic art as a transition from critical realism, embodied in the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev and Tolstoy, to socialist realism, which was the official and only artistic method Soviet art. The last representative critical realism, Chekhov was appointed, and Gorky got the role of “the founder of literature socialist realism"and "the founder of Soviet literature" (Bolshaya Soviet encyclopedia).

Gorky’s play “Enemies” (1906) and especially the novel “Mother” (1906) were recognized as “outstanding works of socialist realism”. At the same time, the theory of socialist realism finally took shape only in the 30s, it was then that the genealogy of this “artistic method... which is an aesthetic expression of the socialistically conscious concept of the world and man” was built - with Gorky at the head and with his writing almost 30 years ago in America with the novel “Mother” as the highest example.

Later, Gorky felt the need to justify the fact that the masterpiece of socialist realism was written in America, far from Russian realities. In the second edition of the essay “V. I. Lenin" (1930) the phrase appeared: “In general, the trip was not a success, but I wrote “Mother” there, which explains some of the “mistakes” and shortcomings of this book.”

Maxim Gorky in Italy, 1907 ITAR-TASS Archive

Maxim Gorky in Italy, 1912 ITAR-TASS Archive

Maxim Gorky in Italy, 1924 ITAR-TASS Archive

Today, Gorky researchers are discovering the ideological spring of the exemplary Soviet novel not at all in Marxism, as Soviet literary criticism wanted, but in the peculiar ideas of God-building that occupied Gorky throughout his life:

“Gorky was not fascinated by Marxism, but was fascinated by the dream of a new man and a new God...<...>The main idea of ​​“Mother” is the idea of ​​a new world, and it is symbolic that the place of God the Father in it is occupied by the Mother.<...>The scenes of the meetings of the workers’ circle are designed in the same quasi-biblical style: they resemble the secret meetings of the apostles.”

Dmitry Bykov.“Was there Gorky?”

It is noteworthy that contrary to the iron chronological logic of Soviet style theory last piece Gorky’s “The Life of Klim Samgin” (1925-1936; the fourth part was not completed) is classified as critical realism in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia article on socialist realism.

3. Gorky - a fighter against social injustice

There is no doubt that Gorky rebelled against the world order of his time, but his rebellion was not limited to the social sphere. The metaphysical, atheistic nature of Gorky’s work was pointed out by his fierce critic D. S. Merezhkovsky:

“Chekhov and Gorky are indeed “prophets,” although not in the sense that they are thought of, or perhaps in the sense that they think of themselves. They are “prophets” because they bless what they wanted to curse, and they curse what they wanted to bless. They wanted to show that man without God is God; but they showed that he is a beast, worse than a beast is cattle, worse than cattle is a corpse, worse than a corpse is nothing.”

Dmitry Merezhkovsky."Chekhov and Gorky", 1906

It is known that Gorky was close to the ideas of Russian cosmism, the idea of ​​fighting death as the embodiment of absolute evil, overcoming it, gaining immortality and the resurrection of all the dead (“Common Cause” by N. F. Fedorov). According to O. D. Chertkova, two days before his death, in delirium, Gorky said: “... you know, I was just arguing with the Lord God. Wow, how I argued!” The Gorky rebellion captured the universe, life and death, was called upon to change the world order and man, that is, it aimed much higher than a simple change in the social structure. Direct artistic expression This is the fairy tale in verse “The Girl and Death” (1892), which caused Stalin’s famous resolution: “This thing is stronger than Goethe’s Faust (love conquers death).”

4. Gorky is an anti-modernist

The image of Gorky - a champion of realistic trends in literature, an opponent of decadence and modernism, the founder of socialist realism - crumbles if you look closely at his real place in the literary process Silver Age. Bright romanticism early stories, Nietzscheanism and God-seeking turn out to be consonant with the modernist trends of Russian literature at the turn of the century. Annensky writes about the play “At the Lower Depths”:

“After Dostoevsky, Gorky, in my opinion, is the most pronounced Russian symbolist. His realism is not at all the same as that of Goncharov, Pisemsky or Ostrovsky. Looking at his paintings, you remember the words of the author of “The Teenager,” who once said that at some moments the most everyday surroundings seem to him like a dream or an illusion.”

Innokenty Annensky."Drama at the Bottom" (1906)

Gorky’s mythologization of his life can also be read in a new way in the context of symbolist life-creativity, and closeness with many modernists clearly demonstrates the relativity of the traditional Soviet view of Gorky’s place in the literary process. It is no coincidence that the most subtle view on the nature of Gorky’s art belongs to none other than Vladislav Khodasevich, the most important figure of Russian modernism, who was part of the writer’s home circle for several years.

5. Gorky and Lenin

The image of Gorky as a great proletarian writer, canonized by Soviet official culture, necessarily included the legend of the closest friendship that connected the petrel of the revolution with Lenin: the legend had a powerful visual component: numerous sculptures, paintings and photographs depicting scenes of lively conversations between the creator of socialist realism and the proletarian leader.

In fact, Gorky's political position after the revolution was far from clear, and his influence was limited. Already from 1918, the writer played a somewhat ambiguous role in Petrograd, the reason for which was his very critical essays in relation to the socialist revolution, which made up the book “Untimely Thoughts” (the book was not reprinted in Russia until 1990), and enmity with the powerful chairman of the Petrograd Soviet Grigory Zinoviev. This situation ultimately led to Gorky’s honorable exile, which lasted almost twelve years: there was no place for the singer of the revolution in post-revolutionary reality.

However, Gorky himself had a hand in creating this myth, depicting his friendship with Lenin in sentimental colors in a biographical sketch about him.

6. Gorky and Stalin

The last period of Gorky's life - after his return to Soviet Russia- just like his entire biography, it is overgrown with legends that, however, carry the opposite ideological charge. Special place Among them are popular rumors that Gorky, having returned, fell under the strict control of the security officers, that Stalin threatened him and his family and ultimately dealt with the objectionable writer (having previously organized the murder of his son).

But the facts indicate that Gorky’s Stalinism was sincere, and relations with Stalin were at least neutral. After returning, the writer changed his opinion about the methods of the Bolsheviks, seeing in Soviet reality a grandiose laboratory for remaking a person, which aroused his deep admiration.

“In 1921-1928, Gorky was embarrassed and burdened by the semi-disgraced position of a petrel of the revolution, forced to live abroad in an almost emigrant position. He wanted to be where the proletarian revolution was happening. Stalin, having dealt with his enemy Zinoviev (I do not mean the execution of Zinoviev, but his preliminary disgrace), gave Gorky the opportunity to return and take that high position of arbiter on cultural issues, which Gorky could not achieve even under Lenin. Stalin's personality itself, of course, impressed him to the highest degree.<...>Undoubtedly, he flattered Stalin not only in official speeches and writings.”

Vladislav Khodasevich."On the Death of Gorky" (1938)

Molotov, Stalin, Mikoyan carry the urn with Gorky’s ashes to the Kremlin wall.

Gorky's funeral. Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich carry out the urn with ashes from the House of Unions.

Moscow workers at a funeral rally on Red Square.Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow

Gorky's funeral. Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Ordzhonikidze and Andreev carry an urn with ashes during a funeral meeting.

The version that Gorky was killed was first voiced during the Third Moscow Trial of 1937: former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Genrikh Yagoda, as well as Gorky's secretary Pyotr Kryuchkov and three famous doctors Lev were accused of the villainous murder of the writer and his son, Maxim Peshkov Levin, Ignatius Kazakov and Dmitry Pletnev. All this was presented as part of a vast “right-wing Trotskyist” conspiracy. In particular, Yagoda admitted that he killed Gorky on the personal instructions of Trotsky, transmitted through Yenukidze: allegedly the conspirators tried to quarrel Gorky with Stalin, and when nothing worked out, they decided to eliminate him, fearing that after the overthrow of the Stalinist leadership, Gorky, whose opinion was listened to and in the country and abroad, “will raise their voice of protest against us.” Yagoda allegedly ordered Maxim Peshkov to be poisoned for personal reasons, because he was in love with his wife. A little later, versions arise according to which Stalin himself ordered Yagoda to poison Gorky, or even did it with his own hands, sending him a box of chocolates. It is known, however, that Gorky did not like sweets, and loved to give sweets to his family and guests, so it would have been difficult to poison him in this way. In general, no convincing evidence of the murder version is known, although much has been written about it.

But this version turned out to be beneficial: Stalin used it as a pretext for reprisals against the Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc. Stalin's denunciators, in turn, gladly included Gorky among Stalin's victims.

7. Gorky, Russian people and Jews

The image of Gorky as the singer of the Russian people will crumble if we take into account that the great proletarian writer treated the Russian peasantry and countryside with hatred. In Gorky’s system of views, the peasant personified all the negative properties of human nature: stupidity, laziness, mundaneness, and narrow-mindedness. The tramp, Gorky's favorite type, coming from a peasant environment, towered over her and denied her with his entire existence. The clash between Chelkash, the “old poisoned wolf,” “an inveterate drunkard and a clever, brave thief,” with the cowardly, weak and insignificant peasant Gavrila, clearly illustrates this opposition.

“The semi-wild, stupid, heavy people of Russian villages and hamlets will die out... and they will be replaced by a new tribe - literate, reasonable, cheerful people. In my opinion, they will not be very “sweet and attractive Russian people,” but they will, finally, be a business people, distrustful and indifferent to everything that is not directly related to their needs.”

Maksim Gorky."On the Russian Peasantry" (1922)

In his own way, Merezhkovsky understood Gorky’s attitude towards the peasantry: “The tramp hates the people, because the people - the peasantry - are still unconscious Christianity, while old, blind, dark - the religion of God, only God, without humanity, but with the possibility of paths to a new Christianity , sighted, bright - to the conscious religion of God-manhood. The last essence of tramping is anti-Christianity...” (“Chekhov and Gorky”, 1906).

For Gorky, the Jews served as an example of a nation in which the sought-after ideals of reason, hard work and efficiency were already embodied. He more than once wrote about Jews in the same terms in which he painted the image of a new man who would replace the Russian peasant. The Jewish theme occupies an important place in the writer’s journalism; he always acts as a consistent defender of Jewry and a tough opponent of anti-Semitism:

“During the entire difficult path of humanity towards progress, towards light... the Jew stood in a living protest... against everything dirty, everything base in human life, against gross acts of violence of man against man, against disgusting vulgarity and spiritual ignorance.”

Maksim Gorky."About the Jews" (1906) 

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

Alexey Peshkov - future Maxim Gorky | Pandia

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 of Nizhny Novgorod. His father Maxim Peshkov was a carpenter, and in the last years of his life he ran a shipping company. Vasilievna’s mother died of consumption, so Alyosha Peshkova’s parents were replaced by her 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 by him personally in the 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, the 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 his future works. By the way, the first stories of Maxim Gorky also began to be published around that time.

Having already become a famous writer, Alexey Peshkov leaves for the United States, then moves to Italy. This did not happen at all because of problems with the authorities, as some sources sometimes present, but because of changes in family life. Although abroad, Gorky continues to write revolutionary books. He returned to Russia in 1913, settled in St. Petersburg and began working for various publishing houses.

It is curious that with all the Marxist views October Revolution Peshkov was quite skeptical. After the Civil War, Maxim Gorky, who had some disagreements with new government, again leaves abroad, but in 1932 finally returns home.

Writer

The first published story by Maxim Gorky was the famous “Makar Chudra,” which was published in 1892. And 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 of 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 in the Soviet Union and organized holidays for children from poor families.

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”, the 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”. The writer worked on this manuscript for 11 years, but never managed to finish it.

Personal life

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 in the family, 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.

But Gorky's love quickly disappeared. He 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.

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.

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.

Death

After his final return to his homeland in 1932, Maxim Gorky worked in newspaper and magazine publishing houses, created a series of books “History of Factories and Works”, “Poet’s Library”, “History civil war", organizes and conducts the First All-Union Congress Soviet writers. After the unexpected death of his son from pneumonia, the writer wilted. During his next visit to Maxim’s grave, he caught a bad cold. Gorky had a fever for three weeks, which led to his death on June 18, 1936. The body of the Soviet writer was cremated, and the ashes were placed in the Kremlin wall on Red Square. But first, Maxim Gorky’s brain was extracted and transferred to the Research Institute for further study.

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

Books by Maxim Gorky

• 1899 - Foma Gordeev
• 1902 - At the bottom
• 1906 - Mother
• 1908 - The life of an unnecessary person
• 1914 - Childhood
• 1916 - In People
• 1923 - My universities
• 1925 - Artamonov case
• 1931 - Egor Bulychov and others
• 1936 - Life of Klim Samgin

Gorky Maxim Gorky Maxim

real name and surname Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov (1868-1936), Russian writer, publicist. The collection “Essays and Stories” (vols. 1-3, 1898-99), where the so-called tramps were depicted as bearers of a new, “free” morality (not without the influence of Nietzscheanism) had a great resonance. In the novel "Mother" (1906-07) he sympathetically showed the increasing revolutionary movement in Russia. Having identified different types life behavior of the inhabitants of the shelter (the play “At the Lower Depths”, 1902), raised the question of freedom and the purpose of man. In the “Okurov” cycle (the novel “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin”, 1910-11) there is passivity, inertia of district Russian life, the penetration of revolutionary sentiments into it. Russian problem national character in the cycle of stories “Across Rus'” (1912-17). In the journalistic book “Untimely Thoughts” (separate edition - 1918), he sharply criticized the course towards revolution taken by V.I. Lenin, asserted its prematureness and destructive consequences. Autobiographical trilogy: “Childhood” (1913-14), “In People” (1915-1916), “My Universities” (1922). Literary portraits, memoirs. The variety of human characters in plays (“Egor Bulychov and others”, 1932), in the unfinished epic novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” (vols. 1-4, 1925-36). Abroad (1921-31) and after returning to Russia, he had a great influence on the formation of the ideological and aesthetic principles of Soviet literature (including the theory of socialist realism).

GORKY Maxim (real name Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov), Russian writer, publicist, public figure. One of the key figures of the literary turn of the 19th-20th centuries (the so-called “Silver Age” (cm. SILVER AGE)") and Soviet literature.
Origin, education, worldview
Father, Maxim Savvatievich Peshkov (1840-1871) - the son of a soldier, demoted from the officers, a cabinetmaker.
In recent years he worked as a manager of a shipping office, but died of cholera. Mother, Varvara Vasilievna Kashirina (1842-1879) - from a bourgeois family; Having become a widow at an early age, she remarried and died of consumption. The writer spent his childhood in the house of his grandfather Vasily Vasilyevich Kashirin, who in his youth was a barracks worker, then became rich, became the owner of a dyeing establishment, and went bankrupt in his old age. The grandfather taught the boy from church books, his grandmother Akulina Ivanovna introduced her grandson to folk songs and fairy tales, but most importantly, she replaced his mother, “filling him,” in Gorky’s own words, with “strong strength for a difficult life” (“Childhood”).
Gorky did not receive a real education, graduating only from a vocational school. His thirst for knowledge was quenched independently; he grew up “self-taught.” Hard work (a boatman on a ship, a “boy” in a store, a student in an icon-painting workshop, a foreman at fair buildings, etc.) and early hardships taught him a good knowledge of life and inspired dreams of reorganizing the world. “We came into the world to disagree...” - a surviving fragment of the destroyed poem by the young Peshkov “The Song of the Old Oak.” (cm. Hatred of evil and ethical maximalism were a source of moral torment. In 1887 he tried to commit suicide. He took part in revolutionary propaganda, “went among the people,” wandered around Rus', and communicated with tramps. Experienced complex philosophical influences: from the ideas of the French Enlightenment ENLIGHTENMENT (ideological movement)) (cm. and materialism of J.V. Goethe GOETHE Johann Wolfgang) (cm. before the positivism of J. M. Guyot Guyot Jean Marie) (cm., romanticism of J. Ruskin RESKIN John) (cm. and pessimism of A. Schopenhauer SCHOPENGAUER Arthur) (cm.. In his Nizhny Novgorod library next to “Capital” by K. Marx and “Historical Letters” by P. L. Lavrov LAVROV Petr Lavrovich) (cm. there were books by E. Hartmann GARTMAN Eduard) (cm., M. Stirner STIRNER Max) (cm. and F. Nietzsche.
The rudeness and ignorance of provincial life poisoned his soul, but also - paradoxically - gave rise to faith in Man and his potential. From the collision of contradictory principles, a romantic philosophy was born, in which Man (the ideal essence) did not coincide with man (the real being) and even entered into a tragic conflict with him. Gorky's humanism carried rebellious and atheistic features. His favorite reading was the biblical Book of Job, where “God teaches man how to be equal to God and how to calmly stand next to God” (Gorky’s letter to V.V. Rozanov (cm. ROZANOV Vasily Vasilievich), 1912).
Early Gorky (1892-1905)
Gorky began as a provincial newspaperman (published under the name Yehudiel Chlamida). The pseudonym M. Gorky (he signed letters and documents with his real surname - A. Peshkov; the designations “A. M. Gorky” and “Alexey Maksimovich Gorky” contaminate the pseudonym with his real name) appeared in 1892 in the Tiflis newspaper “Caucasus”, where the first story "Makar Chudra". In 1895, thanks to the help of V. G. Korolenko (cm. KOROLENKO Vladimir Galaktionovich), published in the most popular magazine “Russian Wealth” (story “Chelkash”). In 1898, the book “Essays and Stories” was published in St. Petersburg, which had a sensational success. In 1899, the prose poem “Twenty Six and One” and the first long story “Foma Gordeev” appeared. Gorky's fame grew with incredible speed and soon equaled the popularity of A.P. Chekhov (cm. CHEKHOV Anton Pavlovich) and L.N. Tolstoy (cm. TOLSTOY Lev Nikolaevich).
From the very beginning, a discrepancy emerged between what critics wrote about Gorky and what the average reader wanted to see in him. The traditional principle of interpreting works from the point of view of the social meaning contained in them did not work in relation to the early Gorky. The reader was least interested in the social aspects of his prose; he looked for and found in them a mood in tune with the times. According to the critic M. Protopopov, Gorky replaced the problem artistic typification the problem of “ideological lyricism”. His heroes combined typical features, behind which stood a good knowledge of life and literary tradition, and a special kind of “philosophy” with which the author endowed the heroes according to at will, not always consistent with the “truth of life”. In connection with his texts, critics solved not social issues and problems of their literary reflection, but directly the “question of Gorky” and the collective lyrical image he created, which began to be perceived as typical for Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. and which critics compared to Nietzsche’s “superman”. All this allows, contrary to the traditional view, to consider him more of a modernist than a realist.
Gorky's social position was radical. He was arrested more than once; in 1902, Nicholas II ordered the annulment of his election as an honorary academician in the category belles lettres(Chekhov and Korolenko left the Academy as a sign of protest). In 1905 he joined the ranks of the RSDLP (Bolshevik wing) and met V.I. Lenin (cm. LENIN Vladimir Ilyich). They received serious financial support for the revolution of 1905-07.
Gorky quickly proved himself to be a talented organizer of the literary process. In 1901 he became the head of the publishing house of the Znanie partnership. (cm. ZNANIE (book publishing partnership)) and soon began to publish “Collections of the Knowledge Partnership”, where I. A. Bunin, L. N. Andreev, A. I. Kuprin, V. V. Veresaev, E. N. Chirikov, N. D. Teleshov, A. S. Serafimovich et al.
Vertex early creativity, the play “At the Lower Depths,” owes its fame to a great extent to the production of K. S. Stanislavsky (cm. STANISLAVSKY Konstantin Sergeevich) at the Moscow Art Theater (cm. MOSCOW ART ACADEMIC THEATER)(1902; played by Stanislavsky, V.I. Kachalov (cm. KACHALOV Vasily Ivanovich), I. M. Moskvin (cm. MOSKVIN Ivan Mikhailovich), O. L. Knipper-Chekhova (cm. KNIPPER-CHEKHOVA Olga Leonardovna) and etc.). In 1903, the performance “At the Bottom” with Richard Wallentin in the role of Satin took place at the Berlin Kleines Theater. Gorky's other plays - "The Bourgeois" (1901), "Summer Residents" (1904), "Children of the Sun", "Barbarians" (both 1905), "Enemies" (1906) - did not have such sensational success in Russia and Europe.
Between two revolutions (1905-1917)
After the defeat of the revolution of 1905-1907, Gorky emigrated to the island of Capri (Italy). The “Capri” period of creativity forced us to reconsider the idea that had developed in criticism about the “end of Gorky” (D. V. Filosofov), which was caused by his passion for political struggle and the ideas of socialism, reflected in the story “Mother” (1906; second edition 1907). He creates the stories “The Town of Okurov” (1909), “Childhood” (1913-1914), “In People” (1915-1916), and the cycle of stories “Across Rus'” (1912-1917). The story “Confession” (1908), highly appreciated by A. A. Blok, caused controversy in criticism. For the first time, the theme of god-building was voiced in it, which Gorky and A.V. Lunacharsky (cm. LUNACHARSKY Anatoly Vasilievich) and A. A. Bogdanov (cm. BOGDANOV Alexander Alexandrovich) preached at the Capri party school for workers, which caused his differences with Lenin, who hated “flirting with God.”
The First World War had a hard impact on state of mind Gorky. It symbolized the beginning of the historical collapse of his idea of ​​a “collective mind”, which he came to after disappointment with Nietzschean individualism (according to T. Mann (cm. MANN Thomas), Gorky built a bridge from Nietzsche to socialism). Boundless faith in human reason, accepted as the only dogma, was not confirmed by life. The war became a blatant example of collective madness, when Man was reduced to a “trench lice”, “cannon fodder”, when people went wild before our eyes and the human mind was powerless before the logic of historical events. In Gorky’s poem from 1914 there are the lines: “How will we then live?//What will this horror bring us?//What will now save my soul from hatred of people?”
Years of emigration (1917-28)
The October Revolution confirmed Gorky's fears. Unlike Blok, he heard in it not “music,” but the terrible roar of a hundred million peasant element, breaking out through all social prohibitions and threatening to drown the remaining islands of culture. IN " Untimely thoughts"(series of articles in the newspaper "New Life" (cm. NEW LIFE (Menshevik newspaper)); 1917-1918; published in a separate publication in 1918) he accused Lenin of seizing power and unleashing terror in the country. But in the same place he called the Russian people organically cruel, “bestial” and thereby, if not justified, then explained the ferocious treatment of these people by the Bolsheviks. The inconsistency of his position was also reflected in his book “On the Russian Peasantry” (1922).
Gorky’s undoubted merit was his energetic work to save the scientific and artistic intelligentsia from starvation and execution, which was gratefully appreciated by his contemporaries (E. I. Zamyatin (cm. ZAMYATIN Evgeniy Ivanovich), A. M. Remizov (cm. REMIZOV Alexey Mikhailovich), V. F. Khodasevich (cm. KHODASEVICH Vladislav Felitsianovich), V. B. Shklovsky (cm. SHKLOVSKY Viktor Borisovich) etc.) It’s almost for this reason that such cultural events, as an organization of the publishing house "World Literature" (cm. WORLD LITERATURE), opening of the “House of Scientists” and “House of Arts” (communes for the creative intelligentsia, described in the novel by O. D. Forsh (cm. FORSH Olga Dmitrievna)“Crazy Ship” and the book by K. A. Fedin (cm. FEDIN Konstantin Alexandrovich)"Bitter Among Us") However, many writers (including Blok, N.S. Gumilyov) could not be saved, which became one of the main reasons for Gorky’s final break with the Bolsheviks.
From 1921 to 1928 Gorky lived in exile, where he went after Lenin’s too persistent advice. Settled in Sorrento (Italy), without breaking ties with his young Soviet literature(L. M. Leonov (cm. Leonov Leonid Maksimovich), V.V. Ivanov (cm. IVANOV Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich), A. A. Fadeev (cm. FADEEV Alexander Alexandrovich), I. E. Babel (cm. BABEL Isaac Emmanuilovich) etc.) He wrote the cycle “Stories of 1922-24”, “Notes from the Diary” (1924), the novel “The Artamonov Case” (1925), began working on the epic novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” (1925-1936). Contemporaries noted the experimental nature of Gorky's works of this time, which were created with an undoubted eye on the formal quest of Russian prose of the 1920s.
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In 1928, Gorky made a “test” trip to the Soviet Union (in connection with the celebration organized on the occasion of his 60th birthday), having previously entered into cautious negotiations with the Stalinist leadership. The apotheosis of the meeting at the Belorussky station decided the matter; Gorky returned to his homeland. As an artist, he completely immersed himself in creating “The Life of Klim Samgin,” a panoramic picture of Russia over forty years. As a politician, he actually provided Stalin with moral cover in the face of the world community. His numerous articles created an apologetic image of the leader and were silent about the suppression of freedom of thought and art in the country - facts that Gorky could not have been unaware of. He headed the creation of a collective book of writers glorifying the construction by prisoners of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. Stalin. Organized and supported many enterprises: Academia publishing house (cm. ACADEMY (publishing house)), book series “History of factories and factories” (cm. HISTORY OF FACTORIES AND PLANTS), “History of the Civil War”, magazine “Literary Studies” (cm. LITERARY STUDY), as well as the Literary Institute ( cm.), then named after him. In 1934 he headed the Writers' Union of the USSR (cm. USSR WRITERS UNION), created on his initiative.
Gorky's death was surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery, as was the death of his son, Maxim Peshkov. However, versions of the violent death of both have still not found documentary confirmation. The urn with Gorky's ashes is placed in the Kremlin wall in Moscow.

encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .

See what “Gorky Maxim” is in other dictionaries:

Pseudonym of the famous writer Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov (see). (Brockhaus) Gorky, Maxim (real name Peshkov, Alexey Maxim), famous fiction writer, b. March 14, 1869 in Nizhny. Novgorod, s. upholsterer, paint shop apprentice. (Vengerov) ... ... Large biographical encyclopedia

Gorky, Maxim literary name famous writer Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov. Born in Nizhny Novgorod on March 14, 1868. By his origin, Gorky by no means belongs to those dregs of society, of which he appeared as a singer in literature.... ... Biographical Dictionary

- (pseudonym; real name and surname Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov), Russian Soviet writer, founder of the literature of socialist realism, founder... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

- (real name Peshkov Alexey Maksimovich) (1868 1936) Russian writer. Aphorisms, quotes Gorky Maxim biography At the bottom, 1902 *) You can’t go anywhere in the carriage of the past. (Satin) Man! It's great! It sounds... proud! Human! Necessary… … Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

- (pseud.; real name and family name. Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) (1868 1936), Russian. owls writer, founder of socialist literature. realism. He was an active promoter of L.'s work and contributed to the publication of his opus. in the publishing house "World Literature". In 1919... Lermontov Encyclopedia

Unusual life and creative destiny Maxim Gorky (Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov). He was born on March 16 (28), 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a cabinetmaker. Having lost his parents early, M. Gorky spent his childhood in the bourgeois family of his grandfather Kashirin, experienced a hard life “among people,” and traveled a lot throughout Rus'. He learned the life of tramps, unemployed, hard labour workers and hopeless poverty, which with even greater force revealed the contradictions of life to the future writer. To earn a living, he had to be a loader, a gardener, a baker, and a choir member. All this gave him such knowledge of the life of the lower classes, which no writer possessed at that time. He later embodied the impressions of these years in the trilogy “Childhood”, “In People”, “My Universities”.

In 1892, Gorky’s first story, “Makar Chudra,” revealed a new writer to Russian readers. A two-volume collection of essays and stories, published in 1898, brought him wide fame. There was something surprising in the speed with which his name spread to all corners of Russia.

A young writer, in a dark blouse, belted with a thin strap, with angular face, whose unyieldingly burning eyes stood out, appeared in literature as a harbinger of a new world. Even if at first he himself was not clearly aware of what kind of world it would be, but every line of his stories called for a fight against the “leaden abominations of life.”

The extraordinary popularity of the aspiring writer in Russia and far beyond its borders is explained mainly by the fact that in the works of early Gorky, new hero- hero-fighter, hero-rebel.

The work of young Gorky is characterized by a persistent search for the heroic in life: “Old Woman Izergil”, “Song of the Falcon”, “Song of the Petrel”, the poem “Man”. Boundless and proud faith in a person capable of supreme self-sacrifice is one of the most important properties of the writer’s humanism.

“In life... there is always room for exploits. And those who do not find them for themselves are simply lazy or cowards, or do not understand life...” wrote Gorky (“Old Woman Izergil”). The progressive youth of Russia enthusiastically greeted these proud Gorky words. This is what the worker Pyotr Zalomov, the prototype of Pavel Vlasov in Maxim Gorky’s novel “Mother,” says about the enormous power of the revolutionary impact of Gorky’s romantic images: “The Song of the Falcon” was more valuable to us than dozens of proclamations... Unless a dead or immeasurably low, cowardly slave I might not have woken up from it, not been inflamed with anger and a thirst for fight.”

During these same years, the writer, drawing people from the people, revealed their dissatisfaction with life and their unconscious desire to change it (stories “Chelkash”, “The Orlov Spouses”, “Malva”, “Emelyan Pilyai”, “Konovalov”).

In 1902, Gorky wrote the play “At the Lower Depths”. It is imbued with protest against the social order of capitalist society and a passionate call for a fair and free life.

“Freedom at all costs! - this is her spiritual essence.” This is how K. S. Stanislavsky defined the idea of ​​the play, who staged it on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater. The gloomy life of the Kostylevo doss house is depicted by Gorky as the embodiment of social evil. The fate of the inhabitants of the “bottom” is a formidable indictment against the capitalist system. The people living in this cave-like basement are victims of an ugly and cruel order in which a person ceases to be human and is doomed to drag out a miserable existence.

The inhabitants of the “bottom” are thrown out of life due to the wolf laws that reign in society. Man is left to his own devices. If he stumbles, gets out of line, he is threatened with “the bottom”, inevitable moral, and often physical death. Anna died, the Actor commits suicide, and the rest are broken and disfigured by life. But under the dark and gloomy arches of the lodging house, among the pitiful and crippled, unfortunate and homeless vagabonds, words about Man, about his calling, about his strength and beauty sound like a solemn hymn. “Man – this is the truth! Everything is in man, everything is for man! Only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain! Human! It's great! That sounds... proud!” If a person is beautiful in his essence and only the bourgeois system reduces him to such a state, then, therefore, everything must be done to destroy this system in a revolutionary way and create conditions under which a person will become truly free and beautiful.

In the play “The Bourgeois” (1901), the main character, the worker Nile, immediately attracts the attention of the audience when he first appears on stage. He is stronger, smarter and kinder than other characters introduced in "The Philistines". According to Chekhov, Neil is the most interesting figure in the play. Gorky emphasized in his hero the purposeful strength, the firm conviction that “rights are not given” - “rights are taken”, Neil’s belief that a person has the power to make life beautiful.

Gorky understood that only the proletariat and only through revolutionary struggle could realize Nile’s dream.

Therefore, the writer subordinated both his creativity and social activities to the service of the revolution. He wrote proclamations and published Marxist literature. For his participation in the 1905 revolution, Gorky was arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

And then angry letters flew from all over the world in defense of the writer. “Enlightened people, people of science in Russia, Germany, Italy, France, let us unite. Gorky's cause is our common cause. A talent like Gorky belongs to the whole world. The whole world is interested in his release,” wrote the largest French writer Anatole France. The Tsarist government had to release Gorky.

According to the writer Leonid Andreev, Gorky in his works not only predicted the coming storm, he “called the storm behind him.” This was his feat in literature.

The story of Pavel Vlasov (“Mother”, 1906) shows the conscious entry of a young worker into the revolutionary struggle. In the fight against autocracy, Paul’s character matures, consciousness, willpower, and perseverance become stronger. Gorky was the first in literature to portray the revolutionary worker as a heroic person whose life is an example to follow.

No less remarkable is the life path of Pavel’s mother. From a timid, poverty-stricken woman who humbly believed in God, Nilovna turned into a conscious participant in the revolutionary movement, free from superstitions and prejudices, aware of her human dignity.

“Gather, people, your strength into a single force!” - Nilovna addresses these words to the people during the arrest, calling on new fighters under the banner of the revolution.

Focus on the future and poeticization of the heroic personality are combined in the novel “Mother” with real events and real fighters for a bright future.

In the first years after the revolution, M. Gorky published a series literary portraits their contemporaries, memories, stories “about great people and noble hearts.”

It’s as if a gallery of Russian writers comes to life before us: L. Tolstoy, “the most difficult man XIX in.”, Korolenko, Chekhov, Leonid Andreev, Kotsyubinsky... Talking about them, Gorky finds precise, picturesque, unique colors, reveals both the originality of the writing talent and the character of each of these outstanding people.

Gorky, who was greedily drawn to knowledge and people, always had many devoted friends and sincere admirers. They were attracted by Gorky's personal charm and the versatility of his talented nature.

V. I. Lenin highly valued the writer, who for Gorky was the embodiment of a human fighter, rebuilding the world in the interests of all humanity. Vladimir Ilyich came to Gorky’s aid when he doubted and was mistaken, supported him, and worried about his health.

At the end of 1921, Alexei Maksimovich’s long-standing tuberculosis process worsened. At the insistence of V.I. Lenin, Gorky leaves for treatment abroad, on the island of Capri. And although communication with the Motherland is difficult, Gorky still maintains extensive correspondence, edits numerous publications, carefully reads the manuscripts of young writers, and helps everyone find their creative personality. It is difficult to say which of the writers of that time managed without the support and friendly advice of Gorky. From the “wide Gorky sleeve,” as L. Leonov once noted, came K. Fedin, Vs. Ivanov, V. Kaverin and many other Soviet writers.

Gorky's creative rise during these years is striking. He writes the famous memoirs about V.I. Lenin, finishes autobiographical trilogy, publishes novels “The Artamonov Case”, “The Life of Klim Samgin”, plays, stories, articles, pamphlets. In them he continues the story about Russia, about the Russian people, boldly rebuilding the world.

In 1925, Gorky published the novel “The Artamonov Case,” where he revealed the complete doom of the possessive world. He showed how the true creators of “the cause”—the workers who made the great revolution in October 1917—become masters of life. The theme of the people and their labor has always remained leading in Gorky’s work.

The epic chronicle of M. Gorky “The Life of Klim Samgin” (1926–1936), dedicated to the fate of the Russian people, the Russian intelligentsia, covers a significant period of Russian life - from the 80s of the 19th century. until 1918 Lunacharsky called this work “a moving panorama of decades.” The writer reveals the personal fates of the heroes in connection with historical events. At the center of the story is Klim Samgin, a bourgeois intellectual masquerading as a revolutionary. The very movement of history exposes him, exposes the individualism and insignificance of this man, an “empty soul,” a “reluctant revolutionary.”

Gorky convincingly showed that isolation from the people, especially in the era of great revolutionary storms and upheavals, leads to the spiritual impoverishment of the human personality.

The life of individuals and families in Gorky’s works is assessed in comparison with the historical destinies and struggles of the people (“The Life of Klim Samgin”, dramas “Yegor Bulychov and Others”, “Dostigaev and Others”, “Somov and Others”).

The social and psychological conflict in the drama “Yegor Bulychev and Others” (1931) is very complex. The anxiety and uncertainty that gripped the masters of life force the merchant Yegor Bulychev to persistently reflect on the meaning of human existence. And his furious cry: “I live on the wrong street! I ended up with strangers, for about thirty years all with strangers... My father drove rafts. And here I am...” - sounds like a curse to that dying world, in which the ruble is the “chief thief”, where the interests of money enslave and mutilate people. And it is no coincidence that the daughter of the merchant Bulychev Shura rushes with such hope to where the revolutionary anthem is played.

Returning to his homeland in 1928, Gorky became one of the organizers of the Union of Soviet Writers. And in 1934, at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, he made a report in which he expanded the broader picture historical development humanity and showed that everything cultural values created by the hands and minds of the people.

During these years, Gorky traveled a lot around the country and created essays “Around the Union of Soviets.” He talks excitedly about the great changes in Soviet country, speaks with political articles, pamphlets, as literary critic. With pen and word, the writer fights for the high level of skill of writers, for the brightness and purity of the language of literature.

He created many stories for children (“Grandfather Arkhip and Lenka”, “Sparrow”, “The Case of Yevseyka”, etc.). Even before the revolution, he conceived the idea of ​​publishing the series “Life of Remarkable People” for young people. But only after the revolution did Gorky’s dream of creating a large, real literature for children - “heirs of all the grandiose work of humanity.”