Instructional map 5 last years of Gorky's life. Maksim Gorky

Very short biography (in a nutshell)

Born March 28, 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod. Birth name - Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov. Father - Maxim Savvatevich Peshkov (1840-1871), carpenter. Mother - Varvara Vasilievna Kashirina (1842-1879). He studied for 2 years at the suburban elementary school in Kanavina. Started working at the age of 11. In 1896 he married Ekaterina Volzhina. In 1900, he began dating Maria Andreeva. In 1906, he left with her for the Italian island of Capri, where he lived for 7 years. In 1913 he returned, and in 1921 he went abroad again. From 1928 to 1933 he lived either in Italy or in the USSR. 5 times nominated for the Nobel Prize. He had a son Maxim and a daughter Ekaterina (died as a child). He died on June 18, 1936 in Gorki, at the age of 68. The ashes of the writer are placed in the Kremlin wall in Moscow. Main works: "Mother", "Chelkash", "Childhood", "Makar Chudra", "At the Bottom", "Old Woman Izergil" and others.

Brief biography (detailed)

Maxim Gorky (Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) is an outstanding Russian writer, thinker, playwright and prose writer. He is also considered the founder of Soviet literature. Born March 28, 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a carpenter. Quite early he was left without parents and was raised by a despotic grandfather by nature. The boy's education lasted only two years, after which he had to quit his studies and go to work. Thanks to the ability to self-educate and a brilliant memory, he nevertheless managed to acquire knowledge in various fields.

In 1884, the future writer unsuccessfully tried to enter Kazan University. Here he met with the Marxist circle and became interested in propaganda literature. A few years later he was arrested for association with the circle, and then sent as a watchman to the railroad. About life during this period, he would later write an autobiographical story "Watchman".

The first work of the writer was published in 1892. It was the story "Makar Chudra". In 1895, the stories "Old Woman Izergil" and "Chelkash" appeared. From 1897 to 1898 the writer lived in the village of Kamenka, Tver region. This period of life became the material for the novel "The Life of Klim Samgin".

At the beginning of the 20th century, an acquaintance with Chekhov and Tolstoy took place, and the novel "Three" was also published. In the same period, Gorky became interested in dramaturgy. The plays “Petty Bourgeois” and “At the Bottom” were published. In 1902 he was elected an honorary academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Along with literary activity until 1913, he worked at the Znanie publishing house. In 1906, Gorky traveled abroad, where he created satirical essays about the French and American bourgeoisie. On the Italian island of Capri, the writer spent 7 years for the treatment of developed tuberculosis. During this period, he wrote "Confession", "The Life of an Unnecessary Man", "Tales of Italy".

The second departure abroad took place in 1921. It was associated with the resumption of the disease and with the aggravation of disagreements with the new government. For three years Gorky lived in Germany, the Czech Republic and Finland. In 1924 he moved to Italy, where he published his memoirs about Lenin. In 1928, at the invitation of Stalin, the writer visits his homeland. In 1932 he finally returned to the USSR. In the same period, he was working on the novel "The Life of Klim Samgin", which was never completed.

In May 1934, the writer's son, Maxim Peshkov, died unexpectedly. Gorky himself outlived his son by only two years. He died on June 18, 1936 in Gorki. The ashes of the writer were placed in the Kremlin wall.

Video short biography (for those who prefer to listen)

Russian Soviet writer, playwright, publicist and public figure, founder of socialist realism.

Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov was born on March 16 (28), 1868 in the family of a cabinetmaker Maxim Savvatevich Peshkov (1839-1871). Orphaned at an early age, the future writer spent his childhood in the house of his maternal grandfather, Vasily Vasilyevich Kashirin (d. 1887).

In 1877-1879, A. M. Peshkov studied at the Nizhny Novgorod Sloboda Kunavinsky Primary School. After the death of his mother and the ruin of his grandfather, he was forced to leave his studies and go "to the people." In 1879-1884 he was an apprentice shoemaker, then - in a drawing workshop, after - in an icon painting. He served on a steamer that sailed along the Volga.

In 1884, A. M. Peshkov made an attempt to enter Kazan University, which ended in failure due to lack of funds. He became close to the revolutionary underground, participated in illegal populist circles, conducted propaganda among the workers and peasants. At the same time he was engaged in self-education. In December 1887, a streak of life failures almost led the future writer to suicide.

A. M. Peshkov spent 1888-1891 wandering around in search of work and impressions. He traveled around the Volga region, Don, Ukraine, Crimea, South Bessarabia, the Caucasus, managed to be a farm laborer in the village and a dishwasher, work in the fish and salt mines, as a watchman on the railway and as a worker in repair shops. Clashes with the police earned him a reputation for being "unreliable." At the same time, he managed to make the first contacts with the creative environment (in particular, with the writer V. G. Korolenko).

On September 12, 1892, the story of A. M. Peshkov “Makar Chudra” was published in the Tiflis newspaper “Kavkaz”, signed with the pseudonym “Maxim Gorky”.

The formation of A. M. Gorky as a writer took place with the active participation of V. G. Korolenko, who recommended the new author to publishers, corrected his manuscript. In 1893-1895, a number of the writer's stories were published in the Volga press - "Chelkash", "Revenge", "Old Woman Izergil", "Emelyan Pilyai", "Conclusion", "Song of the Falcon", etc.

In 1895-1896, A. M. Gorky was an employee of the Samarskaya Gazeta, where he wrote feuilletons daily under the heading “By the way,” signing with the pseudonym “Yehudiel Khlamida”. In 1896 - 1897 he worked in the newspaper "Nizhny Novgorod Leaf".

In 1898, the first collection of works by Maxim Gorky, Essays and Stories, was published in two volumes. It was recognized by critics as an event in Russian and European literature. In 1899, the writer began work on the novel Foma Gordeev.

A. M. Gorky quickly became one of the most popular Russian writers. He met with,. Neo-realist writers began to rally around A. M. Gorky (, L. N. Andreev).

At the beginning of the twentieth century, A. M. Gorky turned to dramaturgy. In 1902, his plays "At the Bottom" and "Petty Bourgeois" were staged at the Moscow Art Theater. The performances were an exceptional success and were accompanied by anti-government speeches of the public.

In 1902, A. M. Gorky was elected an honorary academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature, but by personal order, the election results were annulled. In protest, V. G. Korolenko also refused their titles of honorary academicians.

A. M. Gorky was arrested more than once for social and political activities. The writer took an active part in the events of the Revolution of 1905-1907. For the proclamation on January 9 (22), 1905, with a call to overthrow the autocracy, he was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress (released under pressure from the world community). In the summer of 1905, A. M. Gorky joined the RSDLP, in November of the same year he met with at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. His novel "Mother" (1906) received a great response, in which the writer depicted the process of the birth of a "new man" in the course of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.

In 1906-1913, A. M. Gorky lived in exile. He spent most of his time on the Italian island of Capri. Here he wrote many works: the plays "The Last", "Vassa Zheleznova", the novel "Summer", "The Town of Okurov", the novel "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin". In April 1907, the writer was a delegate to the 5th (London) Congress of the RSDLP. He visited A. M. Gorky on Capri.

In 1913, A. M. Gorky returned to. In 1913-1915, he wrote the autobiographical novels "Childhood" and "In People", since 1915 the writer published the magazine "Chronicle". During these years, the writer collaborated in the Bolshevik newspapers Zvezda and Pravda, as well as in the Enlightenment magazine.

A. M. Gorky welcomed the February and October revolutions of 1917. He began working at the publishing house "World Literature", founded the newspaper "New Life". However, his differences of opinion with the new government gradually increased. The journalistic cycle of A. M. Gorky “Untimely Thoughts” (1917-1918) caused sharp criticism.

In 1921, A. M. Gorky left the Soviet for treatment abroad. In 1921-1924 the writer lived in Germany and Czechoslovakia. His journalistic activity during these years was aimed at uniting Russian artists abroad. In 1923, he wrote the novel My Universities. Since 1924 the writer lived in Sorrento (Italy). In 1925, he began work on the epic novel The Life of Klim Samgin, which remained unfinished.

In 1928 and 1929, A. M. Gorky visited the USSR at the invitation of the Soviet government and personally. His impressions of traveling around the country were reflected in the books "On the Union of Soviets" (1929). In 1931, the writer finally returned to his homeland and launched a wide literary and social activity. On his initiative, literary magazines and book publishing houses were created, book series were published (The Life of Remarkable People, The Poet's Library, etc.)

In 1934, A. M. Gorky acted as the organizer and chairman of the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers. In 1934-1936 he headed the Writers' Union of the USSR.

A. M. Gorky died on June 18, 1936 at a dacha in Pod (now in). The writer is buried in the Kremlin wall behind the Mausoleum on Red Square.

In the USSR, A. M. Gorky was considered the founder of the literature of socialist realism and the founder of Soviet literature.

1. Gorky's childhood and youth
2. The beginning of Gorky's work
3. Gorky's works "Makar Chudra", "Old Woman Izergil", "Girl and Death", "Song of the Falcon", etc.
4. The novel "Foma Gordeev". Summary
5. The play "At the bottom". Analysis
6. The novel "Mother". Analysis
7. Cycle of stories "Across Rus'"
8. Gorky's attitude to the revolution
9. Gorky in exile
10. Return of Gorky to the USSR
11. Illness and death of Gorky

Maxim GORKY (1868-1936)

M. Gorky appears in our minds as the personification of the mighty creative forces of the nation, as the real embodiment of the bright talent, intelligence and hard work of the Russian people. The son of a craftsman, a self-taught writer who did not even finish elementary school, he, by a huge effort of will and intellect, escaped from the very bottom of life and in a short time made a rapid ascent to the heights of writing.

A lot is being written about Gorky now. Some unconditionally defend him, others overthrow him from the pedestal, accusing him of justifying the Stalinist methods of building a new society and even direct incitement to terror, violence, and repression. They are trying to push the writer to the sidelines of the history of Russian literature and social thought, to weaken or completely eliminate his influence on the literary process of the 20th century. But still, our literary criticism is difficult, but consistently making its way to the living, non-textbook Gorky, freeing itself from past legends and myths, and from excessive categoricalness in assessing his work.

Let us also try to understand the difficult fate of the great man, remembering the words of his friend Fyodor Chaliapin: “I know for sure that it was the voice of love for Russia. A deep consciousness spoke in Gorky that we all belong to our country, our people, and that we must be with them not only morally - as I sometimes console myself - but also physically, with all the scars, all the hardenings, all the humps.

1. Childhood and youth of Gorky

Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov (Gorky) was born on March 16 (28), 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod, in a family of a cabinetmaker. After the sudden death of his father on June 8, 1871, the boy settled with his mother in his grandfather's house. Alyosha was brought up by his grandmother, who introduced him to the colorful, colorful world of folk tales, epics, songs, developed his imagination, understanding of the beauty and power of the Russian word.

At the beginning of 1876, the boy entered the parish school, but after studying for a month, he left classes due to smallpox. A year later, he was accepted into the second grade of elementary school. However, having finished two classes, he was forced to leave school forever in 1878. By this time, the grandfather went bankrupt, in the summer of 1879 his mother died of transient consumption.

At the suggestion of his grandfather, a 14-year-old teenager goes "to the people" - begins a working life full of hardships, exhausting work, homeless wandering. Whoever he was: a boy in a shoe store, an apprentice in an icon-painting shop, a nanny, a dishwasher on a steamboat, a foreman builder, a loader on a wharf, a baker, etc. He visited the Volga region and Ukraine, Bessarabia and the Crimea, Kuban and Caucasus.

“My walking around Rus' was not caused by the desire for vagrancy,” Gorky later explained, “but by the desire to see where I live, what kind of people are around me?” Wanderings enriched the future writer with a broad knowledge of folk life and people. This was also facilitated by the “passion for reading” that had awakened in him early, and continuous self-education. “I owe all the best in me to books,” he later remarked.

2. The beginning of Gorky's work

By the age of twenty, A. Peshkov perfectly knew domestic and world art classics, as well as the philosophical works of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, V. Solovyov.

Life observations and impressions, a stock of knowledge demanded a way out. The young man began to try himself in literature. His creative biography begins with poetry. It is believed that the first printed speech by A. Peshkov was "Poems on the Grave of D. A. Latysheva", published in early 1885 in the Kazan newspaper "Volzhsky Vestnik". In 1888-1889, he created the poems “Only I got rid of troubles”, “You are not lucky, Alyosha”, “It is a shame to whine at my age”, “I am sailing ...”, “You do not scold my muse ...”, etc. With all their imitation and rhetoric, they clearly convey the pathos of expecting the future:

In this life, sick and unhappy,

I sing hymns to the future, -

thus ends the poem "You do not scold my muse."

From poetry, the novice writer gradually moved on to prose: in 1892, his first story, Makar Chudra, signed with the pseudonym Maxim Gorky, was published in the Tiflis newspaper Kavkaz.

V. Korolenko played a big role in the fate of Gorky, who helped him understand many of the mysteries of literary art. On the advice of Korolenko, Gorky moved to Samara and worked as a journalist. His stories, essays, feuilletons are published in Samarskaya Gazeta, Nizhny Novgorod Leaflet, Odessa News, and then in the thick central magazines Novoye Slovo, Russkaya Mysl, etc. In 1898, Gorky published the two-volume Essays and stories" that made him famous.

Later, summing up his 25 years of creative activity, M. Gorky wrote: “The meaning of my 25 years of work, as I understand it, comes down to my passionate desire to arouse in people an effective attitude to life”2. These words can be put as an epigraph to the entire work of the writer. To arouse in people an effective, active attitude to life, to overcome their passivity, to activate the best, strong-willed, moral qualities of a person - Gorky solved such a task from the first steps of his work.

This feature was very clearly manifested in his early stories, in which he acted, according to the correct definition of V. Korolenko, both as a realist and as a romantic. In the same 1892, the writer creates the stories "Makar Chudra" and "Emelyan Pilyai". The first of them is romantic in its method and style, the second is dominated by the features of realistic writing.

In the autumn of 1893, he published the romantic allegory "About the Chizh, who lied ..." and the realistic story "The Beggar Woman", a year later the realistic story "The Wretched Pavel" and the romantic works "The Old Woman Izergil", "The Song of the Falcon" and "One Night" appeared. These parallels, which can be easily extended, indicate that Gorky did not have two special periods of creativity - romantic and realistic.

The division of the works of early Gorky into romantic and realistic, which has been established in our literary criticism since the 40s, is somewhat arbitrary: the romantic works of the writer have a solid real basis, while the realistic ones carry a charge of romanticism, being themselvesthe germ of a renewed realistic type of creativity - neorealism.

3. Gorky's works "Makar Chudra", "Old Woman Izergil", "Girl and Death", "Song of the Falcon"

Gorky's works "Makar Chudra", "Old Woman Izergil", "The Girl and Death", "The Song of the Falcon", etc., in which the romantic beginning prevails, are connected by a single problematic. They sound a hymn to a free and strong man. A distinctive feature of all the heroes is a proud disobedience to fate and a bold love of freedom, integrity of nature and heroism of character. Such is the gypsy Radda, the heroine of the story Makar Chudra.

Two strongest feelings own it: love and Thirst for freedom. Radda loves the handsome Loiko Zobar, but does not want to submit to him, because she values ​​her freedom above all else. The heroine rejects the age-old custom according to which a woman, having become a wife, becomes a slave of a man. The fate of a slave for her is worse than death. It is easier for her to die with the proud consciousness that her personal freedom has been preserved than to submit herself to the power of another, even if this other is passionately loved by her.

In turn, Zobar also values ​​​​its independence and is ready to do anything to preserve it. He cannot subjugate Radd, but he does not want to submit to her, and he cannot refuse her. In front of the eyes of the whole camp, he kills his beloved, but he himself dies. The words of the author are significant, completing the legend: "The sea sang a gloomy and solemn hymn to the proud pair of handsome gypsies."

The allegorical poem "The Girl and Death" (1892), not only in its fabulous character, but also in its main problems, is very indicative of Gorky's entire early work. In this work, the idea of ​​the all-conquering power of human love, which is stronger than death, sounds vividly. The girl, punished by the king for laughing when he returns from the battlefield in deep sorrow after the defeat in the war, boldly looks into the face of death. And she retreats, because she does not know what to oppose to the great power of love, the great feeling of love of life.

The theme of love for a person, rising to the level of sacrifice in the name of saving people's lives, reaches a wide social and moral sound in Gorky's story "The Old Woman Izergil". The very composition of this work, which is a kind of triptych, is original: the legend of Larra, the life story of the narrator - the old gypsy Izergil and the legend of Danko. At the heart of the plot and the problems of the story lies a clear opposition of heroism and altruism to individualism and egoism.

Larra, the character of the first legend - the son of an eagle and a woman - is depicted by the author as a bearer of individualistic, inhumane ideas and principles. For him, there are no moral laws of kindness and respect for people. With the girl who rejected him, he cracks down cruelly and inhumanly. The writer strikes at the philosophy of extreme individualism, which claims that everything is allowed for a strong personality, up to any crime.

The moral laws of humanity, the author claims, are unshakable, they cannot be violated, for the sake of an individual who has opposed himself to the human community. And the personality itself cannot exist outside of people. Freedom, as the writer understands it, is a conscious need to respect moral norms, traditions and rules. Otherwise, it turns into a destructive, destructive force, directed not only against the neighbor, but also against the adherent of such “freedom”.

Larra, who is expelled from the tribe by the elders for the murder of a girl and granted immortality at the same time, should, it would seem, triumph, “Which, however, he does at first. But time passes, and life for Larra, who finds himself alone, turns into hopeless torment: “He has no life, and death does not smile at him. And there is no place for him among people... This is how a man was punished for his pride, that is, for egocentrism. This is how the old woman Izergil ends her story about Larra.

The hero of the second legend - the young man Danko - is the complete opposite of the arrogant selfish Larre. This is a humanist, ready for self-sacrifice in the name of saving people. Out of the darkness"impenetrable swampy forests, he leads his people to the Light. But this path is difficult, far and dangerous, and Danko, in order to save people, without hesitation, tore out his heart from his chest. Lighting the road with this “torch of love for people”, the young man led his people to the sun, to life and died without asking people for anything as a reward for himself.” In the image of Danko, the writer embodied his humanistic ideal - the ideal of selfless love for people, heroic self-sacrifice in the name of their life and happiness. Izergil's realistic story about herself is, as it were, a link between these two legends.

The individualistic killer Larra believed that happiness was in splendid solitude and permissiveness, for which he was punished with a terrible punishment. Izergil lived a life among people, a life in its own way bright and rich. She admires courageous, freedom-loving people with a strong will. Rich life experience led her to a significant conclusion: “When a person loves feats, he always knows how to do them and will find where it is possible. In life ... there is always a place for exploits. Izergil herself knew both passionate love and exploits. But she lived mostly for herself. Only Danko embodied the highest understanding of the spiritual beauty and greatness of man, giving his life for the sake of people's lives. So in the very composition of the story his idea is revealed. The altruistic feat of Danko acquires a sacred meaning. The Gospel of John says that Christ at the Last Supper addressed the apostles with the following words: "There is no more that love if a man lays down his life for his friends." It is this kind of love that the writer poetizes with the feat of Danko.

On the example of the fates of his two antipodes, Gorky poses the problem of death and immortality. The proud individualist Larra turned out to be immortal, but only a dark shadow runs from him across the steppe, which is hard to even see. And the memory of Danko's feat has been preserved in the hearts of people and is passed down from generation to generation. And this is his immortality.

The action of these and many other stories of Gorky unfolds in the south, where the sea and the steppe adjoin - symbols of boundless and eternal cosmic life. The writer is drawn to the vast expanses where a person feels the power of nature and his closeness to it especially strongly, where no one and nothing hampers the free expression of human feelings.

Bright, emotionally colored and lyrically penetrating pictures of nature never turn into an end in themselves for the writer. They play an active role in the narrative, being one of the main elements of the content. In “The Old Woman Izergil” he describes the Moldavians as follows: “They walked, sang, laughed, the men were bronze, with lush, black mustaches and thick curls to the shoulders. Women and girls - cheerful, flexible, with dark blue eyes, also bronze ... They went farther and farther from us, and night and fantasy dressed them in everything beautiful. These Moldavian peasants are not much different in appearance from Loiko Zobar, Radda and Danko.

In the story "Makar Chudra" both the narrator himself and the real-life way of gypsy life are given in a romantic light. Thus, in reality itself, the same romantic features are emphasized. They are also identified in the biography of Izergil. This was done by the author in order to shade an important idea: the fabulous, romantic does not oppose life, but only in a brighter, emotionally sublime form expresses what is present in reality to one degree or another.

The composition of many early Gorky stories contains two elements: a romantic plot and its realistic setting. They are a story within a story. The figure of the hero-narrator (Chudra, Izergil) also gives the narrative the character of reality, plausibility. The same features of reality inform the works and the image of the narrator - a young man named Maxim, who listens to the stories being told.

The themes of Gorky's early realistic stories are even more multifaceted. Particularly stands out in this regard is the cycle of the writer's stories about tramps. Gorky's tramps are a display of spontaneous protest. These are not passive sufferers thrown out of life. Their departure into barbarism is one of the forms of unwillingness to come to terms with the share of a slave. The writer emphasizes in his characters what elevates them above the inert petty-bourgeois environment. Such is the tramp and thief Chelkash from the story of the same name in 1895, opposed to the farm laborer Gavrila.

The writer does not idealize his character at all. It is no coincidence that he often uses the epithet “predatory” to characterize Chelkash: Chelkash has a “predatory look”, “predatory nose”, etc. But contempt for the omnipotent power of money makes this lumpen and renegade more humane than Gavrila. And on the contrary, slavish dependence on the ruble turns the village boy Gavrila, who is essentially a good person, into a criminal. In the psychological drama that played out between them on a deserted seashore. Chelkash turns out to be more humane than Gavrila.

Among the tramps, Gorky especially singles out people in whom the love for work, for intense thoughts about the meaning of life and the purpose of man, has not faded away. This is how it is depicted Konovalov from the story of the same name (1897). A good man, a dreamer with a soft soul, Alexander Konovalov constantly feels dissatisfied with life and himself. This pushes him onto the path of vagrancy and drunkenness. One of the valuable qualities of his nature was the love of work. Once after long wanderings in the bakery, he experiences the joy of work, showing artistry in his work.

The writer emphasizes the aesthetic emotions of his hero, his subtle sense of nature, respect for a woman. Konovalov is infected with a passion for reading, he sincerely admires the audacity and courage of Stepan Razin, loves the heroes of Gogol's "Taras Bulba" for their fearlessness and fortitude, takes to heart the grave hardships of the peasants from F. Reshetnikov's Podlipovtsy. The high humanity of this tramp, the presence of good moral inclinations in him is obvious.

However, everything in it is impermanent, everything is changeable and not for long. The contagious enthusiasm for his favorite work disappeared, replaced by melancholy, he somehow suddenly lost interest in it and gave up everything, either indulging in hard drinking, or going on the run, into yet another vagrancy. It does not have a strong inner core, solid moral support, strong attachment, constancy. The outstanding, talented nature of Konovalov perishes, because he does not find in himself the will to act actively. The winged definition of "a knight for an hour" is fully applicable to it.

However, almost all Gorky tramps are like this: Malva from the story of the same name, Semaga (“How Semaga was Caught”), the carpenter (“In the Steppe”), Zazubrina and Vanka Mazin from the works of the same name and others. Konovalov has the advantage over his fellow wanderers that he is not inclined to blame others for his failed life. To the question: “Who is to blame for us?” - he replies with conviction: “We ourselves are to blame ... Therefore, we have no desire for life and we have no feelings for ourselves.”

Gorky's close attention to the people of the "bottom of life" gave rise to a number of critics to declare him a singer of bosyatstvo, an adherent of an individualistic personality of the Nietzschean persuasion. This is wrong. Of course, in comparison with the world of inert, spiritually limited philistines, in Gorky's tramps there is that "highlight" that the writer seeks to outline as clearly as possible. The same Chelkash, in his contempt for money and in love for the mighty and free elements of the sea, with the breadth of his nature, looks more noble than Gavrila. But this nobility is very relative. For both he and Emelyan Pilyai and other tramps, having freed themselves from petty-bourgeois self-interest, have lost their labor skills. Gorky vagabonds like Chelkash are beautiful when they stand up to cowards and greed. But their power is disgusting when it is used to harm people. The writer perfectly showed this in the stories "Artyom and Cain", "My Companion", "Former People", "Rogue" and others. Selfish, predatory, full of arrogance, contempt for everyone except themselves, the characters of these works are drawn in sharply negative tones. Gorky later called the anti-humanistic, cruel, immoral philosophy of this type of "former people" fraudulent, emphasizing that it is a manifestation of a "dangerous national disease that can be called passive anarchism" or "anarchism of the vanquished."

4. The novel "Foma Gordeev". Summary.

The end of the 90s - the beginning of the 900s were marked in Gorky's work by the appearance of works of great epic form - the novel "Foma Gordeev" (1899) and the story "Three" (1900).

The novel "Foma Gordeev" opens a series of Gorky's works about the "masters of life". It recreates the artistic history of the formation and development of the Russian bourgeoisie, shows the ways and means of the initial accumulation of capital, as well as the process of “breaking out” a person from his estate due to disagreement with his morality and norms of life.

The history of early accumulation is depicted by the writer as a chain of crimes, predation and deceit. Almost all the merchants of the Volga city, where the action of "Foma Gordeev" takes place, made their millions "through robberies, murders ... and the sale of counterfeit money." So, Reznikov, a commerce adviser, who began his career by opening a brothel, quickly became rich after he "strangled one of his guests, a wealthy Siberian."

A major steamship owner, Kononov, was sued for arson in the past, and he increased his wealth at the expense of his mistress, whom he hid in prison on a false charge of theft. The merchant Gushchin, who once cleverly robbed his nephews, is doing well. The rich Robistov and Beavers are guilty of all kinds of crimes. The group portrait of the Volga merchant class serves as an everyday and social background against which the detailed types of primary accumulators appear: Ananiy Shurov, Ignat Gordeev and Yakov Mayakin. Being clearly individualized, they embody the typical features of the Russian bourgeoisie of the period of the primitive accumulation of capital.

The old, pre-reform merchant class is represented by the image of Anania Shurov. This merchant is wild, dark, straightforwardly rude. He is in many ways related to the well-known figures of A. Ostrovsky, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, G. Uspensky. At the heart of his wealth is a criminal offense. In the past, a serf, Shurov became rich after he sheltered a counterfeiter who had escaped from hard labor in his bathhouse, then killed him, and set fire to the bathhouse to cover up the crime.

Shurov became a major timber merchant, drove rafts along the Volga, built a huge sawmill and several barges. He is already old, but even now, as in his younger years, he looks at people "toughly, ruthlessly." According to Shurov, all his life he "besides God, was not afraid of anyone." However, he also builds relationships with God on considerations of profit, sanctimoniously covering up his dishonorable deeds with His name. Calling Shurov a "manufacturer of sins," Yakov Mayakin, not without venom, remarks: "For a long time they have been crying about him both in hard labor and in hell - they yearn, they wait - they will not wait."

Another version of the "knight of primitive accumulation" is Ignat Gordeev. He is also a peasant in the past, then a barge hauler, who became a major owner of the Volga steamship. But he obtained wealth not by criminal offenses, but by his own work, energy, extraordinary perseverance and enterprise. “In all his powerful figure,” the author notes, “there was a lot of Russian healthy and rough beauty.”

He is not petty stingy and not as obsequiously greedy as other merchants, he has Russian prowess and breadth of soul. The pursuit of the ruble sometimes bothered Ignat, and then he gave full rein to passions, unrestrainedly indulging in drunkenness and debauchery. But a period of riot and revelry passed, and he again became quiet and meek. In such abrupt transitions from one mood to another, there is the originality of the character of Ignat, who was not called "naughty" for nothing. These are personality traits. Ignat was then reflected in the individual appearance of his son Thomas.

The central figure of the merchants in the novel is Yakov Mayakin, the owner of a rope factory and trading shops, the godfather of Foma Gordeev. Mayakin is close in spirit to the patriarchal part of the merchant class. But at the same time, he is drawn to the new, industrial bourgeoisie, confidently replacing the nobility. Mayakin is not just a representative of the economically growing bourgeoisie. He seeks to find a historical and socio-philosophical justification for the activities of the merchant class as one of the most important classes of Russian society. He confidently asserts that it was the merchants who "carried Russia on their shoulders for centuries", with their diligence and labor "they laid the foundation of life - they themselves laid down in the ground instead of bricks."

About the great historical mission and the merits of his class, Mayakin speaks with conviction, enthusiasm and beauty, with pathos eloquence. A talented lawyer of the merchant class, smart and energetic, Mayakin persistently returns to the idea that the weight and importance of the Russian merchant class are clearly underestimated, that this class is excluded from the political life of Russia. The time has come, in his opinion, to push the nobles and allow the merchants, the bourgeoisie to the helm of state power: “Let us have room for work! Include us in the construction of this very life!”

Mayakin speaks through the Russian bourgeoisie, which by the end of the century realized itself as a great economic force in the state and was dissatisfied with its removal from the leading role in the political life of the country.

But Mayakin combines correct thoughts and views with cynicism and immorality towards people. To achieve wealth and power, in his opinion, should be by any means, not shunning anything. Teaching the peasant Foma the "politics of life", Mayakin raises hypocrisy and cruelty into an immutable law. “Life, brother, Thomas,” he teaches the young man, “is very simply set: either gnaw at everyone, or lie in the mud ... Approaching a person, hold honey in your left hand, and a knife in your right ...”

Mayakin's reliable successor is his son Taras. In his student years he was arrested and exiled to Siberia. The father was ready to disown him. However, Taras turned out to be all in his father. After serving the exile, he entered the office of the manager of the gold mines, married his daughter and deftly clothed his rich father-in-law. Soon Taras began to manage a soda factory. Returning home, he energetically enters into "business" and leads it on a larger scale than his father. He does not have a fatherly tendency to philosophize, he talks only about business, extremely briefly and dryly. He is a pragmatist, convinced that every person "should choose a job according to his strength and do it as best as possible." Looking at his son, even Yakov Mayakin, himself a very businesslike man, admiring the efficiency of his son, is somewhat puzzled by the callous coldness and pragmatism of the “children”: “Everything is fine, everything is pleasant, only you, our heirs, are deprived of any living feeling!”

African Smolin is in many ways similar to the younger Mayakin. He more organically than Taras absorbed the mode of action of the European bourgeois, having spent four years abroad. This is a Europeanized bourgeois businessman and industrialist, thinking broadly and acting cunningly and dodgy. “Adriasha is a liberal,” the journalist Yezhov says about him, “a liberal merchant is a cross between a wolf and a pig…” dexterous.

But Gorky was interested not only in the problem of the formation and growth of the Russian bourgeoisie, but also in the process of its internal disintegration, the conflict of a morally healthy person with the environment. Such is the fate of the protagonist of the novel, Foma Gordeev. Compositionally and plotwise, the novel is built as a chronicle description of the life of a young man who rebelled against the morality and laws of bourgeois society and, as a result, wrecked his ideals.

The novel traces in detail the history of the formation of the personality and character of Thomas, the formation of his moral world. The starting point in this process was many of the natural inclinations and properties inherited by Thomas from his parents: kindness of soul, a tendency to isolation and solitude - from his mother, and dissatisfaction with the monotony of life, the desire to break the fetters of acquisitiveness that bind a person - from his father.

The fairy tales, to which Aunt Anfisa introduced Foma in childhood, who replaced his mother who died early, painted vivid pictures of life for his childish imagination, not at all like a monotonous, gray existence in his father's house.

The father and the godfather sought to instill in Foma their understanding of the purpose and meaning of life, an interest in the practical side of merchant activity. But these teachings did not go to Thomas for the future; they only increased the feeling of apathy and boredom in his soul. Having reached adulthood, Foma retained in his character and behavior "something childish, naive, which distinguished him from his peers." As before, he showed no serious interest in the business in which his father had invested his whole life.

The sudden death of Ignat stunned Foma. The only heir to a vast fortune, he was to become the master. But, deprived of his father's grasp, he turned out to be impractical in everything, lacking initiative. Thomas does not feel happiness or joy from the possession of millions. “... I'm sick of it! - he complains to his kept woman Sasha Savelyeva. He does just that: periodically indulges in revelry, sometimes arranging scandalous brawls.

Drunken frenzy gave way to Thomas oppressive melancholy. And more and more Thomas is inclined to think that life is arrangedit is unfair that people of his class enjoy undeserved benefits. More and more often he enters into quarrels with the godfather, who for Thomas is the personification of this unfair life. Wealth, the position of the "owner" becomes a heavy burden for him. All this results in a public revolt and denunciation of the merchant class.

During the celebrations at Kononov’s, Foma accuses the merchants of crimes against people, accuses them of not building a life, but a prison, turning an ordinary person into a forced slave. But his solitary, spontaneous rebellion is fruitless and doomed to failure. Foma repeatedly recalls an episode from his childhood when he scared an owl in a ravine. Blinded by the sun, she darted helplessly along the ravine. This episode is projected by the author on the behavior of the hero. Thomas too, blind as an owl. Blind mentally, “spiritually. He passionately protests against the laws and morals of a society that is based on injustice and selfishness, but there are no clearly conscious aspirations at the basis of his protest. Merchants easily deal with their renegade, concluding him in a lunatic asylum and taking away his inheritance.

The novel "Foma Gordeev" caused numerous reviews from readers and critics. The opinion of many readers was expressed by Jack London, who wrote in 1901: “You close the book with a feeling of aching melancholy, with disgust for a life full of“ lies and debauchery. But this is a healing book. Public ulcers are shown in it with such fearlessness ... that its purpose is beyond doubt - it affirms goodness. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Gorky, without leaving work on / prose works, actively and successfully tries himself in dramaturgy. From 1900 to 1906, he created six plays that were included in the golden fund of the Russian theater: "Petty bourgeois", "At the bottom", "Summer residents", "Children of the Sun", "Enemies", "Barbarians". Different in subject matter and artistic level, they, in essence, also solve the main author's super-task - "to arouse in people an effective attitude to life."

5. The play "At the bottom". Analysis.

One of the most significant plays of this peculiar dramatic cycle is undoubtedly the drama"At the bottom" (1902). The play was a resounding success. Following the staging by the Moscow Art Theater in 1902, it went around many theaters in Russia and foreign countries. "At the Bottom" is a stunning picture of a kind of cemetery, where outstanding people are buried alive. We see Sateen’s mind, Natasha’s spiritual purity, Kleshch’s hard work, Ashes’ desire for an honest life, Asan’s honesty, Nastya’s unquenched thirst for pure, sublime love, etc.

The people living in the wretched basement rooming house of the Kostylevs are placed in extremely inhuman conditions: they are deprived of honor, human dignity, the possibility of love, motherhood, honest, conscientious work. The world dramaturgy has never known such a harsh truth about the life of the social lower classes.

But the social and everyday problems of the play are organically connected here with the philosophical. Gorky's work is a philosophical debate about the meaning and purpose of human life, about a person's ability to "break the chain" of destructive circumstances, about the attitude towards a person. In the dialogues and remarks of the heroes of the play, the word "truth" is most often heard. Of the characters who willingly use this word, Bubnov, Luka and Satin stand out.

At one extreme of the dispute about truth and man is the former furrier Bubnov, "who, as he assures, always tells everyone only the truth:" But I don’t know how to lie. For what? In my opinion, bring the whole truth as it is. Why be ashamed? But his “truth” is cynicism and indifference towards the people around him.

Let us recall how cruelly and indifferently-cynically he comments on the main events of the play. When Anna asks not to make noise and let her die in peace, Bubnov declares: "Noise is not a hindrance to death." Nastya wants to escape from the basement, declares: "I'm superfluous here." Bubnov immediately ruthlessly sums up: "You are superfluous everywhere." And he concludes: "And all the people on earth are superfluous."

In the third act, locksmith Kleshch utters a monologue about his own hopeless existence, about how a person who has "golden hands" and who is eager to work is doomed to hunger and deprivation. The monologue is deeply sincere. This is the cry of despair of a person whom society throws out of life like unnecessary slag. And Bubnov declares: “It's great! How he acted in the theater. A disbelieving skeptic and cynic in relation to people, Bubnov is dead at heart and therefore brings people disbelief in life and in a person’s ability to “break the chain” of unfavorable circumstances. The Baron, another "living corpse", a man without faith, without hope, did not go far from him.

The antipode of Bubnov in his view of a person is the wanderer Luka. For many years, critical spears have been crossed around this Gorky “character, which was largely facilitated by the inconsistency of assessments of the image of Luka by the author himself. Some critics and literary scholars literally destroyed Luka, calling him a liar, a preacher of harmful consolation and “even an unwitting accomplice to the masters of life. Others, while partly recognizing Luke's kindness, nevertheless considered it harmful, and even the very name of the character was derived from the word "evil". Meanwhile, Luke Gorky bears the name of a Christian evangelist. And this says a lot, if we keep in mind the presence of "significant" names and surnames of characters in the writer's works.

Luke means "light" in Latin. This semantic meaning of the image of the character echoes Gorky’s idea at the time of his creation of the play: “I really want to write well, I want to write with joy ... put the sun on the stage, a cheerful Russian sun, not very bright, but loving everything, embracing everything.” Such a "sun" appears in the play the wanderer Luke. It is designed to dispel the darkness of hopelessness among the inhabitants of the rooming house, to fill it with kindness, warmth and light.

“In the middle of the night you can’t see the way, the road,” Luka sings meaningfully, clearly hinting at the loss of the meaning and purpose of life by the shelters. And he adds: “Ehe-he ... gentlemen people! And what will happen to you? Well, at least I'll litter here.

Religion plays a significant role in the worldview and character of Luke. The image of Luke is a kenotic type of a wandering folk sage and philosopher. In his wandering way of life, in the fact that he seeks the city of God, the "righteous land", the eschatologism of the people's soul, the hunger for the coming transformation, is deeply expressed. The Russian religious thinker of the Silver Age, G. Fedotov, who thought a lot about the typology of Russian soulfulness, wrote that in the type of wanderer "the kenotic and Christocentric type of Russian religiosity lives predominantly, eternally opposed to everyday liturgical ritualism in it." This is precisely the Gorky character.

Deep and whole nature, Luke fills Christian dogma with a living meaning. Religion for him is the embodiment of high morality, kindness and help to man. His practical advice is a kind of minimum program for the inhabitants of the rooming house. He reassures Anna by talking about the blissful existence of the soul after death (as a Christian, he firmly believes in this). Ashes and Natasha - pictures of a free and happy family life in Siberia. The actor seeks to inspire hope for a cure for alcohol. Luka is often accused of lying. But he never lied.

Indeed, at that time in Russia there were several hospitals for alcoholics (in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg), and in some of them the poor were treated for free. Siberia is the place where it was easiest for Ash to start a new life. Ashes himself admits that he began to steal because no one called him otherwise since childhood, like “thief” and “son of thieves”. Siberia, where no one knows him and where, in accordance with Stolypin's reforms, hundreds of people went, is an ideal place for Pepel.

Not to reconciliation with circumstances, but to action, Luke calls the people of the “bottom”. He appeals to the inner potentialities of a person, urging people to overcome passivity and despair. Luke's compassion and attention to people is effective. It is driven by nothing more than a conscious desire to "arouse in people an active attitude towards life." “Whoever wants hard will find it,” Luka says with conviction. And it's not his fault that the Actor and the Ashes did not work out the way he advised them.

The image of Satin is also ambiguous, which also became the subject of conflicting opinions. The first, traditional point of view: Satin, unlike Luke, calls for an active struggle for a person. The second, diametrically opposed to the first, claims that Satin is Satan, who “corrupts the overnight stays, hinders their attempts to escape from the bottom of life”5. It is easy to see that both of these views on the personality and role of Sateen in the play suffer from excessive categoricalness.

Satin and Luka are not opponents, but like-minded people in their views on a person. It is no coincidence that after Luka's departure, Satine protects him from the attacks of the Baron. Satin defines the role of Luke on himself as follows: "He ... acted on me like acid on an old and dirty coin." Luke stirred the soul of Sateen, made him determine his position in relation to man.

Luke and Satin agree on the main thing: they are both sure that a person is able to break the chain of adverse circumstances if he strains his will and overcomes passivity. “A person can do anything, if only he wants to,” Luka assures. “There is only man, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain,” Satin supports him. There are also differences between them in their views on man. _ Satin has a maximalist approach to the problem of pity. “Pity humiliates a person,” he says.

Christian Luke calls first of all to understand a person, and having managed to understand, one must pity him. “I’ll tell you,” says Luka, “it’s good to feel sorry for a person in time.” To regret in time means to save sometimes from death, from an irreparable step. Luke is more flexible in this matter, more merciful than Sateen. Speaking of the fact that “it is necessary to pity people,” Luke appeals to the highest moral authority: “Christ pitied everyone and commanded us.”

Under the influence of Luke, some of the bed-seekers softened and became kinder. First of all, this applies to Satin. In the fourth act, he jokes a lot, warns the inhabitants of the basement against rude antics. Baron's attempt to teach Nastya a lesson for impudence, he stops with advice: “Drop it! Do not touch ... do not offend a person. Satin does not share the Baron's proposal to have fun with the Tatar, who prays: “Leave it! He's a good guy, don't interfere!" Remembering Luka and his views on man, Satin confidently declares: "The old man was right!" Both kindness and pity of Luke are not passive, but active - that's what Satin understood. “Whoever didn’t do good to someone, he did badly,” says Luka. Through the mouth of this character, the author affirms the idea of ​​active goodness, the position of active attention and help to people. This is the most important moral and philosophical result of Gorky's play-dispute.

During the revolution of 1905, Gorky actively helped the Bolsheviks. He meets Lenin, contributes to the publication of the newspaper "New Life".

6. The novel "Mother". Analysis.

After the suppression of the December armed uprising, Gorky, fearing arrest, moved to Finland, and then, in order to raise money for the Bolshevik Party, to America. Here he writes a number of journalistic articles, the play "Enemies" and a novel"Mother" (1906), which requires a different understanding, not according to the canons of the "first work of socialist realism", as we have been accustomed to do for decades. Lenin's assessment of this novel is widely known: “... The book is necessary, many workers participated in the revolutionary movement unconsciously, spontaneously, and now they will read The Mother with great benefit for themselves. A very timely book."

This assessment significantly influenced the interpretation of the novel, which began to be regarded as a kind of manual on the organization of the revolutionary movement. The writer himself was dissatisfied with such an assessment of his work. “Of course, I thanked Lenin for such a compliment,” he said, “only, I confess, it became somewhat annoying ... It’s still not good to reduce my work (...) to something like a committee proclamation. I was trying to approach some big, very big problems in my thing.

Indeed, the novel "Mother" contains a great and important idea - the idea of ​​motherhood as a life-giving, creative force, although the plot of the work is directly attached to the events of the first Russian revolution, and the Sormovo worker - revolutionary P. Zalomov and his mother are the prototypes of the central characters.

The nature and results of the revolution struck Gorky with their cruelty from both sides. As a humanist writer, he could not fail to see the well-known rigidity of the Marxist doctrine, in which a person was considered only as an object of social, class relations. Gorky, in his own way, tried to combine socialism with Christianity. This idea will be put by the writer at the basis of the story "Confession" (1908), where his God-seeking moods were clearly manifested. The origins of these sentiments are already contained in the novel "Mother", in which the writer seeks to overcome the opposition of atheism and. Christianity, to give their synthesis, their version of Christian socialism.

The scene at the beginning of the novel is symbolic: Pavel Vlasov brings home and hangs on the wall a picture of Christ going to Emmaus. The parallels here are obvious: the gospel story about Christ, Who joins two travelers going to Jerusalem, was needed by the author to emphasize the resurrection of Paul to a new life, his way of the cross for the happiness of people.

The novel "Mother", like the play "At the Bottom", is a two-level work. The first one is the social level, revealing the process of growth of the revolutionary consciousness of the young worker Pavel Vlasov and his friends. The second is a parable, which is a modification of the gospel story about the Mother of God blessing the Son on the cross for the sake of saving people. This is clearly demonstrated by the ending of the first part of the novel, when Nilovna, addressing the people during the May Day demonstration, speaks about the way of the cross of children in the name of the holy truth: “Children go in the world, our blood, they follow the truth ... for everyone! And for all of you, for your babies, they doomed themselves to the way of the cross… Our Lord Jesus Christ would not exist if people did not die for his glory…” And the crowd “excitedly and deafly” responded to her: “God speaks! God, good people! Listen!" Christ, dooming himself to suffering in the name of people, is associated in Nilovna's mind with the path of her son.

The mother, who saw the truth of the son of Christ in the case, became for Gorky a measure of moral height, and he placed her image at the center of the narrative, linking the political definition of “socialism” through the mother’s feelings and actions with moral and ethical concepts: “soul”, “faith”, "Love".

The evolution of the image of Pelageya Nilovna, rising to the symbol of the Mother of God, reveals the author's idea of ​​spiritual insight and sacrifice of the people, who give the most precious thing - their children, to achieve a great goal.

In the chapter opening the second part of the novel, the author describes Nilovna's dream, in which the impressions of the past day - the May Day demonstration and the arrest of her son - are intertwined with religious symbols. Against the backdrop of the blue sky, she sees her son singing the revolutionary anthem "Get up, get up, working people." And, merging with this hymn, the chant “Christ is risen from the dead” solemnly sounds. And in a dream, Nilovna sees herself in the guise of a Mother with babies in her arms and in her womb - a symbol of motherhood. After waking up and talking with Nikolai Ivanovich, Nilovna "wanted to go somewhere along the roads, past forests and villages, with a knapsack over her shoulders, with a stick in her hand." This impulse combined a real desire to fulfill the instructions of Paul's friends, connected with revolutionary propaganda in the countryside, and. at the same time, the desire to repeat the difficult path of the Mother of God walking in the footsteps of the Son.

So the real social plan of the narration is translated by the author into a religious-symbolic, evangelical one. The ending of the work is also noteworthy in this regard, when the mother, captured by the gendarmes, transforms the revolutionary confidence of her son (“We will win, workers”) into the gospel prophecy about the inevitable triumph of the truth of Christ: “The resurrected soul will not be killed.”

The humanistic nature of Gorky's talent was also reflected in his description of the three types of revolutionaries who played an active role in the political life of Russia. The first of them is Pavel Vlasov. The novel shows in detail his evolution, the transformation of a simple working guy into a conscious revolutionary, the leader of the masses. Deep devotion to the common cause, courage and unbending will become the hallmarks of Paul's character and behavior. At the same time, Pavel Vlasov is stern and ascetic. He is convinced that "only reason will free a person."

In his behavior there is no harmony of thought and feeling, reason and emotions necessary for a true leader of the masses. Wise with great life experience, Rybin explains to Pavel his failure in the case with the “swamp penny” as follows: “You speak well, yes - not to your heart - here! It is necessary to throw a spark in the heart, in the very depths.

Pavel's friend Andrei Nakhodka does not accidentally call him "iron man". In many cases, the asceticism of Pavel Vlasov prevents his spiritual beauty and even thoughts from revealing, it is no coincidence that the mother feels her son “closed”. Let us recall how harshly he cuts off Nilovna on the eve of the demonstration, whose maternal heart feels the misfortune looming over her son: “When will there be mothers who will send their children to death with joy?” Paul's selfishness and self-confidence are even more clearly seen in his sharp attack on motherly love. “There is love that prevents a person from living ...” His relationship with Sashenka is also very ambiguous. Pavel loves the girl and we love her. His plans do not include marrying her, since family happiness, in his opinion, will prevent his participation in the revolutionary struggle.

In the image of Pavel Vlasov, Gorky embodied the characteristics of the character and behavior of a rather large category of revolutionaries. These people are strong-willed, purposeful, completely devoted to their idea. But they lack a broad outlook on life, a combination of unbending integrity with attention to people, harmony of thought and feeling.

Andrey Nakhodka is more flexible and richer in this respect. Natasha, kind and sweet Egor Ivanovich. It is with them, and not with Pavel, that Nilovna feels more confident, safely opens her soul, knowing that these sensitive people will not offend her heart impulses with a rude, careless word or deed. The third type of revolutionary is Nikolai Vyesovshchikov. This is a revolutionary-maximalist. “Having barely gone through the basics of the revolutionary struggle, he demands weapons in order to immediately pay off the“ class enemies ”. The answer given to Vesovshchikov by Andrey Nakhodka is characteristic: “First, you see, you need to arm your head, and then your hands ...” Finding is right: emotions that are not based on a solid foundation of knowledge are no less dangerous than dryly rationalistic decisions that do not take into account the experience gained by debts and centuries of proven moral precepts.

The image of Nikolai Vesovshchikov contains a great author's generalization and warning. The same Nakhodka tells Pavel about Vyesovshchikov: “When people like Nikolai feel their offense and break out of patience - what will it be? The sky is splattered with blood. And the earth in it, like soap, will foam ... ”Life confirmed this forecast. When such people seized power in October 1917, they flooded the earth and sky with Russian blood. The prophetic warnings of the Gospel of Maxim, as the critic G. Mitin called the novel The Mother, were, alas, not heeded.

Since the beginning of the 1910s, Gorky's work has been developing, as before, in two main directions: exposing petty-bourgeois philosophy and psychology as an inert, spiritually miserable force and affirming the inexhaustibility of the spiritual and creative forces of the people.

A wide, generalizing canvas of life in district Russia is drawn by Gorky in the stories"Town Okurov" (1909) and “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin” (1911), where there are “humiliated and insulted”, victims of petty-bourgeois savagery (Sima Devushkin), where all sorts of militant hooligans, anarchists (Vavila Burmistrov) feel at ease, and there are also their philosophers and truth-seekers, smart observers of life (Tiunov, Kozhemyakin), convinced that “our body is broken, and the soul is strong. Spiritually, we are all still teenagers, and life is ahead of us - no end. Rus' will rise, you just believe in it.

7. The cycle of stories "In Rus'".

This faith in Russia, in the Russian people, the writer expressed in a cycle of stories"In Rus'" (1912-1917). The author, according to him, turned here to the image of the past in order to illuminate the paths to the future. The cycle is built in the travel genre. Together with the narrator - "passing" we, as it were, make a journey through the country. We see central Russia, the freedom of the southern steppes, Cossack villages, we are present at the spring awakening of nature, we swim along leisurely rivers, admire the nature of the northern Caucasus, breathe in the salty wind of the Caspian Sea. And everywhere we meet with a mass of diverse people. Based on extensive material

Gorky shows how the gifted nature of the Russian man makes his way through the age-old strata of lack of culture, inertness and scarcity of existence.

The cycle opens with the story "The Birth of a Man", which tells about the birth of a child along the way with a random companion of the author-narrator. Its action takes place against the backdrop of beautiful Caucasian nature. Thanks to this, the described event acquires a sublimely symbolic meaning under the writer's pen: a new person was born, who, perhaps, is destined to live in a happier time. Hence the optimistic words of the “passing”, illuminating the appearance of a new person on earth: “Noise, Orlovsky, be strong, brother, stronger ...” The very image of the child’s mother, a young Oryol peasant woman, rises to the height of a symbol of motherhood. The story sets a major tone for the entire cycle. “An excellent position is to be a man on earth,” in these words of the narrator, Gorky’s optimistic faith in the triumph of the bright beginnings of life sounds.

Many features of the Russian national character are embodied by the writer in the image of the headman of the carpentry artel Osip from the story "The Ice Drift". The sedate, somewhat melancholy, even lazy Osip, in moments of danger, fills with energy, burns with youthful enthusiasm, becomes a true leader of the workers who ventured to cross the ice floes to the other side of the Volga during the flood. In the image of Osip, Gorky affirms the active, strong-willed beginning of the Russian national character, expresses confidence in the creative forces of the people, which have not yet truly set in motion.

The picture of folk life and especially folk types depicted by Gorky appears complex, sometimes contradictory, and motley. In the complexity and diversity of the national character, the writer saw the originality of the Russian people, due to its history. In 1912, in a letter to the writer O. Runova, he noted: “The natural state of a person is variegation. The Russians are especially colorful, which is why they differ significantly from other nations. Showing the inconsistency of the people's consciousness, resolutely speaking out against passivity, Gorky created an impressive gallery of types and characters.

Here is the story "Woman". For his heroine Tatyana, the search for personal happiness is connected with the search for happiness for all people, with the desire to see them kinder and nobler. “Look - you are going to a man with kindness, your freedom, you are ready to give him strength, but he does not understand this, and - how can you blame him? Who showed him good? she muses.

People abused the young prostitute Tanya from the story “Light Gray with Blue” and “consoled”, as if by alms, with simple wisdom “can you punish everyone who is guilty?” But they did not kill her kindness, a bright outlook on the world.

The pessimistic telegrapher Yudin (the story "The Book"), somewhere in the depths of his soul, had a longing for a better life and "tender compassion for people." Even in a misguided person, such as the drunken motherfucker Mashka, the instinct of maternal love awakens a sense of kindness and self-sacrifice (“Passion-Muzzle”).

A very important, if not fundamental, significance for the entire book is the story, "The Easy Man" - about the 19-year-old typesetter Sasha, who is passionately in love with life. “Oh, brother Maksimych,” he confesses to the narrator, “my heart grows and grows without end, as if all of me is only one heart.” This young man is drawn to books, to knowledge, tries to write poetry.

All stories of the cycle are united by the image of the author-narrator, who is not just an observer of events, but their participant. He deeply believes in the renewal of life, in the spiritual potential and creative forces of the Russian people.

A positive, life-affirming beginning in Gorky's work of this period was also embodied in "Tales of Italy" - twenty-seven romanticized artistic essays about Italian life, which were preceded by an epigraph from Andersen: "There are no fairy tales better than those that life itself creates", testifying to reality, and by no means about the fabulousness of what is described. They poetize the "little man" - a man of a wide soul and active creative deed, whose labor transforms reality. The author's view of such a “little great man” is expressed by the lips of one of the builders of the Simplon Tunnel: “Oh, signor, a small man, when he wants to work, is an invincible force. And believe me: in the end, this little man will do whatever he wants.

In the last pre-revolutionary years, Gorky worked hard on autobiographical stories."Childhood" (1913-1914) and "In People" (1916). In 1923 he completed these memoirs with My Universities.

Starting from the richest traditions of Russian autobiographical prose, Gorky supplemented this genre with the image of the simplicity of a man from the people, showing the process of his spiritual formation. There are many dark scenes and paintings in the works. But the writer is not limited to depicting only the "lead abominations of life." He shows how through “a layer of all bestial rubbish… the bright, healthy and creative victoriously sprouts…, arousing an unshakable hope for our rebirth to a light, human life.”

This conviction, meetings with numerous people strengthen the forces and form the character of Alyosha Peshkov, his active attitude to the surrounding reality. At the end of the story “In People”, a meaningful image of the “half-asleep land” arises, which Alyosha passionately wants to wake up, give “a kick to her and himself”, so that everything “spins in a joyful whirlwind, a festive dance of people in love with each other, in this life, started for the sake of another life - beautiful, cheerful, honest ... "

8. Gorky's attitude to the revolution.

Gorky's attitude to the events of the February and especially the October revolutions was complex. Unconditionally condemning the old system, Gorky connected with the revolution hopes for a genuine social and spiritual emancipation of the individual, for the construction of a new culture. However, all this turned out to be an illusion, which led him to come up with a series of protesting and warning articles, which he called "Untimely Thoughts." They were published by Gorky from April 1917 to June 1918 in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, which he published. They reflected both Gorky's love for Russia and pain for her. And the writer himself appears here as a tragic figure.

These sentiments especially intensified in Gorky after the victory of the October Revolution, for, as L. Spiridonova rightly writes, the author of a detailed and profound monograph on Gorky based on the richest archival documents, the writer was “for democracy, but against extreme forms of manifestation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, for socialism as an idea, but against violent measures for its implementation, coupled with the violation of human rights and freedom of conscience.

The rampant Red Terror, the indifference of the revolutionary authorities to the fate of people, caused Gorky to desperately protest against murders, arrests, lynchings, pogroms and robberies, against the very idea that hundreds of thousands of people could be killed for the triumph of justice. “The great happiness of freedom should not be overshadowed by crimes against the individual, otherwise we will kill freedom with our own hands,” the writer warned.

Indignantly, he wrote that "class hatred swept over the mind, and the conscience died." Gorky watched with alarm how people, far from the true ideals of freedom, happiness and justice, who clung to the revolution, crawl out to the surface of Russian life and gain power. The writer protects the people from this kind of "unscrupulous adventurers" - the Inter-Bolsheviks, who, in his opinion, look at Russia as an experimental field, "material for social experiments." One of them - G. Zinoviev - Gorky portrayed in the play "Hard worker Slovotekov".

Gorky was the first to ring the bells, seeing the beginning of the plundering of national cultural values ​​and their sale abroad. He spoke out against the call "Rob the loot", because it led to the impoverishment of the economic and cultural treasures of the country. Gorky especially vehemently protested against the disdainful attitude towards the figures of science and culture, towards the Russian intelligentsia, the “brain of the nation”, seeing in all this a threat to culture and civilization.

The consequences of this attitude were not long in coming. By order of Zinoviev, a search was carried out at the writer’s apartment, articles began to appear in the newspapers Pravda and Petrogradskaya Pravda accusing Gorky of having “sold the imperialists, landowners and bankers” the newspaper he published.

In response to this, on June 3, 1918, Gorky writes in Novaya Zhizn: “Nothing else from a government that is afraid of light and publicity, cowardly and anti-democratic, trampling on elementary civil rights, persecuting workers, sending punitive expeditions to the peasants - could not be expected” . A month after this publication, the New Life newspaper was closed.

9. Gorky in exile.

At the insistent suggestion of Lenin, Gorky left his homeland in October 1921. For the first three years of forced emigration, he lives in Berlin, then in Sorrento.

Abroad, Gorky, as if making up for lost time, begins to write greedily and feverishly. He creates the story "My Universities", a cycle of autobiographical stories, several memoirs, the novel "The Artamonov Case", begins work on the epic "The Life of Klim Samgin" - a monumental artistic study of the spiritual life of Russia at the turn of the century, where, against the grandiose background of historical events, the writer depicts " the story of an empty soul", "intellectual of average cost" Klim Samgin, who, with his twilight consciousness, the type of a split soul, echoes Dostoevsky's "underground" characters.

10. Return of Gorky to the USSR

In 1928 the writer returned to his homeland. He returned with a firm conviction to take an active part in the construction of a new, as it seemed to him, part of the normal course after the revolutionary cataclysms of life. It was precisely this, and not material considerations, as some modern publicists are trying to assure us, that his return was dictated. One of the proofs of this is the memoirs of F. Chaliapin: “Gorky sympathized with me, he himself said:“ Here, brother, you don’t belong. When we met this time in 1928 in Rome... he told me sternly: "And now you, Fyodor, you have to go to Russia...".

However, despite the obvious sympathy for Gorky of Stalin and his inner circle, despite the intensive literary, organizational and creative activity of the writer, his life in the 30s was not easy. Ryabushinsky's mansion on M. Nikitskaya, where the writer was settled with a whole staff of attendants, rather looked like a prison: a high fence, security. Since 1933, the head of the NKVD, G. Yagoda, was invisibly present here, introducing his agent P. Kryuchkov as a secretary to Gorky.

All correspondence of the writer was carefully looked through, suspicious letters were confiscated, Yagoda followed his every step. “I am very tired ... How many times I wanted to visit the village, even live, as in the old days ... I can’t. It was as if they were surrounded by a fence - you can’t step over it, ”he complains to his close friend I. Shkapa.

In May 1934, the writer's son, Maxim, a great athlete and promising physicist, suddenly died. There is evidence that Yagoda poisoned him. A few months later, on December 1, the murder of S. M. Kirov, whom Gorky knew very well and deeply respected, was committed. The “ninth wave” of repressions that began in the country literally shocked Gorky.

R. Rolland, who visited Moscow in 1935, after meeting with Gorky, sensitively noted that Gorky's "hidden recesses of consciousness" were "full of pain and pessimism"12. The French journalist Pierre Herbard, who worked in Moscow in 1935-1936 as editor of the magazine La literature internationale, writes in his memoirs, published in Paris in 1980, that Gorky "bombarded Stalin with sharp protests" and that "his patience was exhausted." There is evidence that Gorky wanted to tell the intelligentsia of Western Europe everything, to draw their attention to the Russian tragedy. He urges his French friends and colleagues L. Aragon and A. Gide to come to Moscow. They came. But the writer was no longer able to meet with them: on June 1, 1936, he fell ill with the flu, which then turned into pneumonia.

11. Illness and death of Gorky.

From June 6, the central press begins to publish daily official bulletins on his state of health.

On June 8, the writer is visited by Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov. This visit was tantamount to a final farewell. Two days before his death, the writer felt some relief. There was a deceptive hope that this time his body would cope with the disease. Gorky said to the doctors who had gathered for the next consultation: "Apparently, I'll jump out." This, alas, did not happen. On June 18, 1936, at 11:10 am, Gorky died. His last words were: "The end of the novel - the end of the hero - the end of the author."

According to the official version of those years, Gorky was deliberately killed by his attending physicians L. Levin and D. Pletnev, who were repressed for this. Later, materials were published that refuted the violent death of the writer. Recently, disputes have flared up again about whether Gorky was killed or died as a result of an illness. And if killed, then by whom and how. A special chapter of the already mentioned monograph by Spiridonova, as well as the book by V. Baranov "Bitter, without makeup" is devoted to a detailed consideration of this issue.

It is unlikely that we will fully know the secret of Gorky's death: the history of his illness was destroyed. One thing is certain: Gorky prevented the development of mass terror against the creative intelligentsia. With his death, this obstacle was removed. R. Rolland wrote in his diary: “Terror in the USSR began not with the assassination of Kirov, but with the death of Gorky” and explained: “... The mere presence of his blue eyes served as a bridle and protection. Eyes closed."

Gorky's tragedy in the last years of his life is further evidence that he was neither a court writer nor a thoughtless apologist for socialist realism. The creative path of M. Gorky was different - filled with the eternal dream of the happiness and beauty of human life and soul. This path is the main one for Russian classical literature.

Gorky Maxim, (real name Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov) (1868-1936) Russian writer, publicist, public figure

Born in Nizhny Novgorod, in the family of a cabinetmaker. He lost his father early, spent his childhood in the house of his grandfather, the owner of a dyeing workshop.

Lived in poverty, changed many professions. Tried to enter Kazan University. He joined the revolutionary movement and began to engage in educational activities.
V.G. helped him to enter literature. Korolenko. In 1892, Gorky first appeared in print with the story Makar Chudra. From that moment on, he began to systematically engage in literary work. The collection Essays and Stories had a great resonance. In the novel "Mother" he sympathetically showed the growth of the revolutionary movement in Russia. In the play "At the Bottom" he raised the question of freedom and the appointment of man.

Many of the writer's works became literary sensations: the autobiographical triptych "Childhood", "In People", "My Universities"; the play "Egor Bulychov and others", the unfinished epic novel "The Life of Klim Samgin".

Abroad (1921-1931) and after returning to Russia, Gorky had a great influence on the formation of the ideological and aesthetic principles of Soviet literature, including
including the theory of socialist realism.

If you ask: "What do you think about the work of Alexei Gorky?", then few people will be able to answer this question. And not because these people do not read, but because not everyone knows and remembers that this is the well-known writer Maxim Gorky. And if you decide to complicate the task even more, then ask about the works of Alexei Peshkov. Here, only a few will remember for sure that this is the real name of Alexei Gorky. It was not just a writer, but also an active one. As you already understood, we will talk about a truly popular writer - Maxim Gorky.

Childhood and youth

The years of life of Gorky (Peshkov) Alexei Maksimovich - 1868-1936. They fell on an important historical epoch. The biography of Alexei Gorky is rich in events, starting from his very childhood. The native city of the writer is Nizhny Novgorod. His father, who worked as a manager of a steamship company, died when the boy was only 3 years old. After the death of her husband, Alyosha's mother remarried. She passed away when he was 11 years old. The grandfather was engaged in the further education of little Alexei.

Being an 11-year-old boy, the future writer already "went among people" - he earned his own bread. Whoever he worked: he was a baker, worked as a delivery boy in a store, a dishwasher in a buffet. Unlike the stern grandfather, the grandmother was a kind and believing woman and an excellent storyteller. It was she who instilled in Maxim Gorky a love of reading.

In 1887, the writer will attempt to commit suicide, which he will associate with the difficult feelings caused by the news of his grandmother's death. Fortunately, he survived - the bullet did not hit the heart, but damaged the lungs, which caused problems with the respiratory system.

The life of the future writer was not easy, and he, unable to stand it, ran away from home. The boy wandered a lot around the country, saw the whole truth of life, but in an amazing way he was able to maintain faith in the ideal Man. He will describe his childhood years, life in his grandfather's house in "Childhood" - the first part of his autobiographical trilogy.

In 1884, Alexei Gorky tries to enter Kazan University, but because of his financial situation, he learns that this is impossible. During this period, the future writer begins to gravitate toward the romantic philosophy, according to which the ideal Man does not look like a real Man. Then he became acquainted with Marxist theory and became a supporter of new ideas.

The emergence of a pseudonym

In 1888, the writer was arrested for a short period of time for his connection with the Marxist circle of N. Fedoseev. In 1891, he decided to start traveling around Russia and eventually managed to reach the Caucasus. Alexei Maksimovich was constantly engaged in self-education, saving up and expanding his knowledge in various fields. He agreed to any job and carefully kept all his impressions, they later appeared in his very first stories. Subsequently, he called this period "My Universities".

In 1892, Gorky returned to his native places and took his first steps in the literary field as a writer in several provincial publications. For the first time his pseudonym "Gorky" appeared in the same year in the newspaper "Tiflis", in which his story "Makar Chudra" was published.

The pseudonym was not chosen by chance: he hinted at the "bitter" Russian life and that the writer would write only the truth, no matter how bitter it was. Maxim Gorky saw the life of the common people and, with his temperament, could not help but notice the injustice that was on the part of the rich estates.

Early creativity and success

Alexey Gorky was actively engaged in propaganda, for which he was under the constant control of the police. With the help of V. Korolenko in 1895, his story "Chelkash" was published in the largest Russian magazine. Following were printed "Old Woman Izergil", "The Song of the Falcon", They were not special from a literary point of view, but they successfully coincided with the new political views.

In 1898, his collection Essays and Stories was published, which was an extraordinary success, and Maxim Gorky received all-Russian recognition. Although his stories were not highly artistic, they depicted the life of the common people, starting from their very bottom, which brought Alexei Peshkov recognition as the only writer who writes about the lower class. At that time, he was no less popular than L. N. Tolstoy and A. P. Chekhov.

In the period from 1904 to 1907, the plays "Petty bourgeois", "At the Bottom", "Children of the Sun", "Summer Residents" were written. His earliest works did not have any social orientation, but the characters had their own types and a special attitude to life, which readers really liked.

revolutionary activity

The writer Alexei Gorky was an ardent supporter of Marxist social democracy and in 1901 wrote "The Song of the Petrel", which called for revolution. For open propaganda of revolutionary actions, he was arrested and expelled from Nizhny Novgorod. In 1902, Gorky met Lenin, in the same year his election as a member of the Imperial Academy in the category of fine literature was canceled.

The writer was also an excellent organizer: from 1901 he was the head of the Znanie publishing house, which published the best writers of that period. He supported the revolutionary movement not only spiritually, but also materially. The writer's apartment was used as a headquarters for the revolutionaries before important events. Lenin even spoke at his apartment in St. Petersburg. After that, in 1905, Maxim Gorky, for fear of arrest, decided to leave Russia for a while.

Life abroad

Alexey Gorky went to Finland and from there - to Western Europe and the USA, where he raised funds for the struggle of the Bolsheviks. At the very beginning, he was met there friendly: the writer made acquaintance with Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain. In America, his famous novel "Mother" is published. However, later the Americans began to resent his political actions.

In the period from 1906 to 1907, Gorky lived on the island of Capri, from where he continued to support the Bolsheviks. At the same time, he creates a special theory of "god-building". The point was that moral and cultural values ​​are much more important than political ones. This theory formed the basis of the novel "Confessions". Although Lenin rejected these beliefs, the writer continued to adhere to them.

Return to Russia

In 1913, Alexei Maksimovich returned to his homeland. During the First World War, he lost faith in the power of Man. In 1917, his relations with the revolutionaries worsened, he became disillusioned with the leaders of the revolution.

Gorky understands that all his attempts to save the intelligentsia do not meet with a response from the Bolsheviks. But later, in 1918, he recognizes his beliefs as erroneous and returns to the Bolsheviks. In 1921, despite a personal meeting with Lenin, he failed to save his friend, the poet Nikolai Gumilyov, from execution. After that, he leaves Bolshevik Russia.

Repeated emigration

In connection with the intensification of bouts of tuberculosis and according to Lenin, Alexei Maksimovich leaves Russia for Italy, in the city of Sorrento. There he completes his autobiographical trilogy. The author was in exile until 1928, but continues to maintain contacts with the Soviet Union.

He does not leave his writing activity, but writes already in accordance with new literary trends. Far from the Motherland, he wrote the novel "The Artamonov Case", stories. An extensive work "The Life of Klim Samgin" was begun, which the writer did not have time to finish. In connection with the death of Lenin, Gorky writes a book of memoirs about the leader.

Return to the Motherland and the last years of life

Alexei Gorky visited the Soviet Union several times, but did not stay there. In 1928, during a trip around the country, he was shown the "front" side of life. The delighted writer wrote essays about the Soviet Union.

In 1931, at the personal invitation of Stalin, he returned to the USSR forever. Aleksey Maksimovich continues to write, but in his works he praises the image of Stalin and the entire leadership, without mentioning the numerous repressions. Of course, this state of affairs did not suit the writer, but at that time statements that contradicted the authorities were not tolerated.

In 1934, Gorky's son dies, and on June 18, 1936, Maxim Gorky dies under unclear circumstances. The entire leadership of the country saw off the national writer on his last journey. The urn with his ashes was buried in the Kremlin wall.

Features of the work of Maxim Gorky

His work is unique in that it was during the period of the collapse of capitalism that he was able to very clearly convey the state of society through the description of ordinary people. After all, no one before him described with such detail the life of the lower strata of society. It was this undisguised truth of the life of the working class that won him the love of the people.

His faith in man can be traced in his early works, he believed that a person can make a revolution with the help of his spiritual life. Maxim Gorky managed to combine the bitter truth with faith in moral values. And it was this combination that made his works special, the characters memorable, and made Gorky himself a writer of workers.