In 1917, Maxim Gorky was 49 years old. He has already become a world-famous writer, the author of numerous novels, short stories and plays. But literature was not the only passion. He was drawn to politics. Ever since the beginning of the twentieth century, when he met Lenin and joined the ranks of the RSDLP ...
During the First Russian Revolution, Gorky helped the rebels: he gave money for weapons, there was a headquarters in his apartment, hand grenades, revolvers were stored there, bombs were made. He joyfully exclaimed: “Let the storm come on stronger!”
As a result, Gorky was imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Trubetskoy bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, he did not have to languish in captivity for long - a month later, thanks to the intercession famous writers, Alexei Maksimovich was released.
They not only often met with Lenin - they talked about politics, reflected on the fate of Russia, but also spent their leisure time together: they went to museums and theaters. They fished and played chess. One of the parties (1908) is even recorded in history. Lenin then received a mat from Gorky ...
Time passed. Their paths diverged. After October 1917, the writer became an opponent of the Bolsheviks. He wrote unflattering letters to Ilyich - "to eradicate half-starved old scientists, putting them in prisons, putting idiots stunned by the consciousness of their power under their fists - this is not a thing, but barbarism." He stood up for writers, scientists, was indignant at the cruelties, lawlessness perpetrated by the new government ...
However, I ran ahead, and therefore I return to the beginning of 1917. At that time, Gorky lived in Petrograd with his common-law wife Maria Andreeva. They rented a large apartment at 23 Kronverksky Prospekt, in Evgenia Barsova's apartment building.
Gorky looked much older than his years. He was a tall, massive man with a drooping red mustache, cut like a beaver. He smoked incessantly and coughed just as often. However, he was as energetic as ever.
In the winter of the 17th - even before the February Revolution - Gorky was preparing the publication of a new newspaper. He turned to prominent Russian writers, seeking to attract them to cooperation. He wrote, in particular, to Bunin: “Dear Ivan Alekseevich! Let me ask you to cooperate with the Luch newspaper. I will only say that the newspaper promises to be quite decent and literary. Conditions - whatever you want. I would be very happy if you gave poetry or a short story ... "
Gorky's plans were not destined to come true. According to him, "the Luch newspaper did not come out due to the strength of some complex and dark obstacles."
After the February Revolution, Gorky was actively involved in social work - he became a member of the Special Conference on Art Affairs, participated in the establishment of two societies - the "Memory of the Decembrists" and the "House-Museum of the Memory of Freedom Fighters". With the assistance of Gorky, the "League of Social Education" was created, the city's House of Scientists was opened.
The writer met the collapse of the autocracy with cautious optimism, noting that this was only the first success, "and above all, we must defeat our own illusions." For comparison, Gorky literally applauded the events of 1905: “So, the Russian revolution has begun /.../ The dead - don’t bother - history is repainted in new colors only with blood.”
Gorky became older, wiser.
If in the first revolution he saw the result of a colossal social upsurge, then the events of February seemed to him a spontaneous explosion, a riot of the crowd.
The writer was skeptical about the goals and slogans of the uprising, considered them impossible. Remembering the statement of the French psychologist and sociologist Gustave Le Bon: “Of all the mistakes generated by history, the most disastrous is the one for which the most blood was shed for no good and the most destruction was made; this mistake is the idea that every people can change its institutions at will. All he can do is change names, give new names to old concepts.
However, jubilation reigned everywhere in Russia, a naive confidence appeared that after the overthrow of the hated tsar, a new one would inevitably begin. happy life. These views and opinions were planted in the press. Those who thought otherwise expressed pessimistic forecasts and were not allowed to appear on the pages of newspapers and magazines. It turned out that censorship, which had hardly been abolished by the Provisional Government, again showed itself, although in a different guise ...
At the same time, the intelligentsia met the February events in different ways. Vladimir Korolenko rejoiced that the revolution had "swept away the stronghold of the autocracy." Alexander Blok was also inspired - it seemed to him that the element of the people was capable of not only destroying the old world, but also rebuilding it.
Alexander Kuprin also believed in the future of Russia: “No, the country is not condemned to inglorious destruction, which bore on its shoulders more than what is measured by the fate of all other peoples. Rendered Tatar yoke, Moscow Byzantium, Pugachevism, serfdom, the horrors of Arakcheev and Nikolaev ... "
Zinaida Gippius hoped only at first: “In the crowd crowding around the troops, along the sidewalks, there are so many familiar, sweet faces, young and old ...” But the euphoria quickly evaporated, and the Provisional Government, on which so many hopes were placed, turned out to be only for the time being, to the Bolshevik time. “Kerensky is a wagon that has gone off the rails,” Gippius quipped. - It wobbles, sways, painfully, and - without the slightest beauty. It is close to the end, and the most bitter thing is if the end is without dignity.
Nadezhda Teffi's illusions melted away like unsteady February snow: “Revolution is a roar and a whistle. The underground popped up. Knocked off my feet. Dancing." But it was still "flowers". When October 17th came, Teffi was horrified. And hurried away from Russia ...
Ivan Bunin was, perhaps, close in his perception of events to Gorky. He was anxious, anticipating further trials. And I was not mistaken - soon they came " cursed days”: “The streets were littered with paper, mud, manure, seed husks. The round windows of many houses were covered with paper. On all corners of the city, soldiers and prostitutes behaved with "revolutionary ease ..."
Gorky, who did not agree with either the right or the left, did not find a platform for expressing his, to put it mildly, extraordinary thoughts, which he himself called "untimely." But in May 1917, the publication of Novaya Zhizn, an organ of the Social Democrat-Internationalists, mainly of the Menshevik persuasion, began. In the newspaper, the writer became, in the language of the Soviet era, the author of "leading" articles, that is, relevant materials on the topic of the day (today such journalists - leading headings, sections - are called columnists).
In the first issue of Novaya Zhizn, Gorky wrote in the article “Revolution and Culture” that the old government “was mediocre, but the instinct of self-preservation told it that the human brain is its most dangerous enemy ... and now, with all the means available to it, it tries to make it difficult or to distort the growth of the intellectual forces of the country ... The legacy left to the revolution by the monarchy is terrible.
The writer urged "to get down to work together comprehensive development culture - the revolution has destroyed the barriers to free creativity, and now it is in our will to show ourselves and the world our gifts and talents, our genius ... "Only art, according to Gorky," reveals the universal in man, unites us.
« Untimely Thoughts Gorky, which were regularly published on the pages of Novaya Zhizn, are deep, clear, seasoned with sharp-sighted observations.
The writer believed that politics is the soil on which thistles of poisonous enmity, shameless lies, slander, painful ambitions, and disrespect for the individual grow rapidly and abundantly.
He looked into the water - people very soon became hardened, the murder, if it was motivated by ideological differences, the aggravation of the "class struggle", was no longer considered a crime.
Gorky stated that "we are going through an alarming, dangerous time - pogroms speak of this with gloomy persuasiveness ... wild antics of soldiers at railway stations and a number of other facts of licentiousness, stunnedness, rudeness."
Was there a way out of this darkness?
Gorky believed that "the artist must invade the chaos of the mood of the street." According to the writer, the Fatherland would feel in less danger if it had more culture.
But how could she get it in Russia, if the great mass of people were illiterate, downtrodden?! For centuries, they were mocked, bent to the ground. They were afraid to open their mouths... The revolution not only freed millions of peasants, workers, soldiers from oppression, but also awakened the beast in them. His bestial instincts burst out: these people did not care - in literally- for all! Under the red banners of the revolution, they carried out reprisals not only on the former oppressors, but also on those who were richer, smarter or simply looked askance. Freedom! Freedom, your mother!
Gorky was a real knight - kind, merciful. But - amazingly naive. He repeated like a mantra: culture, culture! Only she will save Russia!
The writer protested against the humiliation royal family, called for an end to the atrocities, to stop the plunder of works of art, to end the terrible, bloody war.
He was disgusted with the so-called "free press": "Grabbling with each other, newspapers roll around the streets with a ball of poisonous snakes, poisoning and frightening the layman with their malicious hissing."
Although Gorky raised topical, topical issues, few supported him. But those who took up arms against the writer were more than enough. He was accused of many sins, including "defeatism". The Petrograd newspaper went furthest living word”, which ranked Gorky among the “German agents”.
... In the writer's huge apartment - there were 11 rooms! - besides him and Andreeva, there lived relatives, acquaintances of Alexei Maksimovich, just accustomers. Up to 30 souls in total! However, it is not surprising famous host he was sympathetic, sentimental, could shelter anyone who came from the street, if he liked him.
Writers, artists, academics, professors, writers, artists, academics, professors, former earls, princes, secular ladies. Here they ate, drank, danced, sang, played lotto, cards ...
Gorky lived in a large room lined with bookshelves. In the mornings, dressed in an old jacket spattered with ink up to his elbows, he sat down in a Chinese folding chair and worked. He closed the door, shielded himself from noise and bedlam, plunged into clouds of tobacco smoke and wrote - thoughtfully, neatly, in large letters ...
In October 1917, Novaya Zhizn found out that the Bolsheviks were preparing a performance. Gorky came out with a diatribe article, which was supposed, on the one hand, to force the Provisional Government to take effective measures, stir up the public, and, on the other hand, to stop Lenin and his associates: “An unorganized crowd will crawl out into the street, poorly understanding what it wants, and, hiding behind it, adventurers, thieves, professional assassins will begin to "create the history of the Russian revolution."
But the voice of the crying "Petrel" was not heard, and the Bolsheviks seized power. He should be happy - after all, Lenin is his old friend, if you look into Smolny, he will certainly receive him from old memory, pour some tea and, slyly narrowing his eyes, smile: “Well, my friend, with whom will you go further? With us or…”
But Gorky is not going to the feast of the victors. Moreover, in the article “Towards Democracy”, published after the Bolsheviks came to power, he demonstrates an open hostility towards them: “Lenin, Trotsky and those accompanying them have already been poisoned by the rotten poison of power ... Blind fanatics and shameless adventurers rush headlong allegedly along the path to “ social revolution"- in fact, this is the path to anarchy, to the death of the proletariat and revolution."
"New Life" by some miracle, despite the fact that it became the core of the opposition, survived until July 1918. She, through the mouths of Gorky and other authors, protested, shouted, was indignant. But the newspaper's days were numbered...
When the publication was closed, Gorky tried to appeal to Lenin, but to no avail. “Of course, Novaya Zhizn must be closed,” said the leader of the proletariat in a private conversation. Under the present conditions, when it is necessary to rouse the whole country to the defense of the revolution, any intellectual pessimism is extremely harmful. But Gorky is our man... He is too connected with the working class and with the working-class movement, he himself came out of the "bottom". He will definitely come back to us."
Lenin turned out to be right - the writer began to cooperate with the Soviet government. On the initiative of Gorky, the "House of Arts" was opened - the prototype of the writers' union, with his participation, the Central Commission for the Improvement of the Life of Scientists was established. Thanks to the writer, the publishing house " world literature».
However, Gorky continued to sharply and fearlessly polemize with Lenin. He was angry at why the new government treats the intelligentsia so rudely and contemptuously, why it indiscriminately threw its well-known representatives into prison.
He expressed thoughts that seemed not so subtle and new, but for some reason "not caught" by the Bolsheviks: scientist man now it should be more dear to us than ever, it is he, and only he, who is able to enrich the country with new intellectual energy, he will develop it ... In Russia there is little brain, we have little talented people and too much too! - a lot of crooks, scoundrels, adventurers. This revolution is ours for decades; where are the forces that will lead it intelligently and energetically enough?
Lenin failed to "tame" Gorky. It was impossible to hide behind bars, because he is a beacon, a great Russian writer, besides a former ally. And Lenin slyly advised Alexei Maksimovich to go abroad for treatment. In fact, Ilyich warned, as if in jest: “Leave! Otherwise, we will send you."
And Gorky heeded the advice of a former friend. Moreover, the day before Once again shuddered with horror - despite his intercession, the brilliant talent Nikolai Gumilyov was shot. Maybe Aleksei Maksimovich thought: “And so it will come to me myself ...”
And in 1924 Gorky published an essay “V.I. Lenin”, in which he praised the leader: “He is a politician. He perfectly possessed that well-developed straightness of sight, which is necessary for the helmsman of such a huge, heavy ship as lead peasant Russia… And there was no person who, like this one, really deserved eternal memory in the world.”
Especially for "Century"
The article was published as part of a project funded by state support allocated as a grant in accordance with the order of the President Russian Federation dated 04/05/2016 No. 68-rp and on the basis of a competition held by the Union of Pensioners of Russia.
Gorky, revolution, intelligentsia
— Storm! The storm is coming soon!
This bold Petrel proudly flies between lightning bolts over the roaring sea; then the prophet of victory cries:
Let the storm blow up!
M. Gorky. "Song of the Petrel"
June 18, 1936, 80 years ago, passed away great writer Maksim Gorky. The great Russian, and then the Soviet writer had a very difficult and difficult fate.
Maxim Gorky (real name - Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov) was born (16) March 28, 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of Maxim Savvatevich Peshkov and Varvara Vasilievna Kashirina. By official biography his father was a cabinet maker (according to another version, he was the manager of the Astrakhan shipping company I.S. Kolchin), and his mother was the daughter of the owner of the dye house. The marriage did not last long, soon the father died of cholera. Alexey Peshkov fell ill with cholera at the age of three, his father managed to get him out, but at the same time he became infected himself and did not survive. The boy almost did not remember his father, but the stories of his relatives about him left a deep impression - even the pseudonym "Maxim Gorky", according to the old Nizhny Novgorod residents, was taken in memory of his father. The mother did not want to return to her father and remarried, but soon died of consumption. Thus, at an early age, little Alexei was orphaned and was raised by his grandfather and grandmother.
Maxim's grandmother - Akulina Ivanovna - replaced the boy's parents. Alexei spent his childhood in the house of his grandfather Kashirin in Nizhny Novgorod. Vasily Vasilyevich went bankrupt towards the end of his life, but taught his grandson. For the most part, Alexey read church books and got acquainted with the biographies of the saints. Already at the age of eleven he became acquainted with the cruel realities working life because he was completely alone. Alexei worked as an assistant on a steamboat, in a store, as a baker, learned to paint icons, etc. Complete education Gorky never received it, although he studied at the local vocational school. Already during this period, Alexei Maksimovich became interested in literature and wrote his first works.
Since 1878, his life "in people" began. Lived in the slums, among the tramps; wandering, he lived by day labor. In 1884, Gorky entered the university in Kazan, but he was not enrolled. However, at the age of sixteen, Alexei was already quite a strong personality. He stayed in Kazan and began to work. Here he first became acquainted with Marxism. The life and work of Maxim Gorky were subsequently permeated with the ideas of Marx and Engels, he surrounded the image of the proletarian and the revolution with a halo of romance. Young Writer zealously involved in propaganda and already in 1888 he was arrested for his connection with the revolutionary underground. The young writer was placed under strict police supervision. While working at the railway station, he wrote several short stories as well as poetry. Gorky was able to avoid imprisonment by going on a journey around the country. Don, Ukraine, Bessarabia, Crimea, then the North Caucasus and, finally, Tiflis - this is the writer's travel route. He worked hard and conducted propaganda among his colleagues, as well as peasants. These years of Maxim Gorky's life are marked by the first works "Makar Chudra" and "The Girl and Death".
In 1892, after long wanderings, Alexei Maksimovich returned to Nizhny Novgorod. "Makar Chudra" is published in the local newspaper, after which a number of his feuilletons, as well as reviews, are published. His original pseudonym was the strange name Yehudiel Chlamyda. Maxim Gorky himself recalled him more than once in his biography and interviews. His Essays and Stories soon turned an almost unknown provincial writer into a popular revolutionary author. The attention of the authorities to the person of Alexei Maksimovich has grown significantly. During this period, the works "Old Woman Izergil" and "Chelkash" - 1895, "Malva", "Spouses Orlovs" and others - 1897, saw the light, and in 1898 a collection of his works was published.
This period will be the heyday of his talent. In 1899, the famous "Song of the Falcon" and "Foma Gordeev" appeared. In 1901, the “Song of the Petrel” was published. After the publication of "The Song of the Petrel": "Storm! The storm is coming soon! This bold Petrel proudly flies between lightning bolts over the roaring sea; then the prophet of victory shouts: “Let the storm break out more strongly! ..” - he wrote a proclamation calling for a fight against the autocracy. As a result, the writer was expelled from Nizhny Novgorod to Arzamas.
Since 1901, he has turned to dramaturgy. During this period, Maxim Gorky is characterized as an active revolutionary, a supporter of Marxism. His speech after the bloody events of January 9, 1905 was the reason for the arrest and imprisonment in Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Gorky was at that time at the peak of his popularity. In his defense came famous figures art, including representatives of the creative and scientific world from Germany, France, England and Italy. And they let him go. Gorky took a direct part in the revolutionary struggle of 1905. In November he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. In connection with the threat of reprisals, he was forced to leave for America. For the first time abroad, the writer did not stay long.
It must be said that Gorky, like other prominent creative people, had not only an active social, but also a stormy personal life. He was married to Ekaterina Volozhina, he had cohabitants and mistresses, as well as many relatives and adopted children. So, Gorky left the family, and the famous Moscow actress Maria Andreeva became his common-law wife.
In exile, the writer writes various pamphlets of a satirical nature about the "bourgeois" culture of France and the USA ("My Interviews", "In America"). Returning to Russia in autumn, he creates the play "Enemies", the novel "Mother". Barely returning to his homeland, Alexei Maksimovich again travels abroad. By the 1910s, his name became one of the most popular in the Russian Empire, and then in Europe, his work caused a huge critical literature: 91 books about Gorky were published in 1900-1904; from 1896 to 1904 critical literature more than 1860 titles about him. Performances of his plays on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater were an exceptional success and were accompanied by anti-government speeches of the public.
Until 1913, he lives in Italy due to health problems. The illness of the mother was passed on to the son, he suffered from consumption. Gorky returned to his homeland, taking advantage of the amnesty. From the beginning of the First World War, he took an anti-militarist, internationalist position. He enthusiastically met the February Revolution of 1917, seeing in it the victory of democracy, the insurgent people. His apartment in Petrograd in February-March 1917 looked like a "headquarters" where various political and public figures, writers, writers, artists, artists, and workers gathered. Gorky became the initiator of a number of social and cultural undertakings, paid great attention to the protection of cultural monuments and, on the whole, showed great activity. Wrote a number of articles, indignant at the massive export of art treasures from Russia for "American millions", protested against the robbery of the country.
In order for society to fulfill the task of spiritual revival and moral purification of the country, Maxim Gorky believed, it was necessary first of all to unite "the intellectual forces of the old, experienced intelligentsia with the forces of the young worker-peasant intelligentsia." And for this it is necessary to "rise above politics" and direct all efforts to "immediate intensive cultural work", drawing the masses of the workers and peasants into it. Culture, he believed, must be instilled in the people, brought up for centuries in slavery, to give the proletariat, the broad masses systematic knowledge, a clear understanding of their world-historical mission, their rights and duties, to teach democracy. One of Gorky's most important scientific and educational undertakings these days was the creation of the "Free Association for the Development and Propagation of Positive Sciences."
According to the great writer, “without democracy there is no future”, “ strong man- This man of sense", and therefore it is necessary" to arm accurate knowledge"," to instill respect for the mind, to develop love for it, to feel its universal power. Gorky noted: “The source of our misfortunes is our illiteracy. In order to live well, one must work well, in order to stand firmly on one's feet, one must work hard, learn to love work.
Gorky's literary and social work was most active at that time in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, founded by him. It has been published in Petrograd since April 18 under the editorship of Gorky, its co-editors were V.A. Bazarov, V.A. Desnitsky, N.N. Sukhanov, A.N. Tikhonov. The newspaper actively opposed the continuation of Russia's participation in the imperialist war (World War I), for the unification of all revolutionary and democratic forces to maintain the social and political gains of the February Revolution, the development of culture, education, science, in order to follow the path of further implementation of socialist transformations in Russia under leadership of the Social Democratic Party. In addition to the new cycle of "Russian Fairy Tales", stories, essays, Maxim Gorky published over 80 articles in the newspaper (58 of them in the "Untimely Thoughts" series). Publicism in the "New Life" was two complementary books of the writer - "Revolution and Culture. Articles for 1917" and “Untimely Thoughts. Notes on Revolution and Culture.
At this stage of his life, the first contradictions arose with the views of Vladimir Lenin, with whom he was personally acquainted. So, Gorky condemned the "senseless massacre", exposed the desire of the Provisional Government to bring the war to a victorious end (in response, representatives of the bourgeois camp accused Gorky of "espionage, treason"). On the other hand, Gorky spoke out against the July 4 uprising, which began under the influence of socialist propaganda. Defending the social gains of the February Revolution, opposing reaction, conservative forces, bourgeois parties and the policy of the Provisional Government, Gorky's newspaper very soon entered into polemics with the Bolsheviks, who put on the agenda the question of an armed uprising and carrying out socialist revolution. Gorky was convinced that Russia was not yet ready for socialist transformations, that the uprising would be drowned in a sea of blood, and the revolution would be set back decades. He believed that before carrying out a socialist revolution, the people should "work hard in order to gain consciousness of their personality, their human dignity that first it "must be incinerated and purified from the slavery nurtured in it by the slow fire of culture." In his opinion, “the most terrible enemy of freedom and law is within us”, “our cruelty and all that chaos of dark, anarchic feelings, which is brought up in our souls by our shameless oppression of the monarchy, its cynical cruelty”. And with the victory of the revolution, only the "process of intellectual enrichment of the country" begins. Russia was not yet ready for a social revolution. Culture, science, art were, according to Gorky, just the force that "will allow us to overcome the abominations of life and relentlessly, stubbornly strive for justice, the beauty of life, for freedom."
Therefore, the writer met the October Revolution coolly. A week before October, in the article “You can’t be silent!” he calls on the Bolsheviks to abandon the "speech", fearing that "this time the events will take on an even more bloody and pogrom character, will inflict an even more severe blow to the revolution." After October, Novaya Zhizn, headed by Gorky, still occupied opposition positions and became an opponent of the new government. The newspaper criticized the "costs" of the revolution, its "shadow sides", the forms and methods of implementing social transformations in the country - the cultivation of class hatred, terror, violence, "zoological anarchism" of the dark masses. At the same time, Gorky defends the lofty humanistic ideals of socialism, the ideas of democracy, universal human values, the rights and freedom of the individual, forgotten in the whirlwind of the revolution. He accuses the leaders of the Bolsheviks, Lenin and "his henchmen" of destroying the freedom of the press, "adventurism", "dogmatism" and "nechaevism", "despotism", etc.
It is clear that such a position of Gorky sharply criticized the authorities. Arguing with him, the Bolshevik party and official press wrote that the writer had turned from a “storm petrel” into a “loon”, “which is inaccessible to the happiness of battle”, that he acts as a “whimpering philistine”, that “his conscience has disappeared”, that “he changed the revolution, etc. On July 16, 1918, with the consent of Lenin, the newspaper was closed (before that, the publication had been temporarily suspended several times).
Gorky took this criticism sharply and hard. For him, socialism was not a utopia. He continued to believe in his ideas, he wrote about the "hard labor pains" of the new world, " new Russia”, noting that, despite all the mistakes, crimes, “the revolution, nevertheless, has matured to its victory”, and expressed confidence that the revolutionary whirlwind that shook “Rus' to the very depths”, “heal us, heal us”, revive "to construction and creativity." Gorky also pays tribute to the Bolsheviks: "The best of them are excellent people, who in time will be proud of Russian history ..."; “... psychologically, the Bolsheviks have already rendered the Russian people a service, moving their entire mass off the ground and arousing in the entire mass an active attitude towards reality, an attitude without which our country would perish.”
Despite a special view of the revolution, Gorky continued his creative activity and gave the young Soviet state many more patriotic works. After the assassination attempt on Lenin, Gorky again became close to him and to the Bolsheviks. Subsequently, the writer, assessing his positions in 1917-1918, recognized them as erroneous, explaining this by underestimating the organizational role of the Bolshevik Party and the creative forces of the proletariat in the revolution. Gorky became one of the organizers of literary, public and publishing initiatives: the publishing houses "World Literature", "House of Writers", "House of Arts", etc. As before, he called for the unity of the old and new intelligentsia, spoke in defense of it from unreasonable persecution from the side of the authorities. In December 1918 he was elected to the Petrograd Soviet, re-elected in June 1920. The writer worked in the Petrograd Commission for the Improvement of the Life of Scientists, founded on his initiative, and became its chairman. He opposed the military intervention of the Western powers, called on the advanced forces of the world to defend the revolution and help the starving.
In 1921, on Lenin's urgent recommendation, Gorky left for Italy. The public was informed that he was forced to be treated abroad. In 1928-1929 he came to the Union, and in 1931 he finally returned to Moscow and in the last years of his life received official recognition as the founder of socialist realism. In 1932 hometown writer - Nizhny Novgorod - on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his literary activity was renamed Gorky (the city bore this name until 1990).
Maxim Gorky in the last years of his life wrote his novel, which remained unfinished - "The Life of Klim Samgin". On June 18, 1936, he died unexpectedly under strange circumstances. He was buried on Red Square in Moscow near the Kremlin wall.
Alexander Samsonov
Elena Sirotkina
What do we call the beginning
Often this is the end.
We're coming to an end
Start all over.
Where there is an end, there is a beginning.
The revolution can neither pity nor bury its dead,
I. Stalin
In the poem “The People and the Poet,” Blok refers to the “artist,” that is, apparently, to himself: “You have been given a dispassionate measure to measure everything that you see.” I think that no reasoning, just like feeling, can be objective, "dispassionate", but I agree with this statement, because a person of art is really capable of conveying not only time and events, but also making us feel them, because he draws and inner world of people. Both Blok and Gorky were waiting for the revolution: Gorky as one of its active supporters. Blok as a person who supports her, but feels that this is his “last sunset”, and the sunset is natural. The illusion of the "march of children to a new life" in material world turned into blood without a temple. Blok at first tried to justify the "revolutionaries", looking at their deeds as retribution. Subsequently, he wrote in the “Note on the Twelve” that he “blindly gave himself up to the elements.” But soon he felt that this element was not elevating, like love, creativity, but destroying. Providence is not a rare thing, and I found in Blok a description of the metamorphosis of the revolution back in 1904, this poem “Voice in the Clouds”, although I don’t think that Blok had a revolution in mind when he wrote about sailors lured to the rocks by a “prophetic voice” . Gorky, the “petrel of the revolution,” wrote to his wife back in 1908 that the Bolshevik detachment assigned to him had killed 14 people and that he could not accept this. He was more uncompromising than Blok, probably because he really was a petrel: he actively helped the Bolsheviks and was much more specific, bloodless and optimistic. In life, she appeared before him as a revelry of senseless cruelty, murders, a revelry of “grave Russian stupidity”, and the new government, its former associates - in 1917 Gorky did not confirm his membership in the RSDLP (b) - not only did not stop, but, on the contrary , maintain this bestial atmosphere. Gorky accused Lenin and the government of conducting “a ruthless experiment on the tortured body of Russia, on living people, an experiment doomed to failure,” and their decrees were nothing more than feuilletons. For him, socialism was not so much an economy as a concept of “social”, “cultural”, and he called for a move away “from the struggle of parties to cultural construction”. It was not just a call, but an action: the creation of the “Association of Positive Sciences”, etc. Gorky blamed tsarism in many respects, seeing his legacy in the ongoing atrocity, but at the same time noted that then “there was a conscience that has died now” , and he and Blok saw the “internal enemy”, as Gorky called “the attitude of a person to other people, to knowledge”, and for the poet this is the image of an “old lousy dog” (the worst thing is that he is hungry). You can get rid of it only through getting rid of yourself, or rather, changing yourself. But how difficult it is for a person living during the “Twelve” when: “Freedom, freedom! Eh, eh without a cross!” I think Blok also could not accept the revolution, because it "ripened anger", awakened not "youth and freedom", as he dreamed, but "black malice: holy malice." The poem "The Twelve" for me is a statement of what is happening and the rejection of sovereignty, lack of spirituality, justification of murder. At the same time, she is full of deep compassion for these people, especially Petka, who are ready for anything, who do not want anything, but do not see anything either. .. True creativity “attaches a person to higher harmony”, and the image of Christ, finishing the poem and unexpected for the poet himself, arose precisely from this harmony. It has many meanings and interpretations: an indication of the way of the cross of Russia, the supremacy of the spiritual (“behind is a hungry dog, in front is Jesus Christ), but after I read Untimely Thoughts, it also became for me the poet’s answer to a publicist: Gorky writes that the revolution needs "a fighter, a builder of a new life, and not a righteous man who would take upon himself the vile sins of everyday people."
Christ is the Righteous and the Sacrifice, who is needed most of all by all people, not only by the “bloom of the working class and democratic intelligentsia”, when everything is collapsing, when nothing is visible and everyone goes berserk from it. Both writers were always amazed at the combination of cruelty and mercy among the people, as if in a kaleidoscope every minute changing places. Immediately after The Twelve, Blok writes Scythians, as if a historical explanation of such a character, such a fate. This is an appeal to the “old world”, in my opinion, not only European, but also Russian, so that through the “evil”, “Scythian” they see goodness and love in the people and support them so that they extinguish the hatred in the souls of the “twelve”. Gorky, on the other hand, believed that the merit of the Bolsheviks and the revolution was that they “shaken Asian inertia and Eastern passivism” and thanks to this “Russia will not perish now”, and cruelty can soon “inspire disgust and fatigue, which means death for her”. The writer's forecast, unfortunately, did not come true: appetite comes with eating.
Now we are learning history in a new way, and there are fewer people who absolutely support the revolution. Increasingly, the name “Great October Socialist Revolution” is being replaced by the “October Revolution”. Everything that has happened to us in seventy-three years was brilliantly predicted by Bakunin back in the middle of the last century and told to Marx himself. But what can you do, “because of the illusion a person loses his freedom”, he also loses the freedom to listen to criticism.
Christ warned of false prophets who would come "in sheep's clothing, but they are ravenous wolves" and "you will know them by their fruits." We see the fruits, and we ourselves, probably, are partly the fruits.
It seems to me that the most strong feeling generated by the 1917 revolution is fear. Now this revolution seems to be the prologue of the end of the world, but once it seemed like such an end Bartholomew night, the fall of Rome, the invasion of the Horde ... It's terrible that nothing could stop the "bloody rain", it does not stop now, we really are "going in circles".
It seems to me that great theorists should beware of power, as they often use abstract concepts: masses, classes, and the like, and this distances them from life. The awakening thirst for practice pushes them to experiment, and life is chaotic, they try to introduce rationalism into it, but living people understand it in a living way, and more often in an animal way. And what was true in scientific works, in fact, turns into a tragedy. And the rejection of an idea in which so much effort has been invested is like death.
People striving for power always forget the example of Macbeth and Claudius, they forget that blood carries power in itself. The Bolsheviks elected new way cover up the crime: legitimize it. Good intention - stop world war- turned into fratricide, justified by the "class struggle". But even the Greek tragedians said that it is difficult to calm the “thirst for blood” when “revenge reigns in the heart”, and “woe to the one who supports it”.
The shake-up of the soul in the revolution grew into an attempt to seize it. The enormity, the “greatness” of what is happening, politics were opposed to the personal. The personality was relegated to the background (unlike Christianity and other religions) by the words addressed to the young and asserting that morality is something “beneficial to this or that class”, the zoological division into classes in itself - all this broke or smoothed out the internal a barrier called conscience, God, after which "everything, therefore, is possible." What happens in the soul cannot be changed by the mind. The shock, the loss of a person, at first tearing and restless, and then passive, continued for a long time, but he was not treated, but the disease was driven deeper.
I see the revolution as yet another loss. I do not argue that not everyone lived well in Russia (it cannot be in general that absolutely everyone would be happy), they were hungry, humiliated, but, despite this, in Russia there was a special spiritual subtlety. She, that one, will no longer be, she left with the Turbins, Zhivago ... Spiritual subtlety will be reborn, I believe, but it will already be different.
Believers accepted the revolution as God's punishment. We should, I think, accept it the same way: it will save us from curses. Cursing your past, no matter how terrible it may be, can only be a bad person. We have already had such experience and have seen its fruits. We must do what we did not do then: sympathize with the past. Even those "through whom sins come." It's very difficult, but if you think about it, were they happy? What did they remember?
M. Bitter - chronicler Russians revolutions.
Maxim Gorky has never been a professional politician. At one time he was a member of the Bolshevik Party. He supported her financially. However, he was great artist words and an experienced journalist.
As a writer, by 1917 he had done hard way from romanticism to critical realism and then to socialist realism. There is no other such writer in the 20th century who, on behalf of the proletariat, introduced so many new ideas both into world fiction and into the theory of literary criticism, aesthetics, and social philosophy.
That is why simple workers so passionately love their protector and teacher. That is why M. Gorky is so hated by bourgeois hacks and chatterboxes, who pretend to be "thinkers" and "outstanding" public figures.
M. Gorky was a brilliant chronicler - Nestor - of his era. rich imagination and huge talent from God, gave birth to those vivid images that once seen by readers in his stories and novels, in fairy tales and legends, forever remained in their memory. He painted the great revolutionary era in large strokes and described it in such detail that even the most talented professional journalists could not rise to.
It will be about his journalism of 1917 - about his articles published in the newspaper "New Life", published by him and his colleagues, and then collected in the book "Untimely Thoughts". This SPECIAL BOOK of the writer. It will be discussed further.
In articles, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the behavior of the masses, the actions of Lenin and Russian officials on the eve, during and after two revolutions - February and October. He described events as he saw and, as it seemed to him, understood. However, not always a person can correctly assess the situation. Even such a brilliant mind as M. Gorky.
Soldiers armed with rifles three years imperialist war returned to hungry Russia from the front after the cowardly abdication of the tsar from the throne. Millions of shell-shocked and wounded. Weakened by the long absence of male workers, the village. A little later, tsarist officials who fled abroad, who did not want to work for the victorious proletariat, as well as nobles, aristocracy, bourgeois, merchants, and intelligentsia.
Murders without trial or investigation, robberies, banditry, theft, rudeness after February 1917. The decline in morals, violence, and the humiliation of women spilled onto the streets of cities. The decline of culture, the export of works of art abroad - all this taken together could not help but stun the cultural and educated person accustomed to order and discipline in public places. Such drastic changes in the country could not but horrify Gorky.
He shifted all the blame for these horrors on Kerensky, Lenin and the Bolsheviks. As if there was no Provisional Government!? There were no defeats tsarist army on the fronts of the First World War!? There were no desertions and executions of officers and soldier riots!?
He wrote in those articles:
"Imagining themselves Napoleons from socialism, the Leninists tear and rush, completing the destruction of Russia - the Russian people will pay for this with lakes of blood."
“Lenin himself, of course, is a man of exceptional strength; for twenty-five years he stood in the forefront of the fighters for the triumph of socialism, he is one of the largest and brightest figures in international social democracy; a talented man, he has all the qualities of a “leader”, as well as and the lack of morality necessary for this role and a purely aristocratic, ruthless attitude towards the life of the masses.
Lenin is the “leader” and is a Russian gentleman, not alien to some of the spiritual properties of this class that has gone into oblivion, and therefore he considers himself entitled to do a cruel experiment with the Russian people, doomed to failure in advance.
And there are many such words about the leader of the world proletariat in those articles of his.
The Pravda newspaper then wrote about this series of articles: "Gorky spoke in the language of the enemies of the working class."
M. Gorky objected: “This is not true. Addressing the most conscious representatives of the working class, I say: Fanatics and frivolous dreamers, having aroused hopes in the working masses that are not feasible under the given historical conditions, are dragging the Russian proletariat towards defeat and destruction, and the defeat of the proletariat will evoke a long and gloomy reaction in Russia. (From Gorky's book. "Untimely Thoughts").
When I first read this book by M. Gorky in 1988, I did not believe that our Burevestnik could write such a rude scolding of both the revolution and Lenin.
In 1922, Gorky went to Italy for treatment: an exacerbation of tuberculosis began again. Returning a few years later to Soviet Russia, he looked at the country and the people with different eyes. He traveled half the country, rejoicing at the tremendous work done by the Bolshevik Party and personally by Stalin. In the four remaining years of his life, he managed to establish socialist order in the Russian-speaking and Russian fiction, gather all the writers at the first congress and develop theoretical methods socialist realism. This congress is still to be discussed.
Many years Soviet power"Untimely Thoughts" was not published. In the lectures on Gorky at the philological faculty, these "Thoughts" were not told to us. And in vain!....
As soon as the supreme power in culture under Gorbachev was seized by the future shvydkoizers, they urgently began to publish anti Soviet literature. Such is their "intellectual" and "cultural" level. Well, what can you do with them: Born to crawl - can't fly!
Today, numerous Russian-speaking officials are engaged in this important "work". All anti-communist, Russophobic and anti-Soviet actions have recently been planned and implemented by Medynsky and his team. Thick-cheeked Bykov was assigned the role of the main slanderer of Soviet literature, Soviet writers, including M. Gorky ....
Needless to say, the years of the revolution were difficult and civil war. Each of the 14 imperialist states sent tens of thousands of their troops to divide Russia into 14 pieces.
How Gorky treated the White Guard and the interventionists, I will tell you a little later.
However, today I would like to remind you of the counter-revolutionary events of 1991-1993, of the deeds of President Yeltsin, the puppet of the West. What would M. Gorky say if he saw with his own eyes the execution by Soviet officers and soldiers Supreme Council, an organ of the proletarian dictatorship? I suppose that he would have been very indignant not only with the actions of the anti-Soviet Yeltsin, who ordered the execution of the White House, but also with the actions of the Soviet generals (Defense Minister Grachev and his deputy Kobets, generals Evnevich and Polyakov, colonels Savilov and Tishin), who carried out his decree No. 1400.
What did the so-called "president" do with the country and its people? It practically destroyed the economy of the entire country. Introduced a new anti-Soviet Constitution. Transferred state finances into the hands of foreign tycoons. Fragmented homogeneous Soviet society into antagonistic classes, estates and sects. Banned the Communist Party and liquidated independent trade unions.
Was there among the Russian-speaking liberals, among those who cannot fly, at least one honest and cultured writer who captured all the criminal anti-people, anti-Soviet actions of Yeltsin? No one!!
None of the liberals tried to describe the picture of the execution of the White House on his orders on October 3-4, 1993. None published their "untimely" thoughts about those bloody days.
Only M. Gorky could honestly formalize his "Untimely Thoughts". One Gorky and no one else.
And here are some of his "timely thoughts" applicable to the current situation in Russia, from the same book:
“But telling the truth is the most difficult art of all arts, because in its “pure” form, not connected with the interests of individuals, groups, classes, nations ...
“For those who destroy millions of lives in order to seize several hundred miles of foreign land into their own hands, for them there is neither god nor devil. The people for them are cheaper than stone, love for the motherland is a series of habits. They love to live the way they live, and let the whole earth shatter into dust in the universe - they do not want to live otherwise than they are used to.
“Politics is the soil on which the thistle of poisonous enmity, evil suspicions, shameless lies, slander, painful ambitions, disrespect for the individual grows rapidly and abundantly—list all the evil that is in a person—all this grows especially vividly and richly precisely on ground of political struggle.
"The task of culture is the development and strengthening of social conscience, social morality in a person, the development and organization of all abilities, all talents of the individual - is this task feasible in the days of universal brutality?"
Later, M. Gorky criticized his erroneous judgments expressed by him in the articles we are considering. More on this ahead.
Not everyone from the first reading understands the meaning of the title of M. Gorky's collection - "Untimely Thoughts". Others understand, but deliberately troll, distort its meaning.
Why did he call the thoughts that arose in him after February 1917 "untimely" and nothing else?
In his younger years, like many writers at the beginning of the 20th century, Gorky did not escape the fascination with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). In the works of this philosopher, he found several "Untimely reflections" on history, culture, and man. He argued that the lot of modernity is small thoughts, insignificant passions, pitiful feelings. We must rise above the present and peer into the distance of the future.
Nietzsche MADE A VERY IMPORTANT DISCOVERY that "... there is such a degree of insomnia, constant chewing of the cud, such a degree of development of historical feeling, which entails enormous damage to all living things and eventually leads to its death, whether it be individual person, or a people, or a culture."
Let's stop and go back to our days. Do our contemporaries have "insomnia", "experience of chewing gum"?
Of course there is. Any government is trying propaganda and agitation, psychological methods put the masses of people into a sleepless state. Lulls him with promises and never keeps them.
Open any channel Russian companies. Each of them is given several false ideas, which they are obliged to "chew", "suck in" daily. Sofa inhabitants are thoroughly saturated with this lie and behave law-abidingly.
If such chewing continues from day to day, in a person, a population whole country develops "... such a degree of development of historical feeling, which entails enormous damage to all living things and ultimately leads to its death, whether it be an individual person, or a people, or a culture." To an uprising, to a revolution, to the Arab Spring...
In other words, the time is coming, a deep spiritual CRISIS that can lead certain people, state, civilization to chaos and death.
We are experiencing such an era, which began in 1917, the era of the GLOBAL transition of mankind from capitalist to non-capitalist relations. It has been going on for a whole century, and the ruling bourgeois classes and estates have no hope of maintaining the status quo that currently exists.
Nietzsche argued that such a crisis could lead humanity and all life on the planet to death. In the Second World War, the USSR saved humanity from destruction. Now again the smell of gunpowder of a new world war. Who can save humanity?
M. Gorky understood the idea expressed by Nietzsche in a different way. He was seriously frightened by what he observed in 1917 in Petrograd after he abdicated. the last Romanov. He was horrified by the chaos that arose in the city - murders, robberies, banditry, etc. And he, describing this chaos, wanted to warn people in his "untimely" articles about the death that the revolution allegedly brought to people and culture.
Lenin called him to move from Petrograd to Moscow. He moved. He looked at the new life of the people and stopped publishing articles in Novaya Zhizn. The period of compiling the annals of the transformations that took place in the USSR before his eyes began.
Already in mid-May 1918, Gorky wrote in one of his articles:
“Dirt and rubbish are always more noticeable on a sunny day, but it often happens that we, focusing our attention too intensely on facts that are irreconcilably hostile to the thirst for a better one, no longer see the rays of the sun and, as it were, do not feel its life-giving power ... Now the Russian people are all involved in the creation of one's own history is an event of great importance, and from this one must proceed in assessing everything good and bad that torments and pleases us.
So the term "untimely thoughts" of M. Gorky entered the journalistic and scientific circulation and became a chronicle of those historical events that he observed, but could not understand the future turn from chaos to a new socialist order.
So Nietzsche gave Gorky "... the opportunity... to penetrate into that non-historical atmosphere in which every great historical event occurs, and breathe it for a while, then such a person would be able, perhaps, as a knowing being, to rise to the supra-historical point of view, which ... pointed out as a possible result of historical reflections "...
(Continued in the 4th article)
During the lesson, students are given an understanding of how the events of October 1917 influenced the life and work of Maxim Gorky. Many articles were written by Gorky during this period. The main one is the collection "Untimely Thoughts". He believes that the Great October Socialist Revolution is an absolute crime against humanity.
Gorky is trying in every possible way to save culture. The death of Blok and the execution of Gumilyov struck Gorky, and he emigrated. But Maxim Gorky is concerned about what is happening in Russia.
Gradually, he learns about the struggle of the Bolsheviks with illiteracy, about the industrial rise in the USSR, changes his mind about them and begins to fiercely defend the Soviet government in his articles, which are given during the lesson. At the end of the lesson, the significance of Maxim Gorky's work in the post-revolutionary period is emphasized.
Topic: Russian literature late XIX- early 20th century
Lesson: Maxim Gorky. Life and work after the Great October Socialist Revolution
Gorky developed the theme of revolution in 1917-1918. in his newspaper "New Life", in which he published about 80 articles, later combined into two books "Revolution and Culture" and "Untimely Thoughts". The essence of his views was that the revolution (reasonable transformation of society) should be fundamentally different from the "Russian rebellion" (which senselessly destroys it). Gorky was convinced that the country was not now ready for a constructive socialist revolution, that first the people "must be incinerated and cleansed of the slavery nurtured in them by the slow fire of culture."
Gorky's attitude to the revolution of 1917
When the Provisional Government was nevertheless overthrown, Gorky sharply opposed the Bolsheviks. In the first months after the October Revolution, when an unbridled crowd smashed the palace cellars, when raids and robberies were committed, Gorky wrote with anger about the rampant anarchy, about the destruction of culture, about the cruelty of terror.
Rice. 2. Prometheus brings fire to people ()
Gorky puts forward the concept of two types of revolutionaries:
the first type is Prometheus; a man who illuminates the path for people, who thinks about the good of all mankind;
the second type is a temporary revolutionary who is personally offended by life and now dreams of asserting himself and using the victory of the revolution for his own purposes.
Now, as it seems to him, such revolutionaries have come to power.
The Bolsheviks were not happy about this, but Gorky's personal connections with the leaders on the one hand, and the great weight of his reputation abroad, on the other, put him in a unique position: in 1918-1921. Gorky was practically the only independent non-governmental social force throughout Soviet Russia.
He played his chosen role as defender of culture and civilization to the best of his ability. Russian culture is deeply indebted to him. Everything done between 1918 and 1921 to save writers and other intellectuals from starvation was done thanks to Gorky. This was mainly achieved through a whole system of centralized literary institutions, where poets and prose writers sat down to translate. This plan, of course, was far from perfect, but under the circumstances it was the only possible one. True, on the other hand, these "circumstances" did not come about without the active participation of Gorky and his closest political friends.
He organizes the publishing house "World Literature". People work and earn money. Gorky tries to save either one person from persecution, another from arrest, or he constantly travels to Moscow for personal meetings with Lenin.
Gorky gathered different people at his place, he tries to feed and warm everyone.
In 1919, Gorky published his memoirs about Tolstoy (Leo Tolstoy) - again making everyone realize that he, after all, great writer, - literary influence Gorky remained insignificant. In his diaries, he speaks warmly of Tolstoy. An important topic now for Gorky is the theme of freedom.
It is hard for Gorky: people are dying around him.
Zinoviev pursues Gorky, conducts searches (some people are always hiding at Gorky's).
key events that pushed Gorky to leave were: the death of A. Blok and the execution of N. Gumilyov. After that, Gorky realized that they had stopped listening to him.
About his health - always weak - threatening rumors constantly reach. He continues to work, and his new books steadily solidify his position as a classic. He also publishes non-periodical collections of Conversation, mainly popularizing the achievements scientific progress. In recent years, the popularization of science has begun to play important role in Gorky's activities, since he believes that his country needs, first of all, the dissemination of elementary knowledge. In his naive and almost religious admiration for knowledge and science, Gorky is close to H. J. Wells.
In Italy, he works a lot (Sorrento). But the main thing for him is the events in Russia.
He writes the book "On the Russian Peasantry" (1922), published in Berlin, where he includes many bitter, but sober and valuable observations on negative sides Russian character. Looking the truth in the eye, he wrote: "I explain the cruelty of the forms of the revolution solely by the cruelty of the Russian people." But of all the social strata of Russian society, he considered the peasantry to be the most guilty of it. It was in the peasantry that the writer saw the source of all the historical troubles of Russia.
The following years were filled with hard work for him. Gorky writes the final part autobiographical trilogy"My Universities" (1923), the novel "The Artamonov Case" (1925), several stories and the first two volumes of the epic "The Life of Klim Samgin" (1927-1928) - a striking picture of the intellectual and social life Russia recent decades before the 1917 revolution
In 1928 Gorky came to the USSR. He turns 60 this year.
He is greeted as Julius Caesar. Gorky is taken around the country, his achievements are shown.
This visit of Gorky gave rise to many legends, and the writer creates the journal Our Achievements. He visits Solovki. In this camp are different people. Gorky proposes to send the criminals to labor colonies (communication with Makarenko).
Gorky sees the model of the "old" man in the "new" in action. People write to him about the truth, but Gorky does not believe them (an article in Pravda). Gorky fiercely defends Soviet power. In the article “If the enemy does not surrender, they destroy him,” Maxim Gorky writes that traitors are everywhere (19:18).
Gorky's famous appeal "Who are you with, "masters of culture"?" http://www.modernlib.ru/books/gorkiy_maksim/s_kem_vi_mastera_kulturi/read/ addressed to the Western intelligentsia. (20:20)
In 1932, his city was named after Gorky, in different cities there are streets with his name. The authorities are making every effort to bring Gorky back to Russia. In 1933 Gorky returned. Gorky becomes a recognized leader modern literature. In 1934, with a group of writers, he goes to a construction site run by prisoners as an excellent example of the re-education of people (he sings of "slave" labor).
Stalin and Gorky (21:00) met more than once. Stalin talks about the goals of the writer (engineer human souls). Created public organization which will have to carry out the ideological tasks of the party. The Union of Writers was created.
Gorky spoke at the 1st Congress of the Union of Writers of Russia, in his speech he tries to explain what socialist realism is, the goal of which is the continuous development of the most valuable individual abilities of a person.
Rice. 6. Gorky on the White Sea Canal ()
In 1935, Gorky suddenly began to ask to go to Italy, citing fatigue, "overlaid". The authorities controlled everything: correspondence, conversations. The authorities expected Gorky to write a novel about the wonderful Soviet reality. Stalin waited a very long time for a biographical sketch from Gorky. But Gorky did not write anything about Soviet power. All this time he has been working on the novel "The Life of Klim Samgin", which he did not have time to finish.
Gorky died on June 18, 1936. Later the era began great terror. The first accusation was the murder of Gorky. Under torture, Kremlin doctors testified that they poisoned the writer and did so on Yagoda's orders.
Maxim Gorky is one of the most controversial figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This is a PERSON-AGE, reflecting all the fractures, all the ideas of this time. He did hard way from the singer of the revolution ("Song of the Petrel"), to the author of harsh articles in defense of Soviet power.
Bibliography
1. Chalmaev V.A., Zinin S.A. Russian literature of the twentieth century.: Textbook for grade 11: In 2 hours - 5th ed. - M .: OOO 2TID "Russian Word - RS", 2008.
2. Agenosov V.V. Russian literature of the 20th century. Methodical manual M. "Buddy Bustard", 2002
3. Russian literature of the 20th century. Textbook for applicants to universities M. uch.-scient. Center "Moscow Lyceum", 1995.
4. Wiktionary.
Video material
Solovki (video from the scene) ().
Spreadsheets and presentations
