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

Alexey Peshkov - future Maxim Gorky | Pandia

He was born in the town of Kanavino, which at that time was located in the Nizhny Novgorod province, and now is one of the districts of Nizhny Novgorod. His father, Maxim Peshkov, was a carpenter, and in the last years of his life he ran a steamship office. Mother Vasilievna died of consumption, so Alyosha Peshkov's parents were replaced by her grandmother Akulina Ivanovna. From the age of 11, the boy was forced to start working: Maxim Gorky was a messenger at the store, a barmaid on a steamer, an assistant baker and an icon painter. The biography of Maxim Gorky is reflected by him personally in the stories "Childhood", "In People" and "My Universities".

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

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

It is curious that, for all his Marxist views, Peshkov took the October Revolution rather skeptically. After the Civil War, Maxim Gorky, who had some disagreements with the new government, again went abroad, but in 1932 he finally returned home.

Writer

The first of the published stories by Maxim Gorky was the famous "Makar Chudra", which was published in 1892. And the fame of the writer was brought by the two-volume Essays and Stories. It is interesting that the circulation of these volumes was almost three times higher than was usually accepted in those years. Of the most popular works of that period, it is worth noting the stories "Old Woman Izergil", " former people”, “Chelkash”, “Twenty-six and one”, as well as the poem “Song of the Falcon”. Another poem "Song of the Petrel" became a textbook. Maxim Gorky devoted a lot of time to children's literature. He wrote a number of fairy tales, for example, "Vorobishko", "Samovar", "Tales of Italy", published the first special book in the Soviet Union children's magazine and organized holidays for children from poor families.

The plays “At the Bottom”, “Petty Bourgeois” and “Egor Bulychov and Others” by Maxim Gorky are very important for understanding the work of the writer, in which he reveals the talent of the playwright and shows how he sees the life around him. The stories "Childhood" and "In People" are of great cultural significance for Russian literature. social novels"Mother" and "The Artamonov Case". The last work of Gorky is the epic novel "The Life of Klim Samgin", which has the second name "Forty Years". The writer worked on this manuscript for 11 years, but did not have time to finish it.

Personal life

The personal life of Maxim Gorky was quite stormy. For the first and officially the only time he married at the age of 28. The young man met his wife Ekaterina Volzhina at the Samarskaya Gazeta publishing house, where the girl worked as a proofreader. A year after the wedding, the son Maxim appeared in the family, and soon the daughter Ekaterina, named after her mother. Also in the upbringing of the writer was his godson Zinovy ​​Sverdlov, who later took the name Peshkov.

But Gorky's love quickly disappeared. He began to be weary of family life and their marriage with Ekaterina Volzhina turned into a parental union: they lived together solely because of the children. When little daughter Katya died unexpectedly, this tragic event was the impetus for breaking family ties. However, Maxim Gorky and his wife remained friends until the end of their lives and maintained correspondence.

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

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

Death

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

Later, the question was raised several times that the legendary writer and his son could have been poisoned. People's Commissar Heinrich Yagoda, who was the lover of Maxim Peshkov's wife, was involved in this case. They also suspected involvement and even. During the repressions and consideration of the famous "doctors' case", three doctors were blamed, among other things, for the death of Maxim Gorky.

Books by Maxim Gorky

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

1. "Clouds are coming to Rus'"
2. Interesting Facts

And the author of the play "At the Bottom", the novel "Mother" and the autobiographical stories "Childhood", "In People" and "My Universities", Maxim Gorky lived in poverty for many years, rented corners in bunkhouses, worked as a salesman, dishwasher and shoemaker's assistant. After the revolution, he was recognized as "the main proletarian writer." Tverskaya Street in Moscow was named after Gorky, and in 1934 he was appointed head of the Writers' Union of the USSR.

"I was filled with grandmother's poems": childhood

Alexey Peshkov. 1889–1891 Nizhny Novgorod. Photo: histrf.ru

House of the Kashirin family. Nizhny Novgorod. Photo: nevvod.ru

Alexey Peshkov. May 1889. Nizhny Novgorod. Photo: D. Leibovsky / Museum of A. M. Gorky and F. I. Chaliapin, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan

Maxim Gorky was born on March 28, 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod. His real name is Alexey Peshkov. The father of the future writer, Maxim Peshkov, was a carpenter, and his mother, Varvara Kashirina, came from a poor bourgeois family. When Gorky was three years old, he fell ill with cholera and infected his father. The boy recovered, but Maxim Peshkov soon died. His mother married a second time, and Gorky remained in the care of her father Vasily Kashirin, the owner of a dyeing workshop. The future writer was raised by his grandparents. Vasily Kashirin taught Gorky to read and write from church books, and Akulina Kashirina read fairy tales and poems to him. The writer later recalled: “I was filled with grandmother's poems like a beehive with honey; I think I was thinking in the forms of her poems".

By the 1870s, Maxim Gorky's grandfather had gone bankrupt. The family moved to the poorest district of Nizhny Novgorod - Kunavinskaya Sloboda. To help his relatives, the future writer from childhood tried to earn money and was engaged in rags - he looked for things on the streets of the city and sold them.

In 1878, Gorky entered the Sloboda-Kunavinsky Primary School. He studied excellently, received awards from teachers for good grades - books, commendable sheets.

“At school, it became difficult for me again, the students ridiculed me, calling me a ragman, a rogue, and once, after a quarrel, they told the teacher that I smelled like a garbage pit and you shouldn’t sit next to me.<...>But finally, I passed the exam in the third grade, received as a reward the Gospel, Krylov's fables in cover and another unbound book with an incomprehensible title - "Fata Morgana", they also gave me a commendable sheet.<...>I took the books to a shop, sold them for fifty-five kopecks, gave the money to my grandmother, and spoiled the commendation sheet with some inscriptions and then handed it to my grandfather. He carefully hid the paper without unfolding it and not noticing my mischief.

Maxim Gorky, "Childhood"

Gorky was expelled from the school. In the documents they wrote: "Course<...>didn’t graduate due to poverty”. After that, he was an apprentice shoemaker and draftsman, a dishwasher on a steamer, an assistant icon painter and a salesman in a merchant's shop. Since childhood, Gorky read a lot, among his favorite authors were Stendhal, Honore de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert. The future writer was also interested in philosophy - he studied the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. Gorky recorded his impressions of the books he read in his personal diary.

“I felt out of place among the intelligentsia”

Alexey Peshkov. 1889–1990 Nizhny Novgorod. Photo: Maxim Dmitriev / a4format.ru

Writer Vladimir Korolenko. 1890s Nizhny Novgorod. Photo: worldofaphorism.ru

Alexey Peshkov. Photo: kulturologia.ru

In 1884, at the age of 16, Maxim Gorky went to Kazan to enter the local university. But the future writer did not have a certificate of education, and he was not allowed to take the exams. In My Universities, he later wrote: “To the sound of the downpour and the sighs of the wind, I soon guessed that the university was a fantasy…”. Gorky had no money to rent housing. At first, he lived with friends, and then began to earn extra money in the Kazan port and rent corners in rooming houses along with tramps. IN free time he composed his first literary works: notes, stories and poems.

A few months later, Gorky found work in the bakery of Vasily Semyonov, where Narodnaya Volya often gathered. There he got acquainted with the works of Russian revolutionaries, and soon joined one of the underground circles of Marxists. Gorky was an agitator, he held educational talks with the illiterate and the workers. Despite all the activity during the meetings, Gorky was not taken seriously.

“Gorky was not destined to establish strong ties with [Nikolai - Approx. ed.] Fedoseev, nor get to know Lenin at that time. Gorky had no friends in this environment.<...>. Among populist students, he was not an equal person, but only a “son of the people,” as they called him among themselves: he was for them, as it were, a clear proof of the “faith in the people” they professed.<...>Years of excessive physical work and the intensity of experiences undermined his mental strength. The whole world opposing him, in its everyday and difficult situation, contradicted all his long-standing expectations. The rejection of this alien world was experienced by him with all the depth.

Literary critic Ilya Gruzdev, "Gorky" (a book from the series "Life of Remarkable People")

1887 was a difficult year for Maxim Gorky. His grandmother died, he began to have conflicts at work, quarrels with members of the circle. Gorky fired. He was lucky: he survived, although he fell under the church court and was excommunicated. After that, Gorky moved to Nizhny Novgorod, where he began working as an assistant to a barrister. There he met the writer Vladimir Korolenko, to whom he showed his poem "The Song of the Old Oak". Korolenko read the work and found many semantic and spelling errors in it. Gorky later wrote about this: “I decided not to write any more poetry or prose, and really, all the time I lived in Nizhny Novgorod - almost two years - I didn’t write anything”.

In 1890, Gorky went on a hiking trip and traveled to the south of Russia, visited the cities of the Caucasus and Crimea. In his autobiography he wrote: “I felt out of place among the intelligentsia and went to travel”. In the south, Gorky communicated a lot with local residents, engaged in traditional crafts for them: he caught fish, mined salt. On the way, he wrote stories and notes, poems, in which he imitated George Byron.

“Don’t write to me in literature - Peshkov”

Maxim Gorky (center) among the employees of the Nizhny Novgorod Leaflet. 1899. Photo: a4format.ru

Maxim Gorky (right) in a group of employees of the editorial office of Samarskaya Gazeta. 1895. Photo: a4format.ru

In 1892, Gorky stopped in Tiflis, where he met the revolutionary Alexander Kalyuzhny. The writer read his works to him, and Kalyuzhin advised Gorky to publish and himself took his story "Makar Chudra" to the editorial office of the Tiflis newspaper "Kavkaz". The work was published in September 1892 under the pseudonym Maxim Gorky. According to Kalyuzhin, the writer explained it this way: “Don’t write to me in literature - Peshkov”.

Soon Gorky returned to Nizhny Novgorod to his former place of work. In his spare time, he continued to write short stories. Gorky read them to friends and acquaintances. One of his friends sent the story "Emelyan Pilyai" to the editorial office of the Moscow newspaper "Russkiye Vedomosti". Soon the work was printed.

On the advice of Korolenko, when working on the following works, Gorky began to carefully work out the images of the characters, tried to maintain a single style of narration. These changes are noticeable in the story "Chelkash", about which Korolenko wrote: “Not bad at all! You can create characters, people speak and act from themselves, from their essence, you know how not to interfere with their thoughts, the play of feelings, this is not given to everyone! .. I told you that you are a realist! .. But in the same time - a romantic!. Gorky sent the story to the well-known St. Petersburg weekly magazine Russian Wealth, where it was soon published.

On the recommendation of Korolenko, in 1895 Gorky became a journalist for the Samarskaya Gazeta and moved from Nizhny Novgorod to Samara. There he wrote about incidents in the city, theatrical events and secular life, published feuilletons under the pseudonym Yehudiel Khlamida. A few months later, the writer was entrusted with maintaining a literary section, in which Gorky published his works weekly. Soon he returned to Nizhny Novgorod, where he became the editor of the Nizhny Novgorod leaflet.

Gorky became famous journalist. The large provincial newspaper Odessa News offered him to be a special correspondent for the publication at the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition, which was held in Nizhny Novgorod in 1896.

"The great writer Maxim Gorky"

A scene from the performance of Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vasily Luzhsky "The Petty Bourgeois". 1902. Moscow Art Theater named after A.P. Chekhov, Moscow. Moscow Art Theater Museum, Moscow

Maxim Gorky (right) and writer Anton Chekhov. 1900. Yalta, Republic of Crimea. Photo: regnum.ru

Maxim Gorky (left) and director Konstantin Stanislavsky. 1928. Moscow. Moscow Art Theater Museum, Moscow

In the mid-1890s, Gorky mainly carried out journalistic orders. However, he did not leave literary creativity: wrote stories, poems, worked on his story "Foma Gordeev" about the life of the Russian merchant class. In 1898, Gorky's first collection, Essays and Stories, was published. After its publication, the writer began to communicate with Anton Chekhov. Chekhov gave Gorky advice and criticism: “Intemperance is felt in the descriptions of nature, with which you interrupt the dialogues, when you read them, these descriptions, you want them to be more compact, shorter, that way in 2-3 lines”. The writer liked Gorky's fairy tales, including The Song of the Falcon.

In 1899, the newspaper "Life" published "Foma Gordeev". The story glorified Gorky: reviews of it appeared in leading Russian magazines, a conference on the writer's work was organized in St. Petersburg, and Ilya Repin painted a portrait of Gorky. In Nizhny Novgorod, Maxim Gorky took up social activities: arranged charity evenings, Christmas trees for the children of the poor. The writer was constantly under police surveillance, because he did not stop communicating with the revolutionaries.

“I didn’t write to you because I was busy with various things to hell and got angry all the time, like an old witch. The mood is gloomy. The back hurts, the chest too, the head helps them in this ... Out of grief and bad mood, he began to drink vodka and even write poetry. I think that the position of a writer is not such a sweet position. ”

Maxim Gorky, from correspondence with Anton Chekhov

In 1899, Gorky was expelled from Nizhny Novgorod for promoting revolutionary ideas in the small town of Arzamas. Before the exile, he was allowed to go to the Crimea to improve his health: the writer had tuberculosis.

At the same time, the Art Theater in Moscow began preparing a production of Gorky's first play, The Philistines. The premiere took place three years later during a tour in St. Petersburg in March 1902, but was unsuccessful. Soon after the release of the performance, Gorky's exile ended, and he returned to Nizhny Novgorod, where he completed the play "At the Bottom". On the stage Art Theater in Moscow, the premiere of the performance of the same name took place in December 1902. The production was prepared by Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. They carefully selected actors, spent long rehearsals. The writer himself also helped the directors. He wanted the leading actors to get used to the images of tramps.

“Gorky must be able to pronounce so that the phrase sounds and lives. His instructive and preaching monologues<...>one must be able to pronounce it simply, with a natural inner uplift, without false theatricality, without grandiloquence. Otherwise, you will turn a serious play into a simple melodrama. It was necessary to assimilate the special style of the tramp and not mix it with the usual everyday theatrical tone or with the actors' vulgar recitation.<...>It is necessary to penetrate into the spiritual recesses of Gorky himself, as we once did with Chekhov, in order to find the secret key to the author's soul. Then the spectacular words of tramp aphorisms and ornate phrases of the sermon will be filled with the spiritual essence of the poet himself, and the artist will become agitated with him.

Konstantin Stanislavsky, "My life in art"

The premiere of "At the Bottom" was a success, it was difficult to get tickets for the performance. However, the play was criticized in government publications, and was soon banned from playing in provincial theaters without special permission.

Maxim Gorky (left) and singer Fyodor Chaliapin. 1901. Nizhny Novgorod. Photo: putdor.ru

Among the writers of the publishing house "Knowledge". From left to right: Maxim Gorky, Leonid Andreev, Ivan Bunin, Nikolai Teleshov, Wanderer (Stepan Petrov), Fyodor Chaliapin, Evgeny Chirikov. 1902. Moscow. Photo: auction.ru

Maxim Gorky and actress Maria Andreeva on the ship before leaving America. 1906. Photo: gazettco.com

In the same 1902, Gorky headed the Knowledge publishing house. He published realist writers: Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreev and Alexander Kuprin. For publication, he tried to choose works that were understandable even to readers from workers and peasants. Gorky wrote: “The best, most valuable, and at the same time the most attentive and strict reader of our day is a competent worker, a competent democrat peasant. This reader seeks in the book, first of all, answers to his social and moral perplexities, his main desire is for freedom.. He adhered to the same principles in his works of the following years - the plays "Barbarians", "Summer Residents" and "Children of the Sun", in which he criticized the bourgeoisie.

On January 22, 1905, the First Russian Revolution began. Gorky supported the insurgent workers and wrote a proclamation "To all Russian citizens and the public opinion of European states", in which he called for "immediate, stubborn and friendly struggle against the autocracy". Soon the writer was detained and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Foreign artists reacted to Gorky's arrest. The French "Society of Friends of the Russian People" published a call for the release of the writer: « great writer Maxim Gorky will face an unprecedented trial behind closed doors on charges of plotting against the state<...>It is necessary that all people worthy of being called people defend, in the person of Gorky, their sacred rights.. Under pressure from society, already in February 1905, the writer was released. To avoid a new detention, Gorky left the country. For about six months he lived in the United States, where he wrote a collection of essays "In America".

Due to the exacerbation of tuberculosis at the end of 1906, Gorky left for Italy and settled on the island of Capri near Naples. His friends Fyodor Chaliapin, Ivan Bunin and Leonid Andreev came to the writer from Russia.

In exile, Gorky wrote a lot. He created the novel "Mother", which he was inspired by revolutionary events at the Sormovsky plant. The work was published in full in Germany, in Russia the abridged version was withdrawn from print. Gorky's next work, the play Enemies, was not allowed to be published by censors. The plays "The Last" and "Vassa Zheleznova", the novel "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin" and other works of the writer of these years were published in publications in Germany, France and the United States, almost immediately they were translated into foreign languages. During this period, Gorky collaborated with Vladimir Lenin and other communists, was a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). In the official newspaper of the RSDLP, the writer published incriminating articles and pamphlets.

"Clouds are coming to Rus'"

Maksim Gorky. Photo: epwr.ru

Honoring Maxim Gorky (sitting, third from right) in connection with his 50th birthday at the Vsemirnaya Literatura publishing house. March 30, 1919. Illustration from the book by Valery Shubinsky “Architect. Life of Nikolai Gumilyov. Moscow: Corpus Publishing House, 2014

Maksim Gorky. 1916–1917 Petrograd. Photo: velykoross.ru

In 1913, in honor of the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty, Nicholas II announced a partial amnesty for political criminals, including Maxim Gorky. The writer was allowed to return to Russia. Friends and relatives discouraged him. Lenin wrote: “I am terribly afraid that this will damage your health and undermine your performance”. Gorky postponed the return for several months. By December 1913 he had finished autobiographical story"Childhood" and went to Russia. The writer settled in St. Petersburg, where he again came under police surveillance. Despite this, he continued to communicate with the revolutionaries, write articles about the fate of Russia and criticize the authorities.

“No one will deny that clouds are again approaching Rus', promising great storms and thunderstorms, hard days are coming again, demanding a friendly unity of minds and wills, an extreme strain of all the healthy forces of our country<...>There is also no doubt that Russian society, having experienced too many heart-shaking dramas, is tired, disappointed, apathetic.

Maxim Gorky, article "On Karamazovism"

In St. Petersburg, Gorky completed the autobiographical story "In People" - a continuation of the popular "Childhood". In 1915, the writer began publishing the Chronicle magazine, in which Yuli Martov, Alexandra Kollontai, Anatoly Lunacharsky and others published their scientific and political articles. Among the writers who published here were Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sergei Yesenin, Alexander Blok. Soon Gorky became the editor of the Bolshevik publications Pravda and Zvezda.

During the First World War, the writer worked on a cycle of stories "Across Rus'", which was based on his impressions of his first travels in southern Russia, the Caucasus and the Volga region. Gorky published anti-war articles in newspapers and magazines. Then the writer founded the publishing house "Sail". Ivan Bunin, Vladimir Korolenko and others published their works there.

The February Revolution of 1917 Gorky took with caution. The writer criticized the Provisional Government for being disorganized and politically heterogeneous: “We must not forget that we live in the wilds of a multi-million mass of the layman, politically illiterate, socially uneducated. People who don't know what they want are politically and socially dangerous people.". In May 1917, Gorky began publishing the newspaper " New life”, where in the section “Untimely Thoughts” he published his articles with reflections on politics. After the October Revolution, the writer criticized the actions of the Bolsheviks and Vladimir Lenin.

“Lenin, Trotsky and those accompanying them have already been poisoned by the rotten poison of power, as evidenced by their shameful attitude towards freedom of speech, personality<...>Blind fanatics and unscrupulous adventurers are rushing headlong along the alleged path to "social revolution" - in fact, this is the path to anarchy, to the death of the proletariat and revolution.<...>Lenin is followed by a fairly significant - so far - part of the workers, but I believe that the mind of the working class, its consciousness of its historical tasks will soon open the eyes of the proletariat to the whole unrealizability of Lenin's promises, to the whole depth of his madness.

Maxim Gorky, Toward Democracy

In July 1918, Gorky's newspaper was closed for criticizing the authorities, and articles from the Untimely Thoughts cycle were not published in the USSR until perestroika. Then the writer, right in his apartment in Petrograd, created the "House of Arts" - an organization that became the prototype of the future Writers' Union. The creative studio of Nikolai Gumilyov operated here, members of the Serapion Brothers literary association held meetings, Alexander Blok gave lectures.

In 1919, Gorky was appointed head of the evaluation commission of the People's Commissariat of Trade and Industry. He was assigned to supervise the work of antiquarians who cataloged confiscated private collections. The writer himself became interested in collecting - he began to buy old Chinese vases, Japanese figurines.

On the initiative of Gorky, in the same 1919, the publishing house "World Literature" was organized, in which they began to print works of Russian and world literature. classical literature with literary commentary.

"Periods of happiness and misunderstanding": personal life

Maxim Gorky and wife Ekaterina Volzhina with children - Maxim and Ekaterina. 1903. Nizhny Novgorod. Photo: a4format.ru

Maxim Gorky and actress Maria Andreeva pose for artist Ilya Repin at the Penaty estate. August 18, 1905. St. Petersburg. Photo: Karl Bulla / Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow

Maria Zakrevskaya-Budberg. Photo: fotoload.ru

When Gorky worked as a journalist in the Samara newspaper, he met Ekaterina Volzhina - she worked as a correspondent in the same publication. In August 1896 they got married. Volzhina was the only legal wife of the writer. Gorky lived with her in marriage for seven years, they had two children - son Maxim and daughter Ekaterina. Volzhinoy Gorky wrote: “I love you not only as a man, husband, I love you as a friend, maybe more - as a friend”.

In 1902, during a rehearsal of Gorky's play "At the Bottom", the writer met the actress Maria Andreeva, the wife of the official Andrei Zhelyabuzhsky. Together they lived for more than 15 years and maintained relations until Gorky's death. Andreeva wrote: “There were periods, and very long ones, of great happiness, intimacy, complete merging - but they were replaced by equally stormy periods of misunderstanding, bitterness and resentment”.

In 1920, Gorky met with the former maid of honor, Baroness Maria Zakrevskaya-Budberg. She became the last muse of the writer, he dedicated the novel "The Life of Klim Samgin" to her. Budberg translated Gorky's works into English language edited his manuscripts. They broke up a few years before the writer's death, in 1933. After that, Budberg left for London, where she lived with HG Wells. In the Soviet Union, writing about her relationship with Gorky was forbidden: she was a spy and employee of the NKVD.

Emigrant and head of the Writers' Union of the USSR

Maxim Gorky at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers. August 17 - September 1, 1934. Moscow. Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow

Maxim Gorky among the pioneers. 1930s Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow

Meeting Maxim Gorky at the station. 1928. Mozhaisk, Moscow region. Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow

In 1921 Maxim Gorky left for Germany. The official reason in the Soviet press was the writer's deteriorating health, but in fact he left the country due to disagreements with the ruling party. However, all Gorky's expenses abroad were paid by the RCP(b). The relationship between the writer and Vladimir Lenin improved, they again began to correspond. Gorky reported to Lenin about his treatment: “I am being treated. Two hours a day I lie in the air, in any weather - here our brother is not pampered: rain - lie down! snow - also lie down! and humbly lie down".

In Berlin, Gorky founded the journal Beseda, in which he published Russian émigré writers. The publication was rarely published, and soon closed. The literary critic Henri Troyat wrote: “There were too many differences of opinion between those who left Russia to flee the dictatorship of the proletariat and those who preferred to stay in the country”. The writer was criticized in the émigré press for his connections with the Soviet government. In response, he published an article in the Manchester Guardian, where he said that he supported the Bolsheviks and regretted the critical articles written in 1917-1918. Many of the writer's friends, including Ivan Bunin, stopped communicating with him. Gorky wrote: “I watch with amazement, almost with horror, how disgustingly people are decomposing, only yesterday they were “cultured””.

In 1924 Gorky left for Italy and settled in the city of Sorrento. By this year, he had finished the autobiographical story "My Universities" about his life in Kazan, the novel "The Artamonov Case", and then proceeded to create the epic "The Life of Klim Samgin". Gorky wrote to journalist Konstantin Fedin about this work: "It will be a cumbersome thing and, it seems, not a novel, but a chronicle of the 1880s - 1918". He worked on the book for the rest of his life.

In 1928, Gorky celebrated his sixtieth birthday. At the invitation of Joseph Stalin, in May of the same year, he came to the USSR and traveled around the country, during which he met with fans, attended literary meetings. In 1929, the writer again visited his homeland. This time he visited the Solovki camp, talked with its prisoners, and delivered a speech at the International Congress of Atheists. In the next few years, Gorky came to the USSR several more times, but finally returned there only in 1933. Many writers did not accept his decisions.

“We talked among ourselves: he [Maxim Gorky - Approx. ed] is about to explode. But all the employees of the "New Life" disappeared into the prison walls, and he did not say a word. Literature died, and he didn't say a word. I somehow accidentally saw him on the street. Alone in the back seat of a huge Lincoln, he seemed to me separated from the street, separated from Moscow life and turned into an algebraic symbol of himself.<...>Being ascetic, emaciated, living only by the desire to exist and think. Maybe, I thought, it was the senile withering and stiffness that began in him?

Writer Victor Serge (based on the book by Henri Troyat "Maxim Gorky")

In Moscow, Gorky was given a solemn reception. For life, he and his family were given the former mansion of millionaire Sergei Ryabushinsky in the center of Moscow, a summer house in the village of Gorki in the Moscow region, a house in the Crimea. Even during his lifetime, a street in Moscow and his native city, Nizhny Novgorod, were named after the writer.

At the initiative of Gorky, in the early 1930s, the journals Literary Study and Our Achievements were created, the book series Life of Remarkable People and the Poet's Library were published, and the Literary Institute was opened. In August 1934, the First Congress of Soviet Writers was held in Moscow, at which the charter of a new body, the Writers' Union of the USSR, was adopted. Gorky became its first leader. At this time, he hardly left his dacha in Gorki. Foreign writers and poets also came there: Romain Rolland, Herbert Wells and others.

Construction of the White Sea Canal. 1933. Photo: Alexei Rodchenko / bessmertnybarak.ru

1. Maxim Gorky was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but never received it. The last time he was presented for an award in 1933. Then the list of nominees included three Russian writers at once: Gorky, Merezhkovsky and Bunin. Award for "the rigorous skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose" handed over to Bunin. He, like Gorky, was the fifth nomination.

2. Gorky talked with Leo Tolstoy. The writers first met in January 1900 in Moscow at Tolstoy's house and soon began to correspond. Tolstoy closely followed the work of Gorky. He wrote: “A great merit will always remain behind him [Gorky]. He showed us a living soul in a tramp.<...>It’s just a pity that he invents a lot ... I’m talking about psychological fiction ”.

3. Gorky visited Solovki and the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, where prisoners worked. The writer called the Soviet camps "an unprecedented, fantastically successful experience in the re-education of socially dangerous people", and in the 1930s he edited the collection "The White Sea-Baltic Canal named after Stalin: The History of Construction, 1931-1934".

"Childhood" is an autobiographical work in which Maxim Gorky talks about his orphan childhood spent in a prosperous family of his grandfather Vasily Kashirin in Nizhny Novgorod.

Summary of "Childhood" for the reader's diary

Number of pages: 74. Maxim Gorky. "Childhood. In people. My Universities. Publishing house "AST". 2017

Genre: Tale

Year of writing: 1913

Time and place of the plot

Since this work is autobiographical, we can conclude that the action of the story takes place approximately in 1871-1879, in Nizhny Novgorod, where the orphaned writer spent his childhood years.

Main characters

Alexey Peshkov is an eleven-year-old boy who, after the death of his father, had to endure many hardships.

Varvara Vasilievna Peshkova- Alexei's mother, a weak-willed, downtrodden woman, tired of life.

Akulina Ivanovna Kashirina- Alexei's grandmother, kind, loving, caring.

Vasily Vasilyevich Kashirin- Alexei's grandfather, the owner of a profitable business, an evil, greedy, cruel old man.

Yakov and Mikhailo Kashirin- the eldest sons of Vasily Vasilyevich, stupid, envious, cruel people.

Ivan Tsyganok is a nineteen-year-old young man, a foundling-pupil in the Kashirin family, kind and cheerful.

Plot

Alexey grew up in a loving, friendly family. When his father suddenly died of cholera, his mother gave birth prematurely from grief, but the baby did not survive. The orphaned Alexei and his mother Varvara went on a steamer to Nizhny Novgorod, to the family of their grandfather Vasily Kashirin. A large family lived in the house: grandfather and grandmother Akulina Ivanovna, as well as their adult sons Mikhailo and Yakov with their wives and children. In addition, a young boy, a foundling Ivan Tsyganok, lived with the Kashirins.

Vasily Vasilyevich worked as a shop foreman in a dyeing workshop. He was a very industrious, stingy, demanding old man, and for long years hard work amassed a decent property. But his family was completely unfriendly: the brothers constantly quarreled, demanding from their father the division of his property. However, the senior grandfather Kashirin saw that his sons were useless masters, and was in no hurry to give them an inheritance. Alyosha liked only Ivan Tsyganok, with whom he quickly became friends. The young man was distinguished by a good-natured, complaisant character and readiness to help others. However, soon Alyosha's only friend died, and he was left alone in a hated family.

It was difficult for Alexei to get used to life in a house where swearing was constantly heard, and children were subjected to severe corporal punishment. Once he was spotted until he lost consciousness, and after that incident, Alexei was deeply disappointed in his mother, who did not even try to defend him. The boy was saved from terrible despair only by the kindness of his grandmother, who felt sorry for him, and at every opportunity tried to pamper him.

Some time later, Barbara, under pressure from her father, remarried. Having taken Alexei, the couple moved to Sormovo. In the new place, the hero went to school, where he immediately did not have a good relationship with either his classmates or the teacher. A new marriage, in which two children were born, did not bring happiness to Varvara. The husband began to cheat on her, humiliate and beat her. Unable to stand it, Alexei wounded his mother's offender with a knife.

The hero was forced to return to his grandfather. When the elder Kashirin found out about the death of Varvara, he did not keep his own grandson as a dependent, and sent him to earn his own bread.

Conclusion and opinion

From an early age, Alyosha had to sip a lot of grief: to survive the death of his father, to witness cruelty, envy and injustice, to experience all the “charms” of corporal punishment, and much more. It is difficult to expect from a child living in a state of constant fear, anger and hatred that he will grow up as a worthy person. However, despite all the trials, Alexey did not harden his heart, did not lose his natural kindness, responsiveness, honesty.

the main idea

Childhood is an important time in the life of every person, because it is then that life priorities, attitude towards oneself and the world around are laid.

Author's aphorisms

“... Grandfather's house was filled with a hot fog of mutual hostility of everyone with everyone ...”

“... You can’t buy human affection in the market ...”

“... We have a lot of rules, but there is no truth ...”

“... A good pointer is more expensive than ten workers ...”

“... Denunciation is not an excuse! Scammer first whip ... "

“... We have a lot of shells; you look - a man, and you find out - there is only one shell, there is no kernel, it is eaten ... "

Interpretation of obscure words

Magenta- bright red aniline paint, named for its similarity to the color of fuchsia flowers.

Tselkovy- a silver coin worth one ruble.

Kosushka- a bottle of vodka with a capacity of a quarter liter.

squander- recklessly, pointlessly spending anything.

Kamenka- a stove made of stone and not having a pipe to the outside.

blowing snow- the transport of snow by the wind over the very surface of the snow cover in the absence of snowfall.

New words

Riza- the upper vestments of the priest, worn during worship.

Psalter- the book of the Old Testament, a collection of prayers.

Skoromnoe- food products, which include food from warm-blooded animals (birds and mammals).

Story test

Rating of the reader's diary

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