Childhood is the first time in the life of every person. “We all come from childhood,” A. Saint-Exupery argued, and he was right: indeed, the character of a person, his fate largely depends on how he lived his childhood.
Russian writer Maxim Gorky (real name - Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) also believed that it is from childhood that a person grows up "sensitive to the suffering of others", and this happens because he remembers his suffering, and also because "with a child's clear and bright look He sees the world around him, learns to sympathize with the grief of others and appreciate and respond kindly to affection and love.
That is why in 1913 Maxim Gorky began work on his famous trilogy, the first part of which, like Leo Tolstoy's, was called Childhood. This is an autobiographical story in which the writer recreated the atmosphere of the house where he himself had to grow up. Having lost his father and mother early, at the age of 11 he found himself "in the people", that is, he began to work for strangers in order to earn his living. This is a difficult test, it was not by chance that he dedicated his work to his son, so that he would remember the harsh years of the late 19th century.
When, after the death of his father, Alyosha Peshkov (the author called all the heroes by real names from life), together with his mother and grandmother, ended up in Nizhny Novgorod, in the parental home of his mother, “ strange life", which he began here, began to remind him of a "harsh tale", "well told by a kind, but painfully truthful genius."
The boy first encountered such a concept as enmity between relatives: he felt that "grandfather's house is filled with a hot fog of mutual enmity of everyone with everyone." And the grandfather flogged Alyosha unconscious for trying to paint the tablecloth, after which the boy “fell ill” for a long time, but it was then that he had a restless attention to people, as if he had been “skinned off his heart”, and it became “unbearably sensitive to any offense and pain, one's own and others'.
Despite the fact that Alexei often faces injustice, he grew up kind and sensitive, because his first nine years of his life were spent in an atmosphere of love when he lived in Astrakhan with his parents. Now he has a hard time in his grandfather's house: he is forced to go to school, learn prayers, the meaning of which he does not understand, and sort out the Psalter in warehouses. But there are people in the house that Alexey is drawn to. This is the blind-sighted master Grigory, whom the boy sincerely regrets, and the apprentice Tsyganok, to whom his grandfather prophesies a great future.
However, the prophecies were not destined to come true: Tsyganok died, crushed by the weight of an oak cross, which Uncle Yakov swore to carry on his shoulders and place on the grave of his wife, who was always beaten by him and sent to the next world ahead of time. The whole weight of the cross fell on the shoulders of the Gypsy, and when he stumbled, the uncles "dropped the cross in time", and so the foundling died, who, according to grandfather, "got across the throat of the brothers", so they killed him.
The series of misfortunes in the Kashirins' house continues: the workshop burns down in a fire, aunt Natalya begins premature birth from fright, and she dies, and with her the baby. The grandfather sells the house, allocating the appropriate part of the inheritance to his sons - Mikhail and Yakov.
In the new house, many guests are also a way to earn money. The Kashirins themselves are forced to huddle in the basement and in the attic. There was a lot of interesting and funny things in the house for the boy, but sometimes he was choked by an irresistible longing, he seemed to be filled with something heavy and lived for a long time, "losing sight, hearing and all feelings, blind and half dead." Such feelings can hardly be called childish.
In such an environment, adult support is important for any child. Alexei's mother, Varvara, at one time married "with a cigarette", without the blessing of her father, she was so glad to escape from the suffocating atmosphere of the family, about which the grandfather himself said to his grandmother: "I gave birth to animals." Grandmother, speaking of her difficult fate, said that she had eighteen children "had been born", but the Lord fell in love: he took everything and took her children as angels. The survivors, however, did not differ in particular happiness: Mikhail and Yakov constantly squabbled over the inheritance, Varvara, left a widow, tried to re-establish her personal life, leaving her son in the care of her grandparents. But the second marriage did not work either: the husband, much younger than her, began to go to the side, and the boy's mother, having given birth to two more sons, turned from a tall, stately woman into a wizened old woman, dumb, looking somewhere past, and soon died of consumption.
Therefore, a special role in the formation of the worldview of the young Alyosha Peshkov was assigned to his grandmother. Already at the first meeting, she seemed to him a storyteller, because "she spoke, singing the words in a special way." It seemed to the boy that she shone from within, through her eyes, with an “unquenchable, cheerful and warm light”, as if before her he had slept, “hidden in the dark”, and she woke up, brought to the light, tied everything around into a continuous thread and immediately stood on all my life a friend, the closest, understandable and dear person.
Relations with grandfather developed differently: it seemed to Alyosha that he did not like him and watched him with his keen and intelligent eyes. After Alyosha was severely punished by his grandfather and fell seriously ill, grandfather came to him, sat on the bed and told him about his difficult youth - he had to be a barge hauler. Severe trials embittered grandfather Kashirin, made him suspicious, quick-tempered. He, small, dry, even at almost 80 years old, was still beating his grandmother, who was bigger and stronger than him.
There were many losses in Alyosha's life, but communication with good people helped him to survive in the struggle for existence. So one person with the strange nickname Good Deed suggested that the boy learn to write, so that later he could write down everything that his grandmother said. Perhaps this episode was taken from the life of the author himself, which served as an impetus for the future craft of the writer. In any case, it was the genre of the autobiographical story and the story on behalf of the protagonist that allowed Maxim Gorky to convey all the tragedy of life. little man entering into life and already to some extent rejected by it.
GORKY'S CHILDHOOD, USSR, Soyuzdetfilm, 1938, b/w, 101 min. Biographical film trilogy. Based on autobiographical works M. Gorky. The first part of the film trilogy: Gorky's Childhood, In People, My Universities. The script was posted on... Cinema Encyclopedia
Gorky's Childhood Director Mark Donskoy Starring Mikhail Troyanovsky Varvara Massalitinova Elizaveta Alekseeva Alexey Lyarsky Composer Lev Schwartz ... Wikipedia
Bambi's childhood ... Wikipedia
Bambi's childhood Genre fairy tale Director Natalya Bondarchuk Starring Film company Film studio im. M. Gorky Country of the USSR ... Wikipedia
Childhood can refer to several concepts: Childhood stage of human development "Childhood" story by Maxim Gorky. "Childhood" story by Leo Tolstoy ... Wikipedia
BEMBI'S CHILDHOOD, USSR, Film Studio. M. Gorky, 1985, color, 79 min. Children's sequel, fairy tale. Based on the first part of the fairy tale "Bambi" by Felix Salten. In a large deer family, a deer Bambi was born. From the first day, his mother teaches him to understand the mysterious and ... ... Cinema Encyclopedia
CHILDHOOD OF THE THEME, USSR, film studio. M. Gorky, 1991, color. Children's TV movie, melodrama. Based on the story of the same name by N. Garin Mikhailovsky. Against the backdrop of the unhurried course of life, the well-established life of a noble estate, the authors trace the formation of a young ... ... Cinema Encyclopedia
- "Soyuzdetfilm" film studio for children and youth film, organized in 1936 in Moscow on the basis of the film studio "Mezhrabpomfilm". In 1948, it was renamed into the Film Studio. M. Gorky. History Back in 1930, it was put forward ... ... Wikipedia
- (Eisenstein street, 8). Founded in 1915 by merchant M.S. Trofimov and was called " Art team Rus ". Since 1924, the Mezhrabpom Rus film factory, since 1928 Mezhrabpomfilm, since 1936, a film studio for children's feature films was created on its basis ... ... Moscow (encyclopedia)
Central Film Studio for Children and Youth Films named after M. Gorky (Eisenstein Street, 8). Founded in 1915 by merchant M.S. Trofimov and was called "Artistic group Rus". Since 1924, the Mezhrabpom Rus film factory, since 1928 Mezhrabpomfilm, since ... ... Moscow (encyclopedia)
Books
- Childhood, M. Gorky. "Childhood" is the first book of the trilogy ("Childhood", "In People", "My Universities") by the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky - Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov. With irresistible truth told ...
- Childhood. In people. My Universities, M. Gorky. The book includes an autobiographical trilogy by A. M. Gorky (the stories "Childhood", "In People", "My Universities"), which tells about childhood and youth ...
Russian writer, prose writer, playwright Maksim Gorky(Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) was born in 1868. Despite the fame of the writer, Gorky's biography, especially in childhood, is full of uncertainties. His father, Maxim Savvatievich Peshkov (1840-1871), came from the townspeople of the Perm province. Gorky's grandfather, Savvaty Peshkov, was a man of strong character: he rose to the rank of officer, but for cruel treatment of his subordinates he was demoted and exiled to Siberia. His attitude towards his son Maxim was no better, which is why he ran away from home several times. At the age of 17, he left home forever - after that, the son and father never saw each other again. Maxim Peshkov was a talented, creative person. He learned the craft of a cabinetmaker, settled in Nizhny Novgorod and began working as a carpenter in the shipping company of I. S. Kolchin. Here he married Varvara Vasilievna Kashirina (1842-1879), who came from a family of Nizhny Novgorod merchants. Only the mother of the bride, Akulina Ivanovna, gave consent to the marriage, while her father, Vasily Vasilyevich Kashirin, did not give consent, but then reconciled. In the spring of 1871, Maxim Peshkov left with his family for Astrakhan, where he began working as the manager of the Astrakhan office of the Kolchin shipping company. In the summer of 1871, Maxim Savvatievich, while nursing Alyosha, who fell ill with cholera, became infected himself and died. Varvara Vasilievna with her son and mother returned to Nizhny Novgorod to her father's house.
Gorky's grandfather, Vasily Vasilyevich Kashirin, was a barge hauler in his younger years, then he got rich and became the owner of a dyeing workshop. At one time he was the foreman of the dyeing shop, was elected a vowel (deputy) of the Nizhny Novgorod Duma. In addition to grandfather Gorky, two of his sons lived in the house with their families. best times passed for the Kashirin family - because of the factory production, the business was in decline. In addition, the Kashirin family was not friendly. They lived like in a war, and Alyosha Peshkov was only a burden there. Gorky believed that his mother did not love him, considering him the culprit of misfortunes, and therefore moved away from him. She began to arrange her personal life and remarried. Only the grandmother - Akulina Ivanovna - treated Alyosha with kindness. She replaced his mother and, as best she could, supported her grandson. It was his grandmother who gave him a love for folk songs and fairy tales. The grandfather, despite his complex nature, taught the boy at the age of six to read and write according to church books. In 1877-1879 Alyosha Peshkov successfully studied at the Nizhny Novgorod Sloboda Kanavinsky Primary School. In August 1879, his mother died of consumption. By that time, grandfather had completely gone bankrupt and sent his 11-year-old grandson "to the people."
“In people” Alexey Peshkov changed many occupations: he worked as a “boy” in a shoe store, a crockery on a steamer, was in the service, caught birds, was a salesman in an icon shop, a student in an icon-painting workshop, an extra in a theater at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, a foreman in repairs fair buildings, etc. While working on the Dobry steamer, Alexei Peshkov's boss was a cook - a retired guard non-commissioned officer Mikhail Smury, who noticed the boy's curiosity and aroused in him a love of reading. Books in many ways saved Alexei Peshkov from the evil, unjust world, helped to understand a lot. Despite early hardships and suffering, he managed to maintain his love of life. Subsequently, M. Gorky wrote: "I did not expect outside help and did not hope for a lucky break ... I realized very early that a person is created by his resistance to the environment."
In 1884 Alexey Peshkov went to enter Kazan University. He returned to Nizhny Novgorod in 1889 and lived here intermittently until 1904. In 1913-1914 M. Gorky wrote the autobiographical story Childhood.
In Nizhny Novgorod, there is the Museum of A. M. Gorky's childhood "Kashirin's House". Alyosha Peshkov began to live in this house from the end of August 1871, after arriving with his mother from Astrakhan. In the spring of 1872, Gorky's grandfather divided the property between his sons, and the house was left to his son Yakov. Vasily Vasilyevich himself, with his wife Akulina Ivanovna and grandson Alyosha, moved to live in another house. The Museum of Childhood of A. M. Gorky reproduces the original atmosphere of the house of the Kashirin family.
Frame from the film "Gorky's Childhood" (1938)
Very briefly
The boy's father dies. Together with his mother, he moves to the house of a cruel and greedy grandfather. The mother marries and the boy is raised by his grandmother. When the mother dies, the grandfather sends the boy "to the people".
1913, Nizhny Novgorod. The story is told on behalf of the boy Alyosha Peshkov.
I
Alyosha's first memory is the death of his father. He did not understand that his father was no more, but the cry of Varvara's mother ran into his memory. Before that, the boy was very ill, and grandmother Akulina Ivanovna Kashirina, "round, big-headed, with huge eyes and a funny, loose nose," came to help. Grandmother sniffed tobacco and was all “black, soft,” like a bear, with very long and thick hair.
On the day of her father's death, Varvara began premature birth, the child was born weak. After the funeral, the grandmother took Alyosha, Varvara and the newborn to Nizhny Novgorod. They traveled by boat. On the way, the baby died. Grandmother, trying to distract Alyosha, told fairy tales, which she knew a great many.
In Nizhny they were met by a lot of people. Alyosha met grandfather Vasily Vasilyich Kashirin, a small, scrawny old man "with a beard as red as gold, with a bird's nose and green eyes." With him came the boy's uncles, Yakov and Mikhailo, and cousins. Alyosha did not like grandfather, he "immediately felt an enemy in him."
II
The grandfather's family lived in a large house, the lower floor of which was occupied by a dyeing workshop. They lived unfriendly. Varvara married without a blessing, and now her uncles demanded her dowry from her grandfather. From time to time the uncles fought.
Grandfather's house was filled with a hot fog of mutual enmity between everyone and everyone.
The arrival of Alyosha with his mother only intensified this enmity. It was very difficult for a boy who grew up in a friendly family.
On Saturdays, grandfather seized grandchildren who had been guilty for a week. Alyosha did not escape this punishment either. The boy resisted, and the grandfather caught him half to death.
Later, when Alyosha was resting in bed, grandfather came to put up. After that, the boy realized that his grandfather was “not evil and not terrible,” but he could not forget and forgive the beatings. Ivan the Gypsy especially struck him in those days: he put his hand under the rods, and part of the blows went to him.
III
After Alyosha became very friends with this cheerful guy. Ivan Tsyganok was a foundling: his grandmother found him one winter near her house and raised him. He promised to become a good master, and the uncles often quarreled because of him: after the partition, everyone wanted to take Gypsy for himself.
Despite his seventeen years, Tsyganok was kind and naive. Every Friday he was sent to the market for food, and Ivan spent less and brought more than he should have. It turned out that he was stealing to please the stingy grandfather. Grandmother cursed - she was afraid that one day the Gypsy would be caught by the police.
Soon Ivan died. In the yard of my grandfather lay a heavy oak cross. Uncle Yakov made a vow to take it to the grave of his wife, whom he himself had killed. It fell to the gypsy to carry the butt of this huge cross. The guy overworked and died from bleeding.
IV-VI
Time has passed. Things got worse at home. Alyosha's soul was saved only by grandmother's tales. Grandmother was not afraid of anyone except cockroaches. One evening the workshop caught fire. Risking her life, the grandmother led the stallion out of the burning stable and burned her hands very badly.
“By spring, the uncles split up,” and my grandfather bought a big house, on the ground floor of which there was a tavern. The rest of the rooms were rented out by my grandfather. A dense neglected garden grew around the house, descending into a ravine. Grandmother and grandson settled in a cozy room in the attic.
Everyone loved their grandmother and turned to her for advice - Akulina Ivanovna knew many recipes for herbal medicines. She was originally from the Volga. Her mother was “offended” by the master, the girl jumped out of the window and remained crippled.
From childhood, Akulina went “around people”, begging for alms. Then her mother, who was a skilled lacemaker, taught her daughter her skill, and when her fame went, the grandfather appeared. Grandfather, being in a good mood, also told Alyosha about his childhood, which he remembered "from the Frenchman", and about his mother, an evil Kalashnitsa woman.
Some time later, the grandfather undertook to teach Alyosha to read and write from church books. He turned out to be capable of this, and soon fluently analyzed the church charter. Grandfather was a believer, but the god to whom he prayed caused Alyosha "fear and dislike".
He did not love anyone, followed everything with a strict eye, he, first of all, looked for and saw in a person the bad, evil, sinful. It was clear that he did not trust a person, always waiting for repentance and loves to punish
The boy was rarely allowed to go outside - every time the local boys beat him to bruises.
Soon Alyoshin quiet life ended. One evening, uncle Yakov came running and said that uncle Mikhailo was going to kill his grandfather. From that evening Uncle Mikhailo came every day and made scandals, to the delight of the whole street. So he tried to lure a dowry from grandfather Varvarino, but the old man did not give up.
VII-X
Closer to spring, my grandfather suddenly sold the house and bought another one. The new house also had an overgrown garden with a pit - the remains of a burned-out bathhouse. Colonel Ovsyannikov was next to him on the left, and the Betlenga family was on the right.
The house was full interesting people. Of particular interest to Alyosha was the freeloader, nicknamed the Good Deed. His room was filled with strange things and he was constantly inventing things.
Soon the boy became friends with Good Deed. He taught him to correctly state events, without repeating himself and cutting off all unnecessary. Grandmother and grandfather did not like this friendship - they considered the freeloader a sorcerer, and good cause had to move out.
I was very interested in Alyosha and Ovsyannikov's house. In a gap in the fence or from a tree branch, he saw three boys playing in the yard together and without quarrels. One day, while playing hide-and-seek, the younger boy fell into a well. Alyosha rushed to help and, together with the older children, pulled the baby out.
The children were friends until Alyosha caught the eye of the colonel. While he was putting the boy out of the house, he managed to call him "old devil", for which he was beaten. Since then, Alyosha communicated with the Ovsyannikovs Jr. only through a hole in the fence.
Alyosha rarely spoke about his mother, who lived separately. One winter, she returned, settled in the freeloader's room and began to teach her son grammar and arithmetic. Alyosha's life in those days was difficult. Often the grandfather quarreled with his mother, tried to force her to a new marriage, but she always refused.
Russian people, due to the poverty and poverty of their lives, generally like to amuse themselves with grief, play with it like children, and are rarely ashamed to be unhappy.
The grandmother stood up for her daughter, and one day her grandfather severely beat her. Alyosha took revenge on his grandfather, ruining his favorite saints.
Mother made friends with a neighbor, a military wife, who often had guests from the Bethlengs' house. Grandfather also began to arrange "evenings" and even found the groom's mother - a crooked and bald watchmaker. Varvara, a young and beautiful woman, refused him.
XI-XII
“After this story, the mother immediately got stronger, straightened up tightly and became the mistress of the house.” The Maximov brothers, who migrated to her from the Bethlengs, began to visit her often.
After Christmas time, Alyosha was ill with smallpox for a long time. All this time, his grandmother took care of him. Instead of a fairy tale, she told the boy about his father. Maxim Peshkov was the son of a soldier, "who rose to the rank of officer and was exiled to Siberia for cruelty to his subordinates." Maxim was born in Siberia. His mother died and he wandered for a long time.
Once in Nizhny Novgorod, Maxim began working for a carpenter and soon became a noble cabinetmaker. Varvara married him against the will of her grandfather - he wanted to marry his beautiful daughter to a nobleman.
Soon Varvara married the younger Maksimov, Yevgeny. Alyosha immediately hated his stepfather. Grandmother, out of frustration, began to drink strong wine and was often drunk. In the pit left by the burnt bath, the boy built a shelter for himself and spent the whole summer in it.
In the fall, my grandfather sold the house and told my grandmother that he would no longer feed her. "Grandfather rented two dark rooms in the basement of an old house." Shortly after the move, the mother and stepfather appeared. They said that their house burned down with all the belongings, but the grandfather knew that his stepfather lost and came to ask for money.
Mother and stepfather rented poor housing and took Alyosha with them. Varvara was pregnant, and her stepfather deceived the workers by buying half-price credit notes for products that were paid at the factory instead of money.
Alyosha was sent to school, where he really did not like it. The children laughed at his poor clothes, but the teachers did not like him. At that time, the boy often misbehaved and annoyed his mother. Meanwhile, life got harder and harder. Mom gave birth to a son, a strange big-headed boy who died quickly and quietly. My stepfather has a mistress.
Soon Varvara became pregnant again Once Alyosha saw how his stepfather was beating his pregnant mother in the chest with his thin and long leg. He swung a knife at Yevgeny. Barbara managed to push him away - the knife only cut through the clothes and slid along the ribs.
XIII
Alyosha returned to his grandfather. The old man became stingy. He divided the economy into two parts. Now they even brewed tea with their grandmother in turn.
In order to earn a living, my grandmother took up embroidery and lace making, while Alyosha and a company of children collected rags and bones, robbed drunkards, and stole firewood and hemp "in the forest warehouses along the banks of the Oka". Classmates knew what he was doing, and mocked even more.
When Alyosha moved to the third grade, Varvara moved in with the newborn Nikolai. My stepfather disappeared again. Mom was seriously ill. Grandmother went to the house of a rich merchant to embroider a cover, and grandfather fiddled with Nikolai, often underfeeding the child out of greed. Alyosha also liked to play with his brother. The mother died a few months later in the arms of the boy, never seeing her husband.
After the funeral, the grandfather said that he was not going to feed Alyosha, and sent him "".
The plot of M. Gorky's story "Childhood" is based on the facts of the writer's real biography. This determined the features of the genre of Gorky's work - an autobiographical story. In 1913, M. Gorky wrote the first part of his autobiographical trilogy "Childhood", where he described the events associated with the growing up of a little man. In 1916, the second part of the trilogy "In People" was written, it reveals a hard working life, and a few years later, in 1922, M. Gorky, finishing the story of the formation of man, published the third part of the trilogy - "My Universities".
The story "Childhood" is autobiographical, but put an equal sign between the plot artwork and the life of a writer is impossible. Years later, M. Gorky recalls his childhood, the first experiences of growing up, the death of his father, moving to his grandfather; rethinks many things in a new way and creates a picture of life on the basis of the experience little boy Alyosha in the Kashirin family. The story is told in the first person, on behalf of the little hero of the events. This fact makes the described events more reliable, and also helps (which is important for the writer) to convey the psychology, the inner experiences of the hero. Then Alyosha speaks of grandmother as “the closest to my heart, the most understandable and dear person- it was her disinterested love for the world that enriched me, saturating me with strong strength for difficult life”, then confesses his dislike for his grandfather. The task of the writer is not just to convey the events in which he became a participant. little hero, but also to evaluate them already from the position of an adult who has known a lot in a person’s life. It is this feature that is characteristic of the genre of autobiographical story. The goal of M. Gorky is not to revive the past, but to tell "about that close, stuffy circle of terrible impressions in which he lived - still lives - a simple Russian man."
The events of childhood do not flicker like a kaleidoscope in the perception of the narrator. On the contrary, every moment of life, an act, the hero tries to comprehend, to get to the point. The same episode is perceived differently by the hero. The boy endures the tests that have fallen steadfastly: for example, after his grandfather beat Alyosha for a damaged tablecloth, the “days of illness” became “big days of life” for the boy. It was then that the hero began to better understand people, and his heart "became unbearably sensitive to any insult and pain, his own and someone else's."
Gorky's work "Childhood" has boundaries traditional genre stories: one leader story line associated with autobiographical hero, and all minor characters and episodes also help to reveal the character of Alyosha and express the author's attitude to what is happening.
The writer simultaneously endows the main character with his thoughts and feelings, and at the same time contemplates the events described as if from the outside, giving them an assessment: “... is it worth talking about this? This is the truth that must be known to the root, in order to root it out of memory, from the soul of a person, from our whole life, heavy and shameful.
