Maxim Gorky

He returned to Russia in 1913. During World War I, his apartment in Petrograd was turned into a Bolshevik staff room, but his relations with the Communists turned sour. Two weeks after the October Revolution of 1917 he wrote: “Lenin and Trotsky don’t have any idea about freedom or human rights. They are already corrupted by dirty poison of the power, this is visible by their shameful disrespect of freedom of speech and all other civil liberties for which the democracy was fighting.” Lenin’s 1919 letters to Gorky contain threats: “My advice to you: Change your surroundings, your views, your actions, otherwise life may turn away from you.”

Максим Горький: биография, фото, личная жизнь

Максим Горький — культовый писатель, которого пять раз номинировали на Нобелевскую премию. Его творчество и жизнь детально изучены литературоведами. Однако не все факты открыты для широкой публики. Предлагаем узнать интересные подробности жизни великого писателя.

Максим Горький: биография писателя

Алексей Максимович Горький — одна из центральных фигур русской литературы. Биография Горького известна многим со школьной скамьи, но некоторые нюансы жизненного пути прозаика и драматурга остаются в тени. Предлагаем узнать, кто скрывался под псевдонимом Максим Горький, как судьба писателя отражена в его произведениях, какие загадки таит его смерть:

Детство и юность

Биография Максима Горького ярко представлена в его произведениях. Многие из них имеют автобиографический характер или являются образным воплощением жизненного опыта автора. В 1913 году на страницах журнала «Русское слово» опубликовал Горький «Детство» — повесть, которая дала начало автобиографической трилогии, куда вошли «В людях», «Мои университеты».

Фото: Википедия: UGC

Алексей Пешков (настоящее имя писателя) описал детские годы, которые провел в семье у сурового деда — Василия Каширина. Причина, почему Алексея (родился в 1868 году 28 марта) отдали на воспитание деда, банальна: его отец умер от холеры. Заразился болезнью Максим Пешков от сына Алексея.

Мать, лишенная средств к существованию, вернулась в дом к отцу, вскоре снова вышла замуж. Когда Алексею исполнилось одиннадцать, она умирает от чахотки, а отчим, которого мальчик, защищая мать от избиения, едва не зарезал, отдают в семью деда.

Василий Каширин, утративший к тому времени значительную часть своего состояния, счел одиннадцатилетнего Алексея достаточно взрослым, чтобы отправить его на собственные хлеба. Пешков рано начал трудовую деятельность: работал посыльным в лавке, пекарне, буфете.

Образование

Первые «университеты» Алексея Пешкова — церковно-приходская школа, домашнее обучение грамоте и начальное училище в Канавино — городке, где он родился. Связавшись с уличной компанией, вместо посещения школы мальчик собирал тряпье по помойкам, воровал. Вскоре забросил учебу, не получил документа о среднем образовании.

Обладая уникальной памятью, работоспособностью и сильной волей, Пешков занимался самообразованием: читал Ф.Ницше, Дж. Селли, А.Шопенгауэра, Э.М.Каро, мировые художественные шедевры.

Фото: Википедия: UGC

В 26 лет Алексей Пешков совершает неудачную попытку поступить в Казанский университет. В дальнейшем его учителем стала сама жизнь: он участвует в марксистском движении, занимается пропагандой, организовывает колонию-поселение по толстовскому типу, путешествует: он побывал в Крыму, на Кавказе, Приволжье, в Украине. Ему приходилось работать грузчиком, столяром и пекарем, красильщиком и бурлаком, он трудится на железной дороге и на нефтепромыслах в Тифлисе.

Творчество и общественная жизнь

Максим Горький, биография которого яркий пример формирования творческой личности, шел к известности долго. Начинал с поэзии — баловался высокопарными стихами в стиле Байрона, поэмами.

Первое печатное произведение автора «Макар Чудря» появилось в 1892 году в газете «Кавказ». Тогда же впервые автор использовал псевдоним, под которым вошел в литературу. Успех вдохновил Горького: с 1894 года под псевдонимом Иегудиил Хламида он печатает фельетоны и очерки в самарских газетах.

Первый двухтомник очерков и рассказов писателя выходит в 1898 году. Тогда же печатается роман «Фома Гордеев» — Горький становится знаменитым: его гонорары исчисляются тысячами рублей, получает первые награды и премии за драматические произведения. Квартира Горького в Нижнем Новгороде — центр паломничества творческой интеллигенции.

За пьесы, в которых власти усмотрели пропаганду революционных идей («Дачники», «Варвары», «Дети солнца») Максим Горький был арестован в 1905 году. Под давлением мировой общественности его освободили. Писатель двадцать лет (с 1902 года) руководил издательством «Знамя», вынашивал идею создания современного театра в Москве.

За границей

В 1906 году началось мировое турне Максима Горького. Его задача — ознакомить массы с революционными идеями, которые охватили Россию, и теми культурными изменениями, которые грядут.

Писатель путешествует по Европе (Германия, Швеция, Франция), переплывает океан и оказывается в США. Здесь он проводит встречи, цель которых — собрать деньги для спонсирования революционной деятельности (Горький был самым крупным финансистом большевиков).

Фото: Википедия: UGC

Писатель принимает участие в митингах, знакомится с Марком Твеном, но вскоре покидает Америку и переезжает на Капри: климат острова благоприятно влиял на чахотку, которой с юношества болел Горький. Его вилла «Спинола» становится приютом для многих творческих личностей. В те годы писатель трудится над трилогией «Город Окуров». Работал по 10–12 часов, когда уставал сидеть, то писал стоя.

В этот период Горький полемизирует с Лениным, переживает духовный кризис, становится настоящим певцом революции. Перед началом революционных событий в 1913 году Горький возвращается в Россию.

Горький и советская власть

Горький, биография которого неразрывно связана с революционным движением в России, был и ее ярым критиком. События февраля и октября 1917 года он воспринял холодно: критиковал большевиков за насилие, защищал интеллигентов от репрессий и голода, хлопотал о выезде А.Блока на лечение, о помиловании Н.Гумилева.

Несмотря на близость писателя к Ленину и Дзержинскому, его дом неоднократно обыскивали чекисты, за ним устанавливали надзор. Давление новой власти настолько усилилось, что писатель вынужден был эмигрировать: в 1921 году он с семьей выезжает в Берлин, а потом — в Италию.

Фото: Википедия: UGC

Вернулся Горький через семь лет по личному приглашению И.Сталина. На протяжении еще пяти лет до 1933 года жил в двух странах — в Италии и России. После того, как Нобелевскую премию присудили Ивану Бунину, Максим Горький вернулся в Советский Союз. Здесь создал Союз писателей, разработал концепцию социалистического реализма, продолжил работу над романом «Жизнь Клима Самгина».

Смерть

Смерть Максима Горького окутана тайной. По официальной версии смерть известного писателя 18 июня 1936 года была вызвана острым заболеванием — гриппом. Им он заразился, проведывая заболевших внучек. Болезнь развилась после посещения им могилы сына Максима на Новодевичьем кладбище.

Однако есть и конспирологическая версия его смерти: некоторые ученые считают, что гибель сына писателя и его собственная кончина были делом рук секретных служб. Горький — известный и влиятельный писатель, смело говоривший о недостатках сталинского режима, был опасен. Поэтому его устранили, заразив смертельным вирусом.

Горький — это писатель-эпоха. В своеобразной творческой манере автор раскрыл тему ницшеанского сверхчеловека — мужественного и целостного. Жизнь самого писателя — это воспитание такой личности.

Личная жизнь Максима Горького

Максим Горький — неординарная личность. Еще в юном возрасте у него проявились психические отклонения, которые сформировали особенный темперамент и характер писателя. Так, еще в раннем возрасте Горький был пироманом, в молодости совершил две попытки самоубийства.

Фото: Википедия: UGC

Помимо этого, Горький обладал еще и гиперсексуальностью, что превратило его личную жизнь в череду бурных романов:

Ольга Каменская

До встречи с разведенной акушеркой Ольгой Каменской в 1893 году Алексей Пешков уже имел сексуальный опыт. О своем «грехопадении» в 17 лет он описал в рассказе «Однажды осенью». Был и неудачный опыт сватовства к Марии Басаргиной — дочери начальника станции Борисоглебское.

С Каменской у Пешкова был первый невенчанный брак. Ольга была на 9 лет старше его, имела дочь от неудачного брака (от мужа ушла). С этой женщиной Горький прожил один год. Причина расставания — ограниченность Каменской: она заснула над «Старухой Изергиль», чем обидела писателя.

Екатерина Волжина

Фото: Википедия: UGC

В официальный брак прозаик вступил в 28 лет: он венчался в соборе Самары с дочерью обедневшего помещика Екатериной Волжиной. Максим Горький, супруга которого работала корректором в газете, заполучил не только подругу, но и помощника: жена вычитывала его безграмотно написанные рукописи (писатель допускал много орфографических и пунктуационных ошибок), сопровождала его на лечении.

В браке родилось двое детей — Максим и Екатерина. Дочь умерла в детстве от менингита. После расставания в 1903 году у пары сохранились теплые, дружеские отношения.

Мария Андреева

Фото: Википедия: UGC

Мария Андреева — блистательная актриса МХАТа, социал-демократка, стала второй невенчанной женой Максима Горького. Они познакомились в 1900 году на крымских гастролях Московского театра и сразу же понравились друг другу. Однако сошлись только после расставания Марии в 1903 году с супругом — Андреем Желябужским.

Мария Андреева становится не только женой Горького, но и его личным секретарем. Женщина подходила писателю не только по темпераменту, но и по увлеченности большевистскими идеями. Брак с Андреевой не мешал Горькому заводить интрижки: в поездке по США, во время итальянской эмиграции, по свидетельствам друзей, он не пропускал ни одной горничной, пользовался услугами барышень легкого поведения.

С Горьким она прожила до 1919 года. Охлаждение в отношениях произошло не только из-за расхождения в политических взглядах, но и по причине нового любовного увлечения писателя. Им стала Варвара Шайкевич — жена писателя Александра Сереброва (Тихонова). От этой связи родилась внебрачная дочь Нина.

Мура Закревская-Бенкендорф-Будберг

Фото: YouTube: UGC

Лебединая песня в любви Горького — «железная женщина», баронесса Мария Будберг. В 1912 году она стала агентом британской разведки. Вскоре ее завербовали немцы, а после революции Мария — сотрудник ОГПУ.

В 1919 году она познакомилась с Горьким и вошла в его окружение. Вскоре заменила Андрееву как секретаря и как жену. Она прекрасно владела иностранными языками, была эрудирована, поэтому стала незаменимым помощником для писателя.

В 1920 году, проживая с Горьким за границей, Мария закрутила роман с американским писателем Гербертом Уэллсом. Однако только после смерти русского писателя Мура переехала к фантасту.

Жизнь и творчество Горького — предмет изучения в школе. Тем не менее многие факты его биографии и нюансы его произведений еще не оценены должным образом. Они требуют переосмысления и изучения.

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Maxim Gorky

Alexei Peshkov, more known as the writer Maxim Gorky, is the iconic figure in the Russian and Soviet literature. He was nominated for the Nobel prize five times. Gorky was the writer whose works were published most frequently throughout the whole Soviet period; together with Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy, he was considered the central creator of the national literary art.

He was born in Kanavino, the town in the province of Nizhny Novgorod, which is now one of the districts in Nizhny Novgorod. His father Maxim Peshkov was a carpenter and, in his last years, a steamship company administrator. His mother Varvara Vasiljevna died of consumption; it was Akulina Ivanovna who took the place of Alesha Peshkov’s parents. Since 11, the boy had to work: Maxim Gorky was a shop messenger, a pantry-boy, a baker’s assistant, and an icon painter’s assistant. Maxim Gorky described his biography in his books “My Childhood,” “In the World,” and “My Universities.”

Photo of young Gorky

After a failure to become a student of Kazan University and arrest related to his connections with the Marxist group, the future writer became a watchman at the railway station. At the age of 23, the young man started traveling over the country and managed to walk to the Caucasus. During this travel, Maxim Gorky was writing down some ideas that later constituted the basis of his works. The first short stories by Maxim Gorky appeared approximately at this time.

Alexei Peshkov who assumed a pseudonym Maxim Gorky

Having become a famous writer, Alexei Peshkov went to the United States, later moves to Italy. It happened not because of the conflict with the authorities, as some sources present it – it was due to the changes in his family life. However, Gorky continued to write revolutionary books abroad. He came back to Russia in 1913, settled in Saint Petersburg, and began to work for different publishing houses.

It is interesting that with his Marxist views, Peshkov looked at the October Revolution skeptically. After the Russian Civil War, due to some disagreement with the new authorities, Maxim Gorky went abroad again to return home for good in 1932.

The Writer

The first Maxim Gorky’s story published in 1892 was the famous “Makar Chudra.” Two volumes of “Essays and Stories” made the writer well-known. It is notable that the edition of these volumes was three times larger than usual in comparison with what was normal at that time. The short stories “The Old Woman Izergil,” “Creatures That One Were Men,” “Chelkash,” “Twenty-Six Men and a Girl,” and the poem “Song of a Falcon” are the most popular works of that period. Another poem, “The Song of a Stormy Petrel,” became iconic. Maxim Gorky allocated much time for children’s literature. He created many fairy tales, for example, “A Little Sparrow,” “Samovar,” “Tales of Italy,” published the first Soviet children’s magazine, and organized parties for children from poor families.

The legendary Soviet writer

To comprehend the writer’s creative work, it is important to view Maxim Gorky’s plays “The Lower Depths,” “The Philistines,” and “Yegor Bulychyov and Others.” In these works, the author’s talent of a playwright manifests itself, and he demonstrates how he perceives the life around him. The short novels “My Childhood,” “In the World,” the social novels “The Mother” and “The Artamonov Business” are of great cultural significance for the Russian literature. The last work of Gorky is the epic novel “Life of Klim Samgin,” also known as “Forty Years.” The writer had been working on this manuscript for 11 years but did not manage to finish it.

Personal Life

Maxim Gorky’s personal life was quite stormy. For the first time, he married at 28, and this was also his last official marriage. Gorky met his would-be wife Ekaterina Volozhina at the “Samarskaya Gazeta” publishing house where the young woman worked as a proofreader. In a year after the marriage, the son Maxim was born; soon, the daughter Ekaterina named after her mother was born. Besides, the writer brought up his godson Zinovy Sverdlov who later took the last name Peshkov.

With the first wife Ekaterina Volozhina

However, the infatuation was over soon. Gorky was burdened by the family life, and his marriage turned into a parental union: they lived together for the sake of their children only. The tragic and sudden death of the little daughter Katya triggered the family breakup. Still, Maxim Gorky and his wife remained good friends for a lifetime and maintained correspondence.

Gorky with his second wife, the actress Maria Andreeva

After the breakup with Volozhina, with Anton Pavlovich Chekhov’s assistance, Maxim Gorky met the actress of the Moscow Art Theater Maria Andreeva. For the next 16 years, she was his wife unofficially. Because of her work, the writer went to America and Italy. It was Gorky who brought up Ekaterina and Andrey, the actress’s children from the previous relationship. However, after the Revolution took place, Andreeva became engaged in the work of the party and, consequently, paid less attention to her family. As a result, in 1919, this couple also split up.

Gorky with his third wife Maria Budberg and the writer Herbert Wells

Gorky himself finished the relationship and stated he was leaving Andreeva for another woman, Maria Budberg, the former Baroness and simultaneously his secretary. With this woman, Gorky lived for 13 years in an unregistered marriage as well. The last wife of Gorky was 24 years younger than he, and everybody was aware that she having love affairs with other men. The English fantast Herbert Wells was one of Brudberg’s lovers – as soon as her actual husband died, she went to him. It is highly possible that Maria Brudberg, who had acquired a reputation of an adventuress and undoubtedly collaborated with NKVD, was a double agent who worked for the English intelligence.

Death

After the writer had finally come back to his motherland in 1932, Maxim Gorky worked in newspaper and magazine publishing houses and created the book series “The History of Plants and Factories,” “The Poet’s Library,” “The History of the Russian Civil War.” He also organized and held the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers.

With the sudden death of his son who died of lung inflammation, the writer was dispirited. Visiting Maxim’s grave, he caught a bad cold. For three weeks, he had the fever that led to the death on June 18, 1936. The body of the Soviet writer was cremated, and his remains were placed in the Kremlin wall at the Red Square. Before that, Maxim Gorky’s brain was delivered to the Research Institute for further studies.

Maxim Gorky in the last years of his life

Later, the issue about possible poisoning of the legendary writer and his son was raised several times. The people’s commissar Genrikh Yagoda, who was the lover of Maxim Peshkov’s wife, was a person of interest in the case investigation. In addition, Leon Trotsky and even Joseph Stalin were suspected of the participation. During the repressions and the Doctor’s plot, three physicians were accused of Maxim Gorky’s death among other things.

Maxim Gorky’s books

• 1899 — Foma Gordeev
• 1902 — The Lower Depths
• 1906 — The Mother
• 1908 — Life of a Useless Man
• 1914 — My Childhood
• 1916 — In the World
• 1923 — My Universities
• 1925 — The Artamonov Business
• 1931 — Yegor Bulychyov and Others
• 1936 — Life of Klim Samgin

Maxim Gorky

Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov (In Russian Алексей Максимович Пешков) (March 28, 1868 – June 14, 1936) better known as Maxim Gorky (Максим Горький), was a Russian author, a founder of the socialist realism literary method, and a political activist. Socialist realism, an approach that sought to be “realist in form” and “socialist in content,” became the basis for all Soviet art and made heroes of previously unheroic literary types, holding that the purpose of art was inherently political—to depict the “glorious struggle of the proletariat” in its creation of socialism.

Gorky was born in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, renamed Gorky in his honor during the Soviet era but restored to its original name following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989. Gorky was something of an enigma, a revolutionary who was genuinely sympathetic to the underclass and who embraced the ethics and ideals of the revolution early on, but who had growing doubts about Lenin and the Bolsheviks following the 1917 Russian Revolution. Gorky’s legacy is inextricably linked with both the revolution and the literary movement, socialist realism, that he helped to create.

Contents

• 1 Life
• 2 Gorky and the Revolution
• 3 Return from exile
• 4 Socialist realism
• 5 Works
• 6 Selected works
• 7 Tributes to Gorky
• 8 Quotes
• 9 External links
• 10 Credits

From 1906 to 1913 and from 1921 to 1929, he lived abroad, mostly in Capri; after his return to the Soviet Union he reluctantly embraced the cultural policies of the time. Despite his belated support, he was not permitted to travel outside the country again.

Life

Maxim Gorky was born on March 16, 1868, in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod, Russian’s forth largest city. Gorky lost his father when he was 4 years old and mother at age 11, and the boy was raised in harsh conditions by his maternal grandparents. His relations with his family members were strained. At one time Gorky even stabbed his abusive stepfather. Yet Gorky’s grandmother had a fondness for literature and compassion for the poor, which influenced the child. He left home at the age of 12 and began a series of occupations, as an errand boy, dishwasher on a steamer, and apprentice to an icon maker. During these youthful years Gorky witnessed the harsh, often cruel aspects of life for the underclass, impressions that would inform his later writings.

Almost completely self-educated, Gorky tried unsuccessfully to enter the University of Kazan. For the next 6 years, he wandered widely about Russia, the Ukraine, and the Caucasus. After an attempt at suicide in December 1887, Gorky traveled on foot across the Russian Empire for five years, changing jobs and accumulating impressions used later in his writing.

1900, Yasnaya Polyana. Leo Tolstoy and Gorky.
1900, Yalta. Anton Chekhov and Gorky.

Gorky began writing under pseudonym Иегудиил Хламида (Jehudiel Khlamida), publishing stories and articles in newspapers of the Volga region. He began using the pseudonym Gorky (literally “bitter”) in 1892, while working for the Tiflis newspaper Кавказ (The Caucasus). Gorky’s first book, a two-volume collection of his writings entitled Очерки и рассказы (Essays and Stories) was published in 1898. It enjoyed great success, catapulting him to fame.

At the turn of the century, Gorky became associated with the Moscow Art Theater, which staged some of his plays. He also became affiliated with the Marxist journals Life and New Word and publicly opposed the Tsarist regime. Gorky befriended many revolutionary leaders, becoming Lenin’s personal friend after they met in 1902. He exposed governmental control of the press and was arrested numerous times. In 1902, Gorky was elected the honorary Academician of Literature, but Nicholas II ordered the annulment of this election. In protest, Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Korolenko left the Academy.

Gorky and the Revolution

While briefly imprisoned in Peter and Paul Fortress during the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905, Gorky wrote the play Children of the Sun, nominally set during an 1862 cholera epidemic, but universally understood to relate to present-day events. In 1905, he officially joined the ranks of the Bolshevik faction in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. He left the country in 1906 to avoid arrest, traveling to America where he wrote his most famous novel, Mother.

He returned to Russia in 1913. During World War I, his apartment in Petrograd was turned into a Bolshevik staff room, but his relations with the Communists turned sour. Two weeks after the October Revolution of 1917 he wrote: “Lenin and Trotsky don’t have any idea about freedom or human rights. They are already corrupted by dirty poison of the power, this is visible by their shameful disrespect of freedom of speech and all other civil liberties for which the democracy was fighting.” Lenin’s 1919 letters to Gorky contain threats: “My advice to you: Change your surroundings, your views, your actions, otherwise life may turn away from you.”

In August 1921, his friend, fellow writer, and poet Anna Akhmatova’s husband Nikolai Gumilyov was arrested by the Petrograd Cheka for his monarchist views. Gorky hurried to Moscow, attained the order to release Gumilyov from Lenin personally, but upon his return to Petrograd found out that Gumilyov had already been shot. In October, Gorky emigrated to Italy on grounds of illness: He had contracted tuberculosis.

Return from exile

1931. Kliment Voroshilov, Maxim Gorky, and Joseph Stalin (left to right).

While Gorky had his struggles with the Soviet regime, he never entirely broke ranks. His exile had been self-imposed. But in Sorrento, Gorky found himself without money and without glory. He visited the USSR several times after 1929, and in 1932, Joseph Stalin personally invited him to return from emigration for good, an offer he accepted. In June 1929, Gorky visited Solovki (cleaned up for this occasion) and wrote a positive article about the Gulag camp that already had gained an ill reputation in the West.

Gorky, Kaganovich, Molotov, Voroshilov, Stalin, and Kalinin at the podium of Lenin’s mausoleum.

Gorky’s return from fascist Italy was a major propaganda victory for the Soviets. He was decorated with the Order of Lenin and given a mansion (currently the Gorky Museum) in Moscow and a dacha in the suburbs. One of the central Moscow streets, Tverskaya, was renamed in his honor, in addition to the city of his birth.

In 1933, Gorky edited an infamous book about the Belomorkanal, presented as an example of the “successful rehabilitation of the former enemies of proletariat.”

He supported the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934 and Stalin’s policies in general. Yet, with the step-up of Stalinist repressions, especially after the death of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, Gorky was placed under unannounced house arrest in his Moscow house. The sudden death of his son Maxim Peshkov, in May 1935, was followed by his own in June 1936. Both died under mysterious circumstances, but speculation that they were poisoned has never been proven. Stalin and Molotov were among those who hand-carried Gorky’s coffin during his funeral.

During the Bukharin “show trial” in 1938, one of the charges brought up was that Gorky was killed by Genrikh Yagoda’s NKVD agents.

Gorky’s city of birth was renamed back to Nizhny Novgorod in 1990.

Socialist realism

Gorky was a major factor in the rapid rise of socialist realism and his pamphlet “On Socialist Realism” essentially lays out the principles of Soviet art. Socialist realism held that successful art depicts and glorifies the proletariat’s struggle toward socialist progress. The Statute of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1934 stated that socialist realism

is the basic method of Soviet literature and literary criticism. It demands of the artist the truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic representation of reality must be linked with the task of ideological transformation and education of workers in the spirit of socialism.

Its purpose was to elevate the common factory or agricultural worker by presenting his life, work, and recreation as admirable. The ultimate aim was to create what Lenin called “an entirely new type of human being”: the New Soviet Man. Stalin described the practitioners of socialist realism as “engineers of souls.”

In some respects, the movement mirrors the course of American and Western art, where the common man and woman became the subject of the novel, the play, poetry, and art. The proletariat was at the center of communist ideals; hence, his life was a worthy subject for study. This was an important shift away from the aristocratic art produced under the Russian tsars of previous centuries, but had much in common with the late-19th century fashion for depicting the social life of the common people.

Compared to the psychological penetration and originality of 20th century Western art, socialist realism often resulted in a bland and predictable range of works, aesthetically often little more than political propaganda (indeed, Western critics wryly described the principles of socialist realism as “girl meets tractor”). Painters would depict happy, muscular peasants and workers in factories and collective farms; during the Stalinist period, they also produced numerous heroic portraits of the dictator to serve his cult of personality. Industrial and agricultural landscapes were popular subjects, glorifying the achievements of the Soviet economy. Novelists were expected to produce uplifting stories infused with patriotic fervor for the state. Composers were to produce rousing, vivid music that reflected the life and struggles of the proletariat.

Socialist realism thus demanded close adherence to party doctrine, and has often been criticized as detrimental to the creation of true, unfettered art – or as being little more than a means to censor artistic expression. Czesław Miłosz, writing in the introduction to Sinyavsky’s On Socialist Realism, describes the works of socialist realism as artistically inferior, a result necessarily proceeding from the limited view of reality permitted to creative artists.

Not all Marxists accepted the necessity of socialist realism. Its establishment as state doctrine in the 1930s had rather more to do with internal Communist Party politics than classic Marxist imperatives. The Hungarian Marxist essayist Georg Lukács criticized the rigidity of socialist realism, proposing his own “critical realism” as an alternative. However, such voices were a rarity until the 1980s.

Works

Gorky’s literary output is intimately bound up with the revolution and the artistic movement that he helped to found, yet is more subtle and descriptive than Soviet works during the Stalinist era. Gorky’s early stories sympathetically portrayed the derelicts and social outcasts of Russia in contrast to respectable, bourgeois society. His sympathy for the most marginalized made him known as a powerful spokesman for the Russian masses.

His novel, Mother, often considered the first work of socialist realism, would serve as example for later writers. It tells the story of the revolutionary transformation of Pavel Vlasov and his mother, Nilovna. Pavel’s story is fairly typical, a factory worker who becomes radicalized. But the story of his mother, Nilovna, is what gives the novel its center. She represents the transition from simple, uneducated Christian to dedicated revolutionary. Timid and superstitious, she undergoes a process of enlightenment, with the valor born of conviction. The real hero of the novel is the revolution itself. The milieu is proletarian. Morality is determined by class. All representatives of the regime and upper class are corrupt and disgusting. The peasants are sympathetic but undisciplined. The proletarians are the moral force for positive change.

His best novels are the autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, In the World, and My University Years. (The title of the last novel ironically refers to the fact that Gorky was denied admission to Kazan University.) Gorky is at his best when recounting episodes from his own life. Once again the lower class milieu provides the backdrop for his reflections on pre-revolutionary life. Despite his uneasy relationship with the revolution, his work is inextricably linked to the real drama that unfolded in Russia after the turn of the century. Gorky’s fiction was notable for its realism and vitality, and was informed by a genuine passion for justice. His struggle to find a moral high ground within post-revolutionary society ultimately did not bear much fruit, and the ideals of justice he envisioned were silenced in a totalitarian political system that would exceed in injustice and inhumanity the reactionary monarchy it overthrew.

Selected works

• Makar Chudra (Макар Чудра)
• Chelkash (Челкаш)
• Petit-Bourgeois (Мещане)
• Malva
• Creatures That Once Were Men
• Twenty-six Men and a Girl
• Foma Gordeyev (Фома Гордеев)
• Three of Them (Трое)
• A Confession (Исповедь)
• Okurov City (Городок Окуров)