Gorky, Alexey Maksimovich - a short biography. Maxim Gorky: biography, personal life Gorky initials writer

1868 - Alexey Peshkov was born in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a carpenter - Maxim Savvatievich Peshkov.

1884 - tried to enter Kazan University. He gets acquainted with Marxist literature and propaganda work.

1888 - arrested for contact with N.E. Fedoseev's circle. It is under constant police surveillance. In October he enters as a watchman at the Dobrinka station of the Gryaze-Tsaritsyn railway. The impressions of staying in Dobrinka will serve as the basis for the autobiographical story "The Watchman" and the story "Boredom".

1889 , January - on personal request (complaint in verse), transferred to the Borisoglebsk station, then as a weigher to the Krutaya station.

1891 , spring - went to wander around the country and reached the Caucasus.

1892 - first appeared in print with the story "Makar Chudra". Returning to Nizhny Novgorod, he publishes reviews and feuilletons in Volzhsky Vestnik, Samarskaya Gazeta, Nizhegorodsky Leaflet, etc.

1897 - "Former People", "The Orlovs", "Malva", "Konovalov".

1897, October - mid-January 1898 - lives in the village of Kamenka (now the city of Kuvshinovo, Tver region) in the apartment of his friend N.Z. Vasiliev, who worked at the Kamensk paper mill and led an illegal Marxist workers' circle. Vital impressions of this period served as material for the novel The Life of Klim Samgin.

1898 - the publishing house of Dorovatsky and A.P. Charushnikov publishes the first volume of Gorky's works "Essays and Stories" with a circulation of 3,000 copies.

1899 - the novel "Foma Gordeev".

1900–1901 - the novel "Three", personal acquaintance with Chekhov, Tolstoy.

1900–1913 - participates in the work of the publishing house "Knowledge".

1901 , March - "The Song of the Petrel" was created in Nizhny Novgorod. Participation in the Marxist workers' circles in Nizhny Novgorod, Sormov, St. Petersburg, wrote a proclamation calling for a fight against the autocracy. Arrested and exiled from Nizhny Novgorod.
Turns to drama. Creates the play "Bourgeois".

1902 - the play "At the Bottom". Elected an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. But before Gorky could exercise his new rights, his election was annulled by the government, since the writer "was under police surveillance."

1904–1905 - plays "Summer Residents", "Children of the Sun", "Barbarians". Acquaintance with Lenin. For the revolutionary proclamation in connection with the execution on January 9, he was arrested, but then released under public pressure. Participant of the revolution 1905-1907
In autumn 1905 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.

1906 - travels abroad, creates satirical pamphlets about the "bourgeois" culture of France and the United States ("My interviews", "In America").
The play "Enemies", the novel "Mother". Due to tuberculosis, Gorky settled in Italy on the island of Capri, where he lived for 7 years.

1907 - Delegate of the V Congress of the RSDLP.

1908 - the play "The Last", the story "The Life of an Unnecessary Person".

1909 - the stories "Okurov Town", "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin".

1913 - Edits the Bolshevik newspapers "Zvezda" and "Pravda", the art department of the Bolshevik magazine "Education", publishes the first collection of proletarian writers. Writes "Tales of Italy".

1912–1916 - creates a series of stories and essays that compiled the collection "Across Russia", autobiographical stories "Childhood", "In People". The last part of the trilogy "My Universities" was written in 1923.

1917–1919 - conducts great public and political work.

1921 - departure of M. Gorky abroad.

1921–1923 - lives in Helsingfors, Berlin, Prague.

1924 - lives in Italy, in Sorrento. Published his memoirs about Lenin.

1925 - the novel "The Artamonovs Case", begins to write the novel "The Life of Klim Samgin", which was never finished.

1928 - at the invitation of the Soviet government, he makes a trip around the country, during which Gorky is shown the achievements of the USSR, depicted by the writer in the cycle of essays "Around the Soviet Union".

1931 - visits the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp.

1932 - returns to the Soviet Union. Under the leadership of Gorky, many newspapers and magazines were created: the book series "History of Factories and Plants", "History of the Civil War", "Poet's Library", "History of a Young Man of the 19th Century", the magazine "Literary Study".
The play "Egor Bulychev and others".

1933 - the play "Dostigaev and Others".

1934 - Gorky conducts the I All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, speaks at it with the main report.

Initially, Gorky was skeptical of the October Revolution. However, after several years of cultural work in Soviet Russia (in Petrograd he headed the publishing house "World Literature", interceded with the Bolsheviks for the arrested) and life abroad in the 1920s (Marienbad, Sorrento), he returned to the USSR, where the last years of his life were surrounded officially recognized as the "petrel of the revolution" and "the great proletarian writer", the founder of socialist realism.

Biography

Alexey Maksimovich invented the pseudonym "Gorky" himself. Subsequently, he said to Kalyuzhny: "Do not write to me in literature - Peshkov ...". More details about his biography can be found in his autobiographical stories "Childhood", "In people", "My universities".

Childhood

Alexey Peshkov was born in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a carpenter (according to another version - the manager of the Astrakhan office of the shipping company I.S.Kolchin) - Maxim Savvatievich Peshkov (1839-1871). Mother - Varvara Vasilievna, nee Kashirina (1842-1879). Gorky's grandfather Savvaty Peshkov rose to the rank of officer, but was demoted and exiled to Siberia "for cruel treatment of lower ranks", after which he enrolled in the bourgeoisie. His son Maxim ran away from his father five times and left home forever at the age of 17. Orphaned early, Gorky spent his childhood in the house of his grandfather Kashirin. From the age of 11 he was forced to go “to the people”: he worked as a “boy” at a store, as a cupboard on a steamer, as a baker, studied in an icon-painting workshop, etc.

Youth

In 1884 he tried to enter Kazan University. I got acquainted with Marxist literature and propaganda work.
In 1888, he was arrested for being in touch with N. Ye. Fedoseev's circle. Was under constant police surveillance. In October 1888 he entered the Dobrinka station of the Gryaze-Tsaritsyn railway as a watchman. The impressions of the stay in Dobrinka will serve as the basis for the autobiographical story "The Watchman" and the story "Boredom".
In January 1889, at a personal request (complaint in verse), he was transferred to the Borisoglebsk station, then as a weigher to the Krutaya station.
In the spring of 1891 he went to wander around the country and reached the Caucasus.

Literary and social activities

In 1892 he first appeared in print with the story "Makar Chudra". Returning to Nizhny Novgorod, he publishes reviews and feuilletons in Volzhsky Vestnik, Samarskaya Gazeta, Nizhegorodsky Leaflet, and others.
1895 - "Chelkash", "Old Woman Izergil".
1896 - Gorky writes a response to the first cinematic show in Nizhny Novgorod:

1897 - Former People, The Orlov Spouses, Malva, Konovalov.
From October 1897 to mid-January 1898, he lived in the village of Kamenka (now the city of Kuvshinovo, Tver Region) in the apartment of his friend Nikolai Zakharovich Vasiliev, who worked at the Kamensk paper mill and led an illegal Marxist workers' circle. Subsequently, the life impressions of this period served as material for the writer for the novel The Life of Klim Samgin.
1898 - The first volume of Gorky's works was published by the publishing house of Dorovatsky and A.P. Charushnikov. In those years, the circulation of the first book of a young author rarely exceeded 1000 copies. AI Bogdanovich advised the release of the first two volumes of "Essays and Stories" by M. Gorky, 1200 copies each. The publishers took a chance and released more. The first volume of the 1st edition of Essays and Stories was published with a circulation of 3000 copies.
1899 - the novel "Foma Gordeev", the prose poem "The Song of the Falcon".
1900-1901 - the novel "Three", personal acquaintance with Chekhov, Tolstoy.

1900-1913 - participates in the work of the publishing house "Knowledge"
March 1901 - The Song of the Petrel was created by M. Gorky in Nizhny Novgorod. Participation in the Marxist workers' circles in Nizhny Novgorod, Sormov, St. Petersburg, wrote a proclamation calling for a fight against the autocracy. Arrested and exiled from Nizhny Novgorod. According to the testimony of contemporaries, Nikolai Gumilyov highly appreciated the last stanza of this poem.

In 1901 M. Gorky turned to drama. Creates the plays "Bourgeois" (1901), "At the bottom" (1902). In 1902, he became the godfather and adoptive father of the Jew Zinovy Sverdlov, who took the surname Peshkov and converted to Orthodoxy. This was necessary in order for Zinovy to receive the right to live in Moscow.
February 21 - the election of M. Gorky to the honorary academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature.

1904-1905 - wrote the plays "Summer Residents", "Children of the Sun", "Va? Rvary". Meets Lenin. For the revolutionary proclamation and in connection with the execution on January 9, he was arrested, but then released under public pressure. Member of the revolution 1905-1907. In autumn 1905 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.

1906 - travels abroad, creates satirical pamphlets about the "bourgeois" culture of France and the United States ("My Interviews", "In America"). Writes the play "Enemies", creates the novel "Mother". Due to tuberculosis, he settles in Italy on the island of Capri, where he lived for 7 years (from 1906 to 1913). He settled in the prestigious Quisisana hotel. From March 1909 to February 1911 he lived at the Villa Spinola (now Bering), stayed at the villas (they have memorial plaques about his stay) "Blesius" (from 1906 to 1909) and "Serfina" (now "Pierina" ). In Capri, Gorky wrote Confessions (1908), where his philosophical differences with Lenin and rapprochement with Lunacharsky and Bogdanov were clearly indicated.

1907 - delegate to the 5th Congress of the RSDLP.
1908 - the play "The Last", the story "The Life of an Unnecessary Person".
1909 - the stories "Okurov Town", "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin".
1913 - Gorky edits the Bolshevik newspapers Zvezda and Pravda, the art department of the Bolshevik magazine Prosveshchenie, publishes the first collection of proletarian writers. Writes "Tales of Italy".
1912-1916 - M. Gorky creates a series of stories and essays that compose the collection "In Russia", autobiographical stories "Childhood", "In people". The last part of the My Universities trilogy was written in 1923.
1917-1919 - M. Gorky conducts a lot of social and political work, criticizes the "methods" of the Bolsheviks, condemns their attitude towards the old intelligentsia, saves many of its representatives from the repression of the Bolsheviks and hunger.

Abroad

1921 - departure of M. Gorky abroad. In Soviet literature, there was a myth that the reason for leaving was the renewal of his illness and the need, at Lenin's insistence, to be treated abroad. In fact, A. M. Gorky was forced to leave because of the aggravation of ideological differences with the established government. In 1921-1923. lived in Helsingfors, Berlin, Prague.
From 1924 he lived in Italy, in Sorrento. Published his memoirs about Lenin.
1925 - the novel The Artamonovs Case.

1928 - at the invitation of the Soviet government and Stalin personally, he tours the country, during which Gorky is shown the achievements of the USSR, which are reflected in the series of essays "Around the Soviet Union".
1931 - Gorky visits the Solovetsky special purpose camp and writes a laudatory review of his regime. A fragment of A. I. Solzhenitsyn's work "The Gulag Archipelago" is dedicated to this fact.

Return to the USSR

1932 - Gorky returns to the Soviet Union. The government provided him with the former Ryabushinsky mansion on Spiridonovka, dachas in Gorki and Teselli (Crimea). Here he receives an order from Stalin - to prepare the ground for the 1st Congress of Soviet Writers, and for this to carry out preparatory work among them. Gorky created many newspapers and magazines: the book series "History of Factories and Plants", "History of the Civil War", "Poet's Library", "History of a Young Man of the 19th Century", the magazine "Literary Study", he writes the plays "Yegor Bulychev and others" (1932), "Dostigaev and others" (1933).

1934 - Gorky holds the I All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, speaks at it with the main report.
1934 - co-editor of the book "The Stalin Channel"
In 1925-1936 he wrote the novel The Life of Klim Samgin, which remained unfinished.
On May 11, 1934, Gorky's son, Maxim Peshkov, unexpectedly dies. M. Gorky died on June 18, 1936 in Gorki, having outlived his son by a little more than two years. After his death, he was cremated, the ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow. Before cremation, M. Gorky's brain was removed and taken to the Moscow Brain Institute for further study.

Death

The circumstances of the death of Maxim Gorky and his son are considered by many to be "suspicious", there were rumors of poisoning, which, however, were not confirmed. At the funeral, among others, Molotov and Stalin carried the coffin with Gorky's body. Interestingly, among other accusations against Heinrich Yagoda at the Third Moscow Trial in 1938, there was an accusation of poisoning Gorky's son. According to Yagoda's interrogations, Maxim Gorky was killed on the orders of Trotsky, and the murder of Gorky's son, Maxim Peshkov, was his personal initiative.

Some publications blame Stalin for Gorky's death. An important precedent for the medical side of the charges in the "Doctors' Case" was the Third Moscow Trial (1938), where among the defendants were three doctors (Kazakov, Levin and Pletnev), accused of the murders of Gorky and others.

Family and personal life

Wife - Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova (nee Volozhina).
1. Son - Maxim Alekseevich Peshkov (1897-1934) + Vvedenskaya, Nadezhda Alekseevna ("Timosha")
  1. Peshkova, Marfa Maksimovna + Beria, Sergo Lavrent'evich
    1. daughters Nina and Nadezhda, son Sergei (bore the surname "Peshkov" because of the fate of Beria)
  2. Peshkova, Daria Maksimovna + Grave, Alexander Konstantinovich
    1. Maxim and Ekaterina (bore the surname Peshkov)
      1. Alexey Peshkov, son of Catherine
2. Daughter - Ekaterina Alekseevna Peshkova (d. As a child)
3. Peshkov, Zinovy Alekseevich, brother of Yakov Sverdlov, godson of Peshkov, who took his last name, and de facto adopted son + (1) Lydia Burago
Concubine 1906-1913 - Maria Fedorovna Andreeva (1872-1953)
1. Ekaterina Andreevna Zhelyabuzhskaya (daughter of Andreeva from 1st marriage, stepdaughter of Gorky) + Abram Garmant
2. Zhelyabuzhsky, Yuri Andreevich (stepson)
3. Evgeny G. Kyakist, nephew of Andreeva
4. A. L. Zhelyabuzhsky, nephew of Andreeva's first husband
Long-term life companion - Budberg, Maria Ignatievna

Environment

Shaikevich Varvara Vasilievna - the wife of A.N. Tikhonov-Serebrov, Gorky's beloved, who allegedly had a child from him.
Tikhonov-Serebrov Alexander Nikolaevich - assistant.
Rakitsky, Ivan Nikolaevich - artist.
Khodasevichs: Valentin, his wife Nina Berberova; niece Valentina Mikhailovna, her husband Andrei Diederikhs.
Yakov Izrailevich.
Kryuchkov, Pyotr Petrovich - secretary, later together with Yagoda races

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

Alexey Peshkov - the 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. Vasilievna's mother died of consumption, so Alyosha Peshkova's parents were replaced by Akulina Ivanovna's grandmother. From the age of 11, the boy was forced to start working: Maxim Gorky was a messenger at a store, a barman on a steamer, an assistant to a baker and an icon painter. The biography of Maxim Gorky is reflected by him personally in the stories "Childhood", "In people" and "My universities".

Photo of Gorky in his youth | Poetic portal

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

Alexey Peshkov, who took the pseudonym Gorky | Nostalgia

Having already become a famous writer, Alexey 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 was rather skeptical about the October Revolution. After the Civil War, Maxim Gorky, who had some disagreements with the new government, went abroad again, but in 1932 he finally returned home.

Writer

The first of the published stories by Maxim Gorky was the famous "Makar Chudra", which came out in 1892. The two-volume "Essays and Stories" brought fame to the writer. It is interesting that the circulation of these volumes was almost three times higher than 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 "The Song of the Petrel" has become a textbook. Maxim Gorky devoted a lot of time to children's literature. He wrote a number of fairy tales, for example, "Sparrow", "Samovar", "Tales of Italy", published the first special children's magazine in the Soviet Union and organized parties for children from poor families.

Legendary Soviet writer | Kiev Jewish community

The plays by Maxim Gorky “At the bottom”, “Bourgeois” and “Yegor Bulychov and others”, in which he reveals the talent of a playwright and shows how he sees the life around him, are very important for comprehending the work of the writer. The stories "Childhood" and "In People", the social novels "Mother" and "The Artamonovs Case" are of great cultural significance for Russian literature. The last work of Gorky is considered 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 manage to finish it.

Personal life

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

With his first wife Yekaterina Volzhina | Livejournal

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

With his second wife, actress Maria Andreeva | Livejournal

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 previous relationships, the actress left a daughter, Catherine, 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 came to an end.

With third wife Maria Budberg and writer HG Wells | Livejournal

Gorky himself put a point, saying 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 her acquaintances were aware that she was "spinning 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 de facto husband. There is a great chance that Maria Budberg, who had a reputation as an adventurer and unambiguously collaborated with the NKVD, could be a double agent and also work for British intelligence.

Death

After his final return to his homeland in 1932, Maxim Gorky works in publishing houses of newspapers and magazines, creates a series of books "History of Factories and Plants", "Library of the Poet", "History of the 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. At 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.

In the last years of his life | Digital library

Later, the question was raised several times that the legendary writer and his son could have been poisoned. People's Commissar Genrikh Yagoda, who was the lover of Maxim Peshkov's wife, was involved in this case. Also suspected of involvement and even. During the repressions and the consideration of the famous "Doctors' Case", three doctors were accused of including the death of Maxim Gorky.

Books by Maxim Gorky

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

Alexey Peshkov, better known by his pseudonym Maxim Gorky, is one of the most influential and famous writers of the USSR.

Childhood and adolescence

Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov was born on March 16, 1868 at. His father's name was Maxim Peshkov. He worked as a simple carpenter, and later was the head of a shipping company.

Maksim Gorky

The writer's mother, Varvara Vasilievna, died quite early of consumption. In this regard, his grandmother, Akulina Ivanovna, took up the upbringing of little Alyosha.

The life of Alexei Peshkov was not easy, so at the age of 11 he had to go to work. He was a bellboy at a grocery store, then a barman on a ship, and then an assistant to a baker and icon painter.

In such works of Gorky as Childhood, My Universities and In People, you can find a lot of details of his biography.

From childhood, Maxim Gorky was drawn to knowledge and dreamed of getting a good education.

However, attempts to enter Kazan University were unsuccessful.

Soon, due to the fact that Gorky was in a Marxist circle, he was arrested, but then still released.

In October 1888, Aleksey Maksimovich begins to work as a watchman on the railway. When the future writer turns 23, he decides to drop everything and go on a journey across.

He managed to walk all the way to the Caucasus. During his travels, Gorky received a lot of impressions that in the future will be reflected in his biography in general, and in his work in particular.

Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov

The real name of Maxim Gorky is Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov. The pseudonym “Maxim Gorky”, by which most readers know him, first appeared on September 12, 1892 in the Tiflis newspaper “Kavkaz” in the signature to the story “Makar Chudra”.

An interesting fact is that Gorky had another pseudonym with which he sometimes signed his works: Yehudiel Chlamida.

Special signs of Maxim Gorky

Abroad

Having received a certain fame, Gorky went to America, and after that - to Italy. His moves have nothing to do with politics, but are dictated exclusively by family circumstances.

In fairness, it must be said that Gorky's entire biography is permeated with constant trips abroad.

Only at the end of his life did he stop being in continuous travel.

Traveling, Gorky actively writes books of a revolutionary nature. In 1913 he returned to the Russian Empire and settled in St. Petersburg, working for various publishing houses.

It is interesting that although the writer himself had Marxist views, he was rather skeptical about the Great October Revolution.

After the end of the civil war, Peshkov again went abroad due to disagreements with the new government. Only in 1932 did he finally and irrevocably return to his homeland.

Creation

In 1892 Maxim Gorky published his famous story "Makar Chudra". However, the two-volume collection "Essays and Stories" brought him true fame.

It is curious that the circulation of his works was three times higher than the circulation of other writers. From under his pen, one after another came out the stories "The Old Woman Izergil", "Twenty-six and One", "Former People", as well as the poems "Song of the Petrel" and "Song of the Falcon".

In addition to serious stories, Maxim Gorky also wrote works for children. He owns many fairy tales. The most famous among them are "Samovar", "Tales of Italy", "Vorobishko" and many others.

Gorky and Tolstoy, 1900

As a result, Maria lived with him for 16 years, although their marriage was not officially registered. The busy schedule of the in-demand actress forced Gorky to leave for Italy and the United States of America several times.

Interestingly, before meeting with Gorky, Andreeva already had children: a son and a daughter. Their upbringing, as a rule, was the responsibility of the writer.

Immediately after the revolution, Maria Andreeva was seriously carried away by party activities. Because of this, she practically stopped paying attention to her husband and children.

As a result, in 1919, the relationship between them suffered a crushing fiasco.

Gorky openly told Andreeva that he was leaving for his secretary, Maria Budberg, with whom he would live for 13 years, and also in a "civil marriage."

Friends and relatives of the writer were aware that this secretary had a stormy romance on the side. In principle, this is understandable, because she was 24 years younger than her husband.

So, one of her lovers was the famous English writer -. After the death of Gorky, Andreeva immediately moved to Wells.

There is an opinion that Maria Budberg, who had a reputation as an adventurer and collaborated with the NKVD, could well have been a double agent (as), working for both Soviet and British intelligence.

Death of Gorky

The last years of his life, Maxim Gorky worked in various publishing houses. Everyone considered it an honor to publish such a famous and popular writer, whose authority was indisputable.

In 1934, Gorky holds the I All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, and speaks at it with the main report. His biography and literary activities are considered the benchmark for young talents.

In the same year, Gorky acts as a co-editor of the book "The Stalin White Sea-Baltic Canal". This work (see) described as "the first book in Russian literature, praising slave labor."

When Gorky's beloved son died unexpectedly, the writer's health deteriorated sharply. At the next visit to the grave of the deceased, he caught a serious cold.

For 3 weeks he was tormented by a fever, due to which he died on June 18, 1936. It was decided to cremate the body of the great proletarian writer, and place the ashes in the Kremlin wall on. An interesting fact is that before cremation, Gorky's brain was removed for scientific research.

Death Riddle

In later years, the question of the fact that Gorky was deliberately poisoned began to be raised more and more often. Among the suspects was People's Commissar Genrikh Yagoda, who was in love and had a relationship with Gorky's wife.

They were also suspected. During the period of repression and the sensational "Doctors' case", three doctors were accused of Gorky's death.

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Indeed, about the early years of Alexei Maksimovich Gorky (Peshkov) is known only from his own autobiographies (there are several versions) and works of fiction - an autobiographical trilogy: "Childhood", "In people", "My universities".

How much the "leaden abominations of the wild Russian life" described in the above-mentioned works correspond to reality, and how far they are the author's literary fiction is unknown to this day. We can only compare the texts of Gorky's early autobiographies with his other literary texts, but there is no need to talk about the reliability of this information either.

According to the recollections of Vladislav Khodasevich, Gorky once told with a laugh how one clever Nizhny Novgorod publisher of "books for the people" persuaded him to write his biography, saying: "Your life, Alexey Maksimovich, is pure money."

It seems that the writer took advantage of this advice, but left the prerogative to earn this "money".

In his first autobiography of 1897, written at the request of the literary critic and bibliographer S.A. Vengerov, M. Gorky wrote about his parents:

“The father is the son of a soldier, the mother is a bourgeois woman. Father's grandfather was an officer, demoted by Nicholas I for cruel treatment of lower ranks. He was a man so tough that my father ran from him five times from the age of ten to seventeen. The last time my father managed to run away from his family forever, he came on foot from Tobolsk to Nizhny and here he became an apprentice to a draper. Obviously, he had the ability and he was literate, for for twenty-two years the shipping company of Kolchin (now Karpova) had appointed him manager of their office in Astrakhan, where in 1873 he died of cholera, which he contracted from me. According to my grandmother's stories, my father was an intelligent, kind and very cheerful person. "

Gorky A.M. Complete Works, v. 23, p. 269

In subsequent autobiographies of the writer, there is a lot of confusion about dates and inconsistencies with documented facts. Even with the day and year of his birth, Gorky cannot be determined unambiguously. In his autobiography of 1897, he indicates the date of March 14, 1869, in the following version (1899) - "was born on March 14, either 1867, or 1868."

It has been documented that A.M. Peshkov was born on March 16 (28), 1868 in the city of Nizhny Novgorod. Father - cabinetmaker Maxim Peshkov (1839-1871), son of an officer demoted to the ranks. Mother - Varvara Vasilievna (1844-1879), nee Kashirina, daughter of a wealthy merchant, owner of a dyeing establishment, who was a shop foreman and was more than once elected a deputy of the Nizhny Novgorod Duma. Despite the fact that Gorky's parents got married against the wishes of the bride's father, the conflict between the families was soon successfully resolved. In the spring of 1871, M.S. Peshkov was appointed manager of the Kolchin shipping company, and the young family moved from Nizhny Novgorod to Astrakhan. Soon his father died of cholera, and his mother and Alexei returned to Nizhny.

The date of the death of his father and the return of his mother to the Kashirins' family, Gorky himself attributes first to the summer of 1873, then to the fall of 1871. Information about Gorky's life “in people” also differs in his autobiographies. For example, in one version, he escaped from a shoe store, where he worked as a “boy,” in another, repeated later in the story “In People” (1916), he was scalded with cabbage soup and his grandfather took him away from the shoemaker, etc., etc. . ...

In autobiographical works written by an already mature writer, in the period from 1912 to 1925, literary fiction is closely intertwined with childhood memories and early impressions of an unformed personality. As if driven by old childhood grievances, which in his entire life he was unable to survive, Gorky sometimes deliberately exaggerates the colors, adds excessive drama, trying again and again to justify the once chosen pseudonym.

In his Autobiography of 1897, the nearly thirty-year-old writer allows himself to say this about his own mother:

Did he seriously believe that an adult woman could consider a small son to be the cause of the death of a loved one? Blame the child for your uncomfortable personal life?

In the story "Childhood" (1912-1913), Gorky fulfills a clear social order of the Russian progressive society at the beginning of the twentieth century: he describes the calamities of the people in a good literary language, not forgetting to add here personal childhood grievances.

It is worth remembering with what deliberate antipathy the stepfather of Alyosha Peshkov Maksimov is described on the pages of the story, who did not give the boy anything good, but did nothing wrong either. The second marriage of the mother is unequivocally regarded by the hero of "Childhood" as a betrayal, and the writer himself did not regret any causticity or gloomy colors to describe his stepfather's relatives - impoverished nobles. Varvara Vasilievna Peshkova-Maksimova was denied even that bright, largely mythologized memory, which survived to her early deceased father, on the pages of her famous son's works.

Gorky's grandfather, everyone respected by the shop foreman V.V. Kashirin, appears before the reader at all in the form of a certain monster that can frighten disobedient children. Most likely, Vasily Vasilyevich had an explosive, despotic character and was not very pleasant in communication, but he loved his grandson in his own way, sincerely cared about his upbringing and education. The grandfather himself taught the six-year-old Alyosha, first the Church Slavonic literacy, then the modern civil one. In 1877, he sent his grandson to the Nizhny Novgorod Kunavinskoe School, where he studied until 1879, having received a certificate of commendation during the transition to the third grade for "excellent achievements in science and good demeanor." That is, the future writer graduated from two classes of school, and even with honors. In one of his autobiographies, Gorky asserts that he attended school for about five months, received only "bad marks", studies, books and any printed texts, up to a passport, he sincerely hated.

What is it? Resentment at your not so "hopeless" past? Voluntary self-deprecation or a way to assure the reader that "oranges will be born from the aspen"? The desire to present oneself as an absolute "nugget", a man who made himself, was inherent in many "proletarian" writers and poets. Even S.A. Yesenin, having received a decent education at a teacher's school, worked as a proofreader in a Moscow printing house, attended classes at the Shanyavsky People's University, but all his life, obeying political fashion, tried to present himself as an illiterate "peasant" and a redneck ...

The only bright spot against the background of the general "dark kingdom" of Gorky's autobiographical stories is his relationship with his grandmother, Akulina Ivanovna. Obviously, this illiterate, but kind and honest woman was able to completely replace in the boy's mind the mother who had “betrayed” him. She gave her grandson all her love and concern, perhaps, awakened in the soul of the future writer the desire to see the beauty behind the gray reality surrounding him.

Grandfather Kashirin soon went bankrupt: the division of the family business with his sons and subsequent failures in business led him to complete poverty. Unable to survive the blow of fate, he fell ill with mental illness. Eleven-year-old Alyosha was forced to leave school and go "to the people", that is, to learn some kind of craft.

From 1879 to 1884 he was a "boy" in a shoe store, a student in a drawing and icon painting workshops, a dishwasher in the galleys of the steamers "Perm" and "Dobry". Here an event took place, which Aleksey Maksimovich himself is inclined to consider "the starting point" on his way to Maxim Gorky: an acquaintance with a chef by the name of Smury. This remarkable cook of his kind, despite his illiteracy, was possessed by a passion for collecting books, mainly in leather bindings. The range of his "leather" collection turned out to be quite peculiar - from the Gothic novels by Anna Radcliffe and Nekrasov's poems to literature in the Little Russian language. Thanks to this, according to the writer, "the strangest library in the world" (Autobiography, 1897), Alyosha Peshkov became addicted to reading and "read everything that came to hand": Gogol, Nekrasov, Scott, Dumas, Flaubert, Balzac, Dickens, the magazines Sovremennik and Iskra, popular prints and Freemasonry literature.

However, according to Gorky himself, he began to read books much earlier. In his autobiography, there is a mention that from the age of ten the future writer kept a diary in which he recorded impressions not only from life, but also from the books he had read. Agree, it is difficult to imagine a teenager living a miserable life of a servant, a merchant, a dishwasher, but at the same time keeping a diary, reading serious literature and dreaming of going to university.

Such fantasy "inconsistencies" worthy of embodiment in the Soviet cinema of the mid-1930s ("The Bright Path", "Funny Guys", etc.) are constantly present on the pages of M. Gorky's "autobiographical" works.

In 1912-1917, even before the Glavpolitprosvet and the People's Commissariat for Education, the revolutionary writer had already firmly embarked on the path that was later called "socialist realism." He knew perfectly well what and how to display in his works in order to fit into the coming reality.

In 1884, the "tramp" Alexei Peshkov actually went to Kazan with the intention of entering a university:

How fifteen-year-old Peshkov learned about the existence of the university, why he decided that he could be admitted there is also a mystery. While living in Kazan, he communicated not only with “former people” - vagrants and prostitutes. In 1885, the baker's assistant Peshkov began attending self-education circles (more often of the Marxist sense), student gatherings, using the library of illegal books and proclamations at Derenkov's bakery, who hired him. Soon a mentor appeared - one of the first Marxists in Russia, Nikolai Fedoseev ...

And suddenly, having already groped for the "fateful" revolutionary vein, on December 12, 1887, Alexei Peshkov tries to commit suicide (he shoots himself in the lung). Some biographers find the reason for this in his unrequited love for Derenkov's sister Maria, others in the repressions that have begun against student circles. These explanations seem formal, since they do not at all fit the psychophysical makeup of Alexei Peshkov. By nature, he was a fighter, and all obstacles on the way only refreshed his strength.

Some biographers of Gorky believe that the reason for his unsuccessful suicide could be an internal struggle in the soul of a young man. Under the influence of haphazardly read books and Marxist ideas, the consciousness of the future writer was reshaped, the boy who began his life with a Church Slavonic literacy was squeezed out of him, and then the demon of rationalistic materialism fell ...

This "demon" flashed, by the way, in Alexei's farewell note:

To master the chosen path, Alexei Peshkov had to become a different person, and he became one. Here a fragment from Dostoevsky's Demons involuntarily comes to mind: “... lately he has been noticed in the most impossible oddities. For example, he threw out of his apartment two images of the master and hacked one of them with an ax; in his own room he laid out on stands, in the form of three layers, the compositions of Focht, Moleschott and Büchner, and lit wax church candles before each layer. "

For attempted suicide, the Kazan spiritual consistory excommunicated Peshkov from the Church for seven years.

In the summer of 1888, Alexei Peshkov began his famous four-year "walk across Russia" in order to return from it already as Maxim Gorky. Volga region, Don, Ukraine, Crimea, Caucasus, Kharkov, Kursk, Zadonsk (where he visited the Zadonsk monastery), Voronezh, Poltava, Mirgorod, Kiev, Nikolaev, Odessa, Bessarabia, Kerch, Taman, Kuban, Tiflis - this is an incomplete list of his travel routes ...

During his wanderings, he worked as a loader, a railway watchman, a dishwasher, laborer in the villages, mined salt, was beaten by peasants and was in the hospital, served in repair shops, and was arrested several times - for vagrancy and for revolutionary propaganda. “I water from a bucket of education with benign ideas, and those bring well-known results,” A. Peshkov wrote at that time to one of his addressees.

In the same years, Gorky experienced a fascination with populism, Tolstoyism (in 1889 he stopped by Yasnaya Polyana with the intention of asking Leo Tolstoy for a piece of land for an "agricultural colony", but their meeting did not take place), was ill with Nietzsche's teaching about the superman, which left him forever views their "pockmarks".

Start

The first story "Makar Chudra", signed with a new name - Maxim Gorky, was published in 1892 in the Tiflis newspaper "Kavkaz" and marked the end of wandering with its appearance. Gorky returned to Nizhny Novgorod. He considered Vladimir Korolenko to be his literary godfather. Under his patronage, since 1893, the aspiring writer has been publishing essays in the Volga newspapers, and a few years later he becomes a permanent employee of the Samarskaya Gazeta. More than two hundred of his feuilletons were published here, signed by Yehudiel Chlamyd, as well as the stories “Song of the Falcon,” “On the Rafts,” “Old Woman Izergil,” and others. In the editorial office of “Samara Gazeta”, Gorky met the proofreader Yekaterina Pavlovna Volzhina. Having successfully overcome the mother's resistance to the marriage of her daughter-noblewoman with the "Nizhny Novgorod guild", in 1896 Alexei Maksimovich married her.

The next year, despite the aggravated tuberculosis and worries about the birth of his son Maxim, Gorky releases new stories and short stories, most of which will become textbooks: Konovalov, Zazubrina, Fair in Goltva, Orlov's Spouses, Malva , "Former People", etc. The first two-volume edition of Gorky, "Essays and Stories" (1898), published in St. Petersburg, had unprecedented success both in Russia and abroad. The demand for it was so great that a second edition was immediately required - it was released in 1899 in three volumes. Gorky sent his first book to A.P. Chekhov, before whom he was in awe. He responded with more than a generous compliment: "The talent is undoubted, and, moreover, a real, great talent."

In the same year, the debutant came to St. Petersburg and drew a standing ovation from the capital: the enthusiastic audience held banquets and literary evenings in his honor. He was greeted by people from various camps: the populist critic Nikolai Mikhailovsky, decadents Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius, academician Andrei Nikolayevich Beketov (grandfather of Alexander Blok), Ilya Repin, who painted his portrait ... , and Gorky immediately became one of the most influential and popular Russian writers. Of course, interest in him was also fueled by the legendary biography of Gorky the tramp, Gorky the nugget, Gorky the sufferer (by this time he had already been in prison several times for revolutionary activities and was under police supervision) ...

"Master of Doom"

"Essays and Stories", as well as the writer's four-volume book "Stories", which began to appear in the publishing house "Knowledge", produced a huge critical literature - from 1900 to 1904, 91 books about Gorky were published! Neither Turgenev, nor Leo Tolstoy, nor Dostoevsky had such fame during their lifetime. What is the reason?

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, against the background of decadence (decadence), as a reaction to it, two powerful magnetic ideas began to take root: the cult of a strong personality, inspired by Nietzsche, and the socialist reorganization of the world (Marx). These were the ideas of the era. And Gorky, walking all over Russia on foot, felt the rhythms of his time and the smells of new ideas floating in the air with an ingenious instinct of the beast. Gorky's artistic word, going beyond the limits of art, “opened a new dialogue with reality” (Pyotr Palievsky). The innovative writer introduced into literature an offensive style unusual for Russian classics, designed to invade reality and radically change life. He also brought in a new hero - "a talented spokesman for the protesting masses," as the newspaper Iskra wrote. The heroic and romantic parables "The Old Woman Izergil", "The Song of the Falcon", "The Song of the Petrel" (1901) became revolutionary appeals in the rising proletarian movement. Critics of the previous generation accused Gorky of an apology for vagabondage, of preaching Nietzsche's individualism. But they argued with the will of history itself, and therefore lost this dispute.

In 1900, Gorky joined the publishing association "Knowledge" and for ten years was its ideological leader, rallying around himself the writers whom he considered "advanced." With his submission, books by Serafimovich, Leonid Andreev, Bunin, Wanderer, Garin-Mikhailovsky, Veresaev, Mamin-Sibiryak, Kuprin and others were published here. Public work did not slow down creative work at all: the magazine Life published the story “Twenty-six and one” ( 1899), the novels "Foma Gordeev" (1899), "Three" (1900-1901).

On February 25, 1902, thirty-four-year-old Gorky was elected an honorary academician in the category of fine literature, but the elections were invalidated. Suspecting the Academy of Sciences in collusion with the authorities, Korolenko and Chekhov, in protest, renounced the title of honorary academicians.

In 1902 "Knowledge" published the first play of Gorky "Bourgeois" as a separate edition, which premiered in the same year at the famous Moscow Art Theater (Moscow Art Theater), six months later the triumphant premiere of the play "At the Bottom" took place here. The play "Dachniki" (1904) was performed a few months later at the fashionable St. Petersburg theater of Vera Komissarzhevskaya. Subsequently, new plays by Gorky were staged on the same stage: Children of the Sun (1905) and Barbarians (1906).

Gorky in the 1905 revolution

Strenuous creative work did not prevent the writer from drawing closer to the Bolsheviks and Iskra before the first Russian revolution. Gorky arranged for them to collect funds and himself made generous donations to the party treasury. In this affection, apparently, one of the most beautiful actresses of the Moscow Art Theater Maria Fedorovna Andreeva, a convinced Marxist closely associated with the RSDLP, played an important role. In 1903 she became Gorky's common-law wife. She also led to the Bolsheviks and the patron of the arts Savva Morozov, her ardent admirer and admirer of M. Gorky's talent. A wealthy Moscow industrialist who financed the Moscow Art Theater, he began to release significant sums for the revolutionary movement. In 1905, Savva Morozov shot himself in Nice on the basis of a mental disorder. Nemirovich-Danchenko explained it this way: “Human nature cannot stand two equal opposite passions. The merchant ... must be true to his element "... The image of Savva Morozov and his strange suicide are reflected in the pages of the late novel by M. Gorky "The Life of Klim Samgin".

Gorky took an active part in the events of January 8-9, 1905, which still have not found their intelligible historical version. It is known that on the night of January 9, the writer, together with a group of intellectuals, visited the Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers S.Yu. Witte to prevent the impending bloodshed. The question arises: how did Gorky know that there would be bloodshed? The workers' march was originally planned as a peaceful demonstration. But martial law was introduced in the capital, at the same time G.A. himself was hiding in Gorky's apartment. Gapon ...

Together with a group of Bolsheviks, Maxim Gorky took part in the workers' march to the Winter Palace and witnessed the dispersal of the demonstration. On the same day, he wrote an appeal "To all Russian citizens and public opinion of European states." The writer accused the ministers and Nicholas II "of the premeditated and senseless murder of many Russian citizens." What could the unfortunate monarch oppose to the power of Gorky's artistic word? To justify their absence in the capital? Shifting the blame for the shooting on your uncle - the St. Petersburg Governor-General? Largely thanks to Gorky, Nicholas II received his nickname Bloody, the authority of the monarchy in the eyes of the people was undermined forever, and the "petrel of revolution" acquired the status of a human rights defender and fighter for the people. Given Gorky's early awareness of the upcoming events, it all looks strange and resembles a carefully planned provocation ...

On January 11, Gorky was arrested in Riga, taken to Petersburg and imprisoned in a separate cell of the Trubetskoy bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress as a state criminal. For a month spent alone, he wrote the play "Children of the Sun", conceived the novel "Mother" and the play "Enemies". Gerhard Hauptmann, Anatole France, Auguste Rodin, Thomas Hardy and others immediately spoke up in defense of the captured Gorky. European noise forced the government to release him and terminate the "amnesty" case.

Returning to Moscow, Gorky began publishing his Notes on the Bourgeoisie (1905) in the Bolshevik newspaper Novaya Zhizn, in which he condemned Dostoyevism and Tolstoyism, calling the preaching of non-resistance to evil and the moral improvement of the philistine. During the December uprising of 1905, Gorky's Moscow apartment, guarded by a Caucasian squad, became the center where weapons for military units were brought and all information was delivered.

First emigration

After the suppression of the Moscow uprising due to the threat of a new arrest in early 1906, Gorky and Andreeva emigrated to America, where they began collecting money for the Bolsheviks. Gorky protested against the granting of foreign loans to the tsarist government to fight the revolution by publishing an appeal "Do not give money to the Russian government." The United States, which does not allow itself any liberalism when it comes to defending its statehood, launched a newspaper campaign against Gorky as the carrier of the "revolutionary infection." The reason was his unofficial marriage with Andreeva. Not a single hotel agreed to accept Gorky and the people accompanying him. He settled, thanks to a letter of recommendation from the Executive Committee of the RSDLP and a personal note from Lenin, with private individuals.

During his tour of America, Gorky spoke at rallies, gave interviews, met Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, and other famous figures with whose help public opinion about the tsarist government was created. He managed to raise only 10 thousand dollars for revolutionary needs, but the more serious result of his trip was the refusal of the United States to provide Russia with a loan of half a billion dollars. In the same place, Gorky wrote the publicistic works "My Interviews" and "In America" (which he called the country of the "yellow devil"), as well as the play "Enemies" and the novel "Mother" (1906). In the last two things (Soviet critics have long called them "the artistic lessons of the first Russian revolution"), many Russian writers saw "the end of Gorky."

“What kind of literature is this! - wrote Zinaida Gippius. "Not even a revolution, but the Russian Social Democratic Party, chewed Gorky without a trace." Alexander Blok rightly called "Mother" - artistically weak, and "My Interviews" - flat and uninteresting.

Six months later, Maxim Gorky left the United States and settled on the basis of Capri (Italy), where he lived until 1913. Gorky's Italian house became a refuge for many Russian political emigrants and a place of pilgrimage for his admirers. In 1909, a party school was organized on Capri for workers sent from Russia by party organizations. Gorky lectured here on the history of Russian literature. Lenin also came to visit Gorky, with whom the writer met at the 5th (London) Congress of the RSDLP and since then has been in correspondence. At that time, Gorky was closer to Plekhanov and Lunacharsky, who presented Marxism as a new religion with a revelation about the "real God" - the proletarian collective. In this they were at odds with Lenin, in whom the word "God" in all interpretations aroused rage.

In Capri, in addition to a huge number of publicistic works, Gorky wrote the stories "The Life of an Unnecessary Man", "Confession" (1908), "Summer" (1909), "Okurov Town", "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin" (1910), the plays "The Last "(1908)," Meeting "(1910)," Freaks "," Vassa Zheleznova "(1910), the cycle of stories" Complaints ", the autobiographical story" Childhood "(1912-1913), as well as stories that will later be included in the cycle "Across Russia" (1923). In 1911, Gorky began working on the satire Russian Fairy Tales (finished in 1917), in which he exposed the Black Hundreds, chauvinism, and decadence.

Return to Russia

In 1913, in connection with the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov, a political amnesty was announced. Gorky returned to Russia. Having settled in St. Petersburg, he began a large publishing activity, which overshadowed artistic creation to the background. Publishes Collection of Proletarian Writers (1914), organizes the Parus publishing house, publishes the Letopis magazine, which from the very beginning of World War I took an anti-militarist position and opposed the "world massacre" - here Gorky converged with the Bolsheviks. The list of employees of the magazine included writers of various directions: Bunin, Trenev, Prishvin, Lunacharsky, Eikhenbaum, Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Babel and others. At the same time, the second part of his autobiographical prose "In People" (1916) was written.

1917 and the second emigration

In 1917, Gorky's views sharply diverged from those of the Bolsheviks. He considered the October coup to be a political adventure and published in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn a series of essays on the events of 1917-1918, where he painted terrible pictures of the savagery of morals in Petrograd, seized by the Red Terror. In 1918, the sketches were published in a separate edition, Untimely Thoughts. Notes on the Revolution and Culture ". The newspaper Novaya Zhizn was immediately closed down by the authorities as counter-revolutionary. Gorky himself was not touched: the glory of the "petrel of the revolution" and his personal acquaintance with Lenin allowed him, as they say, to open the door with his foot to the offices of all high-ranking comrades. In August 1918, Gorky organized the World Literature publishing house, which, in the most hungry years, fed many Russian writers with translations and editorial work. On the initiative of Gorky, a Commission was created to improve the life of scientists.

As Vladislav Khodasevich testifies, in these difficult times there was a crowd in Gorky's apartment from morning to night:

Only once did the memoirist see how Gorky refused a request to the clown Delvari, who asked the writer to become the godfather of his child. This contradicted the diligently created image of the "petrel of the revolution," and Gorky was not going to spoil his biography.

Against the background of the growing red terror, the writer's skeptical attitude to the possibility of "building socialism and communism" in Russia deepened. His authority among the political bosses began to decline, especially after a quarrel with the all-powerful commissar of the Northern capital G.E. Zinoviev. Gorky's dramatic satire "The Worker Slovotekov", staged at the Petrograd Theater of the People's Comedy in 1920 and immediately banned by the prototype of the protagonist, was directed against him.

On October 16, 1921, Maxim Gorky left Russia. At first he lived in Germany and Czechoslovakia, and in 1924 he settled in a villa in Sorrento (Italy). His position was ambiguous: on the one hand, he rather sharply criticized the Soviet government for violating freedom of speech and prohibitions on dissent, and on the other, he opposed the absolute majority of Russian political emigration with his adherence to the idea of socialism.

At this time, the sovereign mistress of the Gorky house was the "Russian Mata-Hari" - Maria Ignatievna Benkendorf (later Baroness Budberg). According to Khodasevich, it was Maria Ignatievna who persuaded Gorky to reconcile with Soviet Russia. Not surprising: she, as it turned out, was an agent of the INO OGPU.

Bitter with his son

Under Gorky, his son Maxim lived with his family, surely someone was visiting - Russian emigrants and Soviet leaders, eminent foreigners and admirers of talent, petitioners and novice writers, fugitives from Soviet Russia and just wanderers. Judging by many recollections, Gorky never denied anyone financial assistance. Only large circulations of Russian publications could provide sufficient funds to support Gorky's home and family. In emigration, even such figures as Denikin and Wrangel could not count on large circulations. The "proletarian" writer could not quarrel with the Soviets.

During his second emigration, artistic memoirism became the leading genre of Gorky. He completed the third part of his autobiography "My Universities", memoirs about V.G. Korolenko, L.N. Tolstoy, L.N. Andreev, A.P. Chekhov, N.G. Garine-Mikhailovsky, and others. In 1925, Gorky finished the novel The Artamonovs Case and began work on the grandiose epic The Life of Klim Samgin, about the Russian intelligentsia at a turning point in Russian history. Despite the fact that this work remained unfinished, many critics consider it central to the writer's work.

In 1928, Maxim Gorky returned to his homeland. We met him with great honor. At the state level, his tour of the Soviet country was organized: the South of Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Volga region, new construction projects, the Solovetsky camps ... All this made a tremendous impression on Gorky, which was reflected in his book "On the Union of Soviets" (1929) In Moscow, to a writer the famous Ryabushinsky mansion was allocated for housing, for recreation - summer cottages in the Crimea and near Moscow (Gorki), for trips to Italy and Crimea - a special carriage. Numerous renaming of streets and cities began (Nizhny Novgorod was named Gorky), on December 1, 1933, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Maxim Gorky's literary activity, the first Literary Institute in Russia named after him was opened. On the initiative of the writer, the magazines "Our Achievements", "Literary Studies" were organized, the famous series "The Library of the Poet" was created, the Writers' Union was formed, etc.

The last years of Maxim Gorky's life, as well as the death of his son and the death of the writer himself, are fanned with all kinds of rumors, guesses and legends. Today, when many documents have been opened, it became known that after returning to his homeland, Gorky was under the strict tutelage of the GPU, headed by G.G. Berry. Gorky's secretary P.P. Kryuchkov, associated with the authorities, conducted all his publishing and financial affairs, trying to isolate the writer from the Soviet and world community, since Gorky did not like everything in the "new life". In May 1934, his beloved son Maxim died under mysterious circumstances.

A.M. Gorky and G.G. Berry

In his memoirs, Khodasevich recalls that back in 1924, through Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, Maxim was invited to return to Russia by Felix Dzerzhinsky, offering work in his department. together with others - but I feel sorry for this fool. "

The same V. Khodasevich also expressed his version of the murder of Maxim: he believed that the reason for this was Yagoda's love for Maxim's beautiful wife (rumors about their relationship after Maxim's death circulated among the Russian emigration). The son of Gorky, who loved to drink, seemed to be deliberately left drunk in the forest by his drinking companions - the GPU employees. The night was cold, and Maxim died of a severe cold. This death finally undermined the strength of his sick father.

Alexei Maksimovich Gorky died on July 18, 1936, at the age of 68, from a long-standing lung disease, but was soon declared a victim of the "Trotskyite-Bukharin conspiracy." A high-profile trial was opened against the doctors who treated the writer ... Much later, his last "love", the GPU-NKVD agent Maria Ignatievna Budberg, was accused of poisoning the elderly Gorky. Why could the NKVD need to poison an already half-dead writer? No one has answered this question clearly.

In conclusion, I would like to add that some researchers of Gorky's work believe that the "negative" Luke from the play "At the Bottom" - the "evil old man" with his consoling lies - this is the subconscious "I" of Gorky himself. Alexey Maksimovich loved, like most writers of that difficult era, to indulge in exalting deceptions in life. It is no coincidence that Luka is so fervently defended by the "positive" tramp Sateen: "I understand the old man ... yes! He lied ... but - it's out of pity for you, damn you! "

Yes, the "most realistic writer" and "petrel of the revolution" lied more than once, rewriting and altering the facts of his own biography for political purposes. The writer and publicist Gorky lied even more, overestimating and "distorting" indisputable facts from the history of the great country in a new way. Was this a lie dictated by pity for humanity? Rather, the very uplifting self-deception that allows the artist to create great masterpieces from ordinary dirt ...