Maxim Gorky Biography and List of Works

Russian short story writer, novelist, auto biographer and essayist, who ended his long career as the pre-eminent spokesman for culture under the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin. Gorky formulated the central principles of Socialist Realism, which became doctrine in Soviet literature. The rough, socially conscious naturalism of Gorky was described by Chekhov as 'a destroyer bound to destroy everything that deserved destruction.'

"There were twenty-six of us - twenty-six living machines locked in a damp basement where, from dawn to dusk, we kneaded dough for making into biscuits and pretzels. The window of our basement looked out onto a ditch dug in front of them and lined with brick that was green from damp; the windows were covered outside in fine wire netting and sunlight could not reach us through the flour-covered panes. Our boss had put the wire netting there so we could not give hand-outs of his bread to beggars or those comrades of ours who were without work and starving."
(from 'Twenty-Six Men and a Girl', 1899)

Maxim Gorky (also written Maxim Gor'kii) was born in Ninzhni Novgorod (later named 'Gorky' in his honour). He lost his parents at an early age, and experienced the deprivations of a poverty-stricken childhood. The most important person in Gorky's life in those years was his grandmother, whose fondness for literature and compassion for the downtrodden influenced him deeply. Gorky received little education but he was endowed with an astonishing memory. He left home at the age of 12, and followed from one profession to another, working in shops and on the Volga River steamers. Later Gorky used later material from his wandering years in his works. In 1884 he failed to enter Kazan University, and in the late 1880s he was arrested for revolutionary activities.

After travels through Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the Crimea Tiflis (late Tbilisi), Gorky published his first literary work, 'Makar Chudra' (1892), a short story. 'Chelkash', the story of a harbour thief, gained an immediate success. He started to write for newspapers, and his first book, the 3-volume Sketches and Stories (1898-1899), established his reputation as a writer. Gorky wrote with sympathy and optimism about the gypsies, hobos and down-and-outs and he started to attack the society that caused the hardships.

Gorky was literary editor of Zhizn from 1899 and editor of Znanie publishing house in St. Petersburg from 1900. He became involved in a secret printing press and was temporarily exiled to Arzamas, central Russia in 1902. In the same year he was elected to the Russian Academy, but election was declared invalid by the government and several members of the Academy resigned in protest.

In his early writing career Gorky became friends with Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, and Vladimir Lenin. Because of his political activism, Gorky was constantly in trouble with the tsarist's authorities. He joined the Social Democratic party's left wing, headed by Lenin. In 1906 Gorky settled in Capri. During his visit to America to raise funds for the Bolshevik cause, Gorky wrote greater part of his classic novel, The Mother, which appeared in 1906-1907. Its heroine, Pelageia Nilovna, adopts the cause of socialism in a religious spirit after her son's arrest as a political activist. Pelageia's husband is a drunkard and her only consolation is her religious faith. Pelageia's husband dies, and her son Pavel changes from a thug to socialist role model and starts to bring his revolutionary friends to the house. Pavel is arrested on May Day for carrying a forbidden banner. While continuing to believe in Christ's words, she joins revolutionaries, and is betrayed by a police spy. Gorky based her character on a real person, Anna Zalomova, who had travelled the country distributing revolutionary pamphlets after her son had been arrested during a demonstration. The novel was later dramatized by Bertold Brecht.

In 1913 Gorky returned to Russia, and helped to found the first Workers' and Peasants' University, the Petrograd Theatre, and the World Literature Publishing House. The first part of his acclaimed autobiographical trilogy, My Childhood, appeared in 1913-14. After Russian revolution Gorky enjoyed protected status, although in 1918 his protests against Bolsheviks dictatorial methods were silenced by Lenin's order.

"To an old man any place that's warm is homeland."

Dissatisfaction with the communist regime lead to his voluntary exile during the 1920s. Gorky spent three years at various German and Czech spas, and was editor of Dialogue in Berlin (1923-25). On Capri in the 1920s Gorky wrote his best novel, The Artamov Business (1925), dealing with three generations of a pre-revolutionary merchant family. Gorky's essay ' V.I.Lenin' was written immediately after Lenin's death. The author expressed in it his great admiration for the Revolution leader and gave a lively account of their discussions in Paris and Capri. "You're an enigma," he once said to me with a chuckle. "You seem to be a good realist in literature, but a romantic where people are concerned. You think everybody is a victim of history, don't you? We know history and we say to the sacrificial victims; 'overthrow the altars, shatter the temples, and drive the gods out!' Yet you would like to convince me that a militant party of the working class is obliged to make the intellectuals comfortable, first and foremost."

In 1924-25 Gorky lived in Sorrento and returned in 1931 to Russia. He founded a number of journals and became head of the Writers' Union. Gorky died suddenly in country home near Moscow on June 18, 1936. Rumours have lived ever since that he may have been assassinated on Joseph Stalin orders. Yagoda, Stalin's secret police chief during the great purges of 1936-38, made a "confession" at his own trial in 1938, that he had ordered Gorky's death. The author was buried in the Red Square and Stalin started earnest his Show Trials.

As an essayist Gorky dealt with wide range of subjects. Underlying most of Gorky's essays is a strong humanistic thrust and political commitment to bolshevism. In Notes on the Bourgeois Mentality he accuses the bourgeoisie of self-absorption and concern only with its own comfort. On the Russian Peasantry sees peasants as resistant to the new social order and City of the Yellow Devil, written in New York, condemns American capitalism. On the other hand Gorky early opposed Bolsheviks, criticizing their use of violence against their fellow men. Among Gorky's important essays are biographical sketches of such writers as Tolstoy, Leonid Andreev and Anton Chechov.

Dvadsat' shest' i odna (1899, Twenty-Six Men and a Girl) - a story of lost ideals. The story is set in semi-basement workshop where twenty-six jobbing bakers works all day. Their only joy and bright spot in the darkness of their lives is 16-year old Tania, who works in the same building. A handsome ex-soldier, one of the master bakers, boasts of his success with women. He is challenged to seduce Tania. When Tania succumbs she is mocked by the men, who have lost their ideal. Tania curses them and walks away, and is never again seen in the basement.

For further reading: Letopis' zhiznii i tvorchestva A.M. Gor'kogo (1958-59, 3 vols.); Maxim Gorky: Romatic Realist and Conservative Revolutionary by Richard Hare (1962); Gorky: His Literary Development and Influence on Soviet Intellectual Life by Irwin Weil (1966); Stormy Petrel: the Life and Work of Maxim Gorki by D. Levin (1967); by F.M. Borras (1967); The Bridge and the Abyss: The Troubled Friendship of Maxim Gorky and V.I.Lenin by Bertram D. Wolfe (1967); Maxim Gorky by Barry P. Scherr (1988); Gorky by Henri Troyat (1989); The Early Fiction of Maxim Gorky by Andrew Barratt (1993); File on Gorky, ed. by Cynthia Marsh (1993); The KGB's Literary Archive by Vitaly Shentalinsky (1995) - See also: Isaak Babel, Ivan Bunin

MAKAR CHUDRA, (1892)