Back Maksim Gorki Afrikaans ማክሲም ጎርኪ Amharic Maxim Gorki AN مكسيم غوركي Arabic مكسيم جوركى ARZ মেক্সিম গৰ্কী Assamese Máximo Gorki AST Maksim Gorki Aymara Maksim Qorki Azerbaijani ماکسیم قورکی AZB
Maxim Gorky | |
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 Gorky in 1926 | |
| Native name | Максим Горький |
| Born | Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia |
| Died | 18 June 1936 (aged 68) Gorki-10, Moscow Oblast, Soviet Union |
| Resting place | Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow |
| Pen name | Maxim Gorky |
| Occupation |
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| Language | Russian |
| Period | Modern |
| Genres | |
| Literary movement |
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| Years active | 1892–1936 |
| Notable works | The Lower Depths (1902) Mother (1906) My Childhood. In the World. My Universities (1913–1923) The Life of Klim Samgin (1925–1936) |
| Notable awards | Griboyedov Prize (1903, 1904) |
| Signature | |
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Alexei Maximovich Peshkov[a] (Russian: Алексей Максимович Пешков;[b] 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868 – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (/ɡɔːrki/; Максим Горький), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism.[1] He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[2] Before his success as an author, he travelled widely across the Russian Empire, changing jobs frequently; these experiences would later influence his writing. He associated with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, both mentioned by Gorky in his memoirs.
Gorky was active in the emerging Marxist socialist movement and later supported the Bolsheviks. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. During World War I, Gorky supported pacifism and internationalism and anti-war protests. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia and later the Soviet Union, being critical both of Tsarism and of the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War and the 1920s, condemning the latter for political repressions. In 1928 he returned to the USSR on Joseph Stalin's personal invitation and lived there from 1932 until his death in June 1936. After his return he was officially declared the "founder of Socialist Realism". Despite this, Gorky's relations with the Soviet regime were rather difficult: while being Stalin's public supporter, he maintained friendships with Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharin, the leaders of the anti-Stalin opposition executed after Gorky's death; he also hoped to ease the Soviet cultural policies and made some efforts to defend the writers who disobeyed them, which resulted in him spending his last days under unannounced house arrest.[3][4]
Gorky's most famous works are his early short stories written in the 1890s (such as "Chelkash", "Old Izergil", and "Twenty-six Men and a Girl"), the play The Lower Depths, his fictional autobiographical trilogy, My Childhood, In the World, My Universities (1913–1923), and the novel Mother (1906). Gorky himself judged some of these works as failures, and Mother has been frequently criticized; Gorky thought of Mother as one of his biggest failures.[5] However, there have been warmer appraisals of some of his lesser-known post-revolutionary works such as the novels The Artamonov Business (1925) and The Life of Klim Samgin (1925–1936); the latter is considered by some as Gorky's masterpiece and has been viewed by some critics as a modernist work.[6][7] Unlike his pre-revolutionary writings (known for their "anti-psychologism") Gorky's later works differ, with an ambivalent portrayal of the Russian Revolution and interest to human psychology.[8] Despite the opinions of the critics and scholars, it has been noted that his image and his literary legacy have been greatly compromised by his political career; many of his major works, including the post-revolutionary novels mentioned above, have remained largely unknown in the West.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
- ^ Liukkonen, Petri. "Maxim Gorky". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 6 July 2009.
- ^ "Nomination Database". The Nobel Prize. Archived from the original on 28 June 2018. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
- ^ Время Горького и проблемы истории: Горький. Материалы и исследования ". Выпуск 14. 2018, ИМЛИ РАН
- ^ Dege, Stefan (28 March 2018). "A portrait of Russian writer Maxim Gorky". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
- ^ "Мать". Рассказы. Очерк. 1906—1910. Полное собрание сочинений. Художественные произведения в 25 томах (in Russian). Vol. Том 8. Moscow: Nauka. 1970.
- ^ Freeborn 1982, p. 178.
- ^ Egorova, L. P.; Fokin, A. A.; Ivanova, I. N.; et al. (2014). L. P. Egorova (ed.). История русской литературы XX века (первая половина): в 2 кн. Кн. 1: Общие вопросы [History of Russian Literature of the 20th Century. The first half: In 2 books. Book 1: General questions] (PDF) (Textbook) (in Russian) (2nd ed.). Moscow: Flinta. ISBN 978-5-9765-1834-6.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Mirsky, D. S. (1925). Contemporary Russian Literature, 1881–1925. p. 120. Archived from the original on 1 October 2021.