Maxim Gorky Manuscript A Night's Lodgings. Translated By Edwin Hopkins Original

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US, Item: 176284773296 MAXIM GORKY MANUSCRIPT A NIGHT'S LODGINGS. TRANSLATED BY EDWIN HOPKINS ORIGINAL. Subject: available Author: GORKY, MAXIM. Title: A NIGHT'S LODGINGS. TRANSLATED BY EDWIN HOPKINS. Publisher: ORIGINAL TYPED MANUSCRIPT. Description: ORIGINAL TYPED MANUSCRIPT WITH AN ACCOMPANYING HANDWRITTEN 2 PAGE DESCRIPTION OF THE CAST OF CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY SIGNED BY THE TRANSLATOR AND DATED JAN. 18TH, 1918 . INCLUDED IS THE PLAY AS IT WAS PUBLISHED IN POET-LORE MAGAZINE, BOSTON, WINTER, 1905. THE MANUSCRIPT IS BOUND IN THE UNIFORM WRAPPERS OF THE PLAYWRIGHTS' LEAGUE, NEW YORK. ORIGINAL MSS. 4 to., 87 pages on rectos only; typed ribbon copy with copious red underlinings; loosely inserted are 2 8vo pages of holograph notes in Hopkins' hand regarding the premiere performance of the piece at the Irving Place Theatre in New York on Jan. 1st, 1918. These notes describe the characters at length and were presumably for program notes. Bound in at the rear is the special Winter Number of Poet Lore Magazine, Boston, 1905, printing this adaptation of Gorky's play. Bound in stiff wrappers with brass brads, and bearing the label of the Playwright's League, New York; the label titled and signed by Hopkins with his 127b West 40th St. address. Wrappers worn at the edges and duty; internally very good to fine, with a few pages soiled or dog-eared. Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, popularly known as Maxim Gorky, was a Russian and Soviet writer and socialist political thinker and proponent. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (Russian: Алексей Максимович Пешков;[a] 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868 – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (Максим Горький), was a Russian and Soviet writer and socialist political thinker and proponent.[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, experiences which would later influence his writing. Gorky's most famous works are his early short stories, written in the 1890s ("Chelkash", "Old Izergil", and "Twenty-six Men and a Girl"); plays The Philistines (1901), The Lower Depths (1902) and Children of the Sun (1905); a poem, "The Song of the Stormy Petrel" (1901); his autobiographical trilogy, My Childhood, In the World, My Universities (1913–1923); and a novel, Mother (1906). Gorky himself judged some of these works as failures, and Mother has been frequently criticized; Gorky himself thought of Mother as one of his biggest failures.[3] 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. Unlike his pre-revolutionary writings (known for their "anti-psychologism") Gorky's later works differ, with an ambivalent portrayal of the Russian Revolution and "unmodern interest to human psychology" (as noted by D. S. Mirsky).[4] He had associations with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, both mentioned by Gorky in his memoirs. Gorky was active in the emerging Marxist communist movement and later the Bolshevik. 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. For a significant part of his life he was exiled from Russia and later the Soviet Union (USSR). In 1932 he returned to the USSR on Joseph Stalin's personal invitation and lived there 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. Modern scholars consider his ideology of God-Building as distinct from the official Marxism–Leninism and his work fits uneasily under the "Socialist Realist" label. Gorky's work still has a controversial reputation because of his political biography, although in recent years his works have returned to European stages and have been republished.[5] Life Early years "Ex Libris Maxim Gorki" bookplate from his personal library depicts the unchained Prometheus rising from the pages of a book, crushing a multi-tailed whip and shooing away black crows. Saint Basil's Cathedral is portrayed in the background Born as Alexei Maximovich Peshkov on 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod, Gorky became an orphan at the age of eleven. He was brought up by his maternal grandmother[1] and ran away from home at the age of twelve in 1880. After an attempt at suicide in December 1887 he travelled on foot across the Russian Empire for five years, changing jobs and accumulating impressions used later in his writing.[1] As a journalist working for provincial newspapers he wrote under the pseudonym Иегудиил Хламида (Jehudiel Khlamida).[6] He started using the pseudonym "Gorky" (from горький; literally "bitter") in 1892, when his first short story, "Makar Chudra", was published by the newspaper Kavkaz (The Caucasus) in Tiflis where he spent several weeks doing menial jobs, mostly for the Caucasian Railway workshops.[7][8][9] The name reflected his simmering anger about life in Russia and a determination to speak the bitter truth. Gorky's first book Очерки и рассказы (Essays and Stories) in 1898 enjoyed a sensational success and his career as a writer began. Gorky wrote incessantly, viewing literature less as an aesthetic practice (though he worked hard on style and form) than as a moral and political act that could change the world. He described the lives of people in the lowest strata and on the margins of society, revealing their hardships, humiliations, and brutalisation, but also their inner spark of humanity.[1] Political and literary development Anton Chekhov and Gorky. 1900, Yalta Gorky's reputation grew as a unique literary voice from the bottom stratum of society and as a fervent advocate of Russia's social, political, and cultural transformation. By 1899, he was openly associating with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement, which helped make him a celebrity among both the intelligentsia and the growing numbers of "conscious" workers. At the heart of all his work was a belief in the inherent worth and potential of the human person. In his writing, he counterposed individuals, aware of their natural dignity, and inspired by energy and will, with people who succumb to the degrading conditions of life around them. Both his writings and his letters reveal a "restless man" (a frequent self-description) struggling to resolve contradictory feelings of faith and scepticism, love of life and disgust at the vulgarity and pettiness of the human world.[citation needed] In 1916, Gorky said that the teachings of the ancient Jewish sage Hillel the Elder deeply influenced his life: "In my early youth I read...the words of...Hillel, if I remember rightly: 'If thou art not for thyself, who will be for thee? But if thou art for thyself alone, wherefore art thou'? The inner meaning of these words impressed me with their profound wisdom...The thought ate its way deep into my soul, and I say now with conviction: Hillel's wisdom served as a strong staff on my road, which was neither even nor easy. I believe that Jewish wisdom is more all-human and universal than any other; and this not only because of its immemorial age...but because of the powerful humaneness that saturates it, because of its high estimate of man."[10] He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime and was arrested many times. Gorky befriended many revolutionaries and became a personal friend of Vladimir Lenin after they met in 1902. He exposed governmental control of the press (see Matvei Golovinski affair). In 1902, Gorky was elected an honorary Academician of Literature, but Tsar Nicholas II ordered this annulled. In protest, Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Korolenko left the academy.[11] Leo Tolstoy with Gorky in Yasnaya Polyana, 1900 From 1900 to 1905, Gorky's writings became more optimistic. He became more involved in the opposition movement, for which he was again briefly imprisoned in 1901. In 1904, having severed his relationship with the Moscow Art Theatre in the wake of conflict with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, Gorky returned to Nizhny Novgorod to establish a theatre of his own.[b] Both Konstantin Stanislavski and Savva Morozov provided financial support for the venture.[13] Stanislavski believed that Gorky's theatre was an opportunity to develop the network of provincial theatres which he hoped would reform the art of the stage in Russia, a dream of his since the 1890s.[13] He sent some pupils from the Art Theatre School—as well as Ioasaf Tikhomirov, who ran the school—to work there.[13] By the autumn, however, after the censor had banned every play that the theatre proposed to stage, Gorky abandoned the project.[13] As a financially successful author, editor, and playwright, Gorky gave financial support to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), as well as supporting liberal appeals to the government for civil rights and social reform. The brutal shooting of workers marching to the Tsar with a petition for reform on 9 January 1905 (known as the "Bloody Sunday"), which set in motion the Revolution of 1905, seems to have pushed Gorky more decisively toward radical solutions. He became closely associated with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the party, with Bogdanov taking responsibility for the transfer of funds from Gorky to Vpered.[14] It is not clear whether he ever formally joined, and his relations with Lenin and the Bolsheviks would always be rocky. His most influential writings in these years were a series of political plays, most famously The Lower Depths (1902). While briefly imprisoned in Peter and Paul Fortress during the abortive 1905 Russian Revolution, Gorky wrote the play Children of the Sun, nominally set during an 1862 cholera epidemic, but universally understood to relate to present-day events. He was released from the prison after a European-wide campaign, which was supported by Marie Curie, Auguste Rodin and Anatole France, amongst others.[15] Gorky assisted the Moscow uprising of 1905, and after its suppression his apartment was raided by the Black Hundreds. He subsequently fled to Lake Saimaa, Finland.[16] In 1906, the Bolsheviks sent him on a fund-raising trip to the United States with Ivan Narodny. When visiting the Adirondack Mountains, Gorky wrote Мать (Mat', Mother), his notable novel of revolutionary conversion and struggle. His experiences in the United States—which included a scandal over his travelling with his lover (the actress Maria Andreyeva) rather than his wife—deepened his contempt for the "bourgeois soul". Capri years Between 1909–1911 Gorky lived on the island of Capri in the burgundy-coloured "Villa Behring". From 1906 to 1913, Gorky lived on the island of Capri in southern Italy, partly for health reasons and partly to escape the increasingly repressive atmosphere in Russia.[1] He continued to support the work of Russian social-democracy, especially the Bolsheviks and invited Anatoly Lunacharsky to stay with him on Capri. The two men had worked together on Literaturny Raspad which appeared in 1908. It was during this period that Gorky, along with Lunacharsky, Bogdanov and Vladimir Bazarov developed the idea of an Encyclopedia of Russian History as a socialist version of Diderot's Encyclopédie. In 1906, Maxim Gorky visited New York City at the invitation of Mark Twain and other writers. An invitation to the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt was withdrawn after the New York World reported that the woman accompanying Gorky was not his wife.[17] After this was revealed all of the hotels in Manhattan refused to house the couple, and they had to stay at an apartment in Staten Island.[16] During a visit to Switzerland, Gorky met Lenin, who he charged spent an inordinate amount of his time feuding with other revolutionaries, writing: "He looked awful. Even his tongue seemed to have turned grey".[18] Despite his atheism,[19] Gorky was not a materialist.[20] Most controversially, he articulated, along with a few other maverick Bolsheviks, a philosophy he called "God-Building" (богостроительство, bogostroitel'stvo),[1] which sought to recapture the power of myth for the revolution and to create religious atheism that placed collective humanity where God had been and was imbued with passion, wonderment, moral certainty, and the promise of deliverance from evil, suffering, and even death. Though 'God-Building' was ridiculed by Lenin, Gorky retained his belief that "culture"—the moral and spiritual awareness of the value and potential of the human self—would be more critical to the revolution's success than political or economic arrangements. Return from exile An amnesty granted for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty allowed Gorky to return to Russia in 1914, where he continued his social criticism, mentored other writers from the common people, and wrote a series of important cultural memoirs, including the first part of his autobiography.[1][21] On returning to Russia, he wrote that his main impression was that "everyone is so crushed and devoid of God's image." The only solution, he repeatedly declared, was "culture". After the February Revolution, Gorky visited the headquarters of the Okhrana (secret police) on Kronversky Prospekt together with Nikolai Sukhanov and Vladimir Zenisinov.[22] Gorky described the former Okhrana headquarters, where he sought literary inspiration, as derelict, with windows broken, and papers lying all over the floor.[23] Having dinner with Sukhanov later the same day, Gorky grimly predicted that revolution would end in "Asiatic savagery".[24] Initially a supporter of the Socialist-Revolutionary Alexander Kerensky, Gorky switched over to the Bolsheviks after the Kornilov affair.[25] In July 1917, Gorky wrote his own experiences of the Russian working class had been sufficient to dispel any "notions that Russian workers are the incarnation of spiritual beauty and kindness".[26] Gorky admitted to feeling attracted to Bolshevism, but admitted to concerns about a creed that made the entire working class "sweet and reasonable – I had never known people who were really like this".[27] Gorky wrote that he knew the poor, the "carpenters, stevedores, bricklayers", in a way that the intellectual Lenin never did, and he frankly distrusted them.[27] During World War I, his apartment in Petrograd was turned into a Bolshevik staff room, and his politics remained close to the Bolsheviks throughout the revolutionary period of 1917. On the day after the October Revolution of 7 November 1917, Gorky observed a gardener working the Alexander Park who had cleared snow during the February Revolution while ignoring the shots in the background, asked people during the July Days not to trample the grass and was now chopping off branches, leading Gorky to write that he was "stubborn as a mole, and apparently as blind as one too".[28] Gorky's relations with the Bolsheviks became strained, however, after the October Revolution. One contemporary recalled how Gorky would turn "dark and black and grim" at the mere mention of Lenin.[29] Gorky wrote that Vladimir Lenin together with Leon Trotsky "have become poisoned with the filthy venom of power", crushing the rights of the individual to achieve their revolutionary dreams.[29] Gorky wrote that Lenin was a "cold-blooded trickster who spares neither the honor nor the life of the proletariat. ... He does not know the popular masses, he has not lived with them".[29] Gorky went on to compare Lenin to a chemist experimenting in a laboratory with the only difference being the chemist experimented with inanimate matter to improve life while Lenin was experimenting on the "living flesh of Russia".[29] A further strain on Gorky's relations with the Bolsheviks occurred when his newspaper Novaya Zhizn (Новая Жизнь, "New Life") fell prey to Bolshevik censorship during the ensuing civil war, around which time Gorky published a collection of essays critical of the Bolsheviks called Untimely Thoughts in 1918. (It would not be re-published in Russia until after the collapse of the Soviet Union.) The essays call Lenin a tyrant for his senseless arrests and repression of free discourse, and an anarchist for his conspiratorial tactics; Gorky compares Lenin to both the Tsar and Nechayev.[citation needed] "Lenin and his associates", Gorky wrote, "consider it possible to commit all kinds of crimes ... the abolition of free speech and senseless arrests."[30] He was a member of the Committee for the Struggle against Antisemitism within the Soviet government.[31] In 1921, he hired a secretary, Moura Budberg, who later became his mistress. In August 1921, the poet Nikolay Gumilev was arrested by the Petrograd Cheka for his monarchist views. There is a story that Gorky hurried to Moscow, obtained an order to release Gumilev from Lenin personally, but upon his return to Petrograd he found out that Gumilev had already been shot – but Nadezhda Mandelstam, a close friend of Gumilev's widow, Anna Akhmatova wrote that: "It is true that people asked him to intervene. ... Gorky had a strong dislike of Gumilev, but he nevertheless promised to do something. He could not keep his promise because the sentence of death was announced and carried out with unexpected haste, before Gorky had got round to doing anything."[32] In October, Gorky returned to Italy on health grounds: he had tuberculosis. Povolzhye famine In July 1921, Gorky published an appeal to the outside world, saying that millions of lives were menaced by crop failure. The Russian famine of 1921–22, also known as Povolzhye famine, killed an estimated 5 million, primarily affecting the Volga and Ural River regions.[33] Second exile Gorky left Russia in September 1921, for Berlin. There he heard about the impending Moscow Trial of 12 Socialist Revolutionaries, which hardened his opposition to the Bolshevik regime. He wrote to Anatole France denouncing the trial as a "cynical and public preparation for the murder" of people who had fought for the freedom of the Russian people. He also wrote to the Soviet vice-premier, Alexei Rykov asking him to tell Leon Trotsky that any death sentences carried out on the defendants would be "premeditated and foul murder."[34] This provoked a contemptuous reaction from Lenin, who described Gorky as "always supremely spineless in politics", and Trotsky, who dismissed Gorky as an "artist whom no-one takes seriously".[35] He was denied permission by Italy's fascist government to return to Capri, but was permitted to settle in Sorrento, where he lived from 1922 to 1932, with an extended household that included Moura Budberg, his ex-wife Andreyeva, her lover, Pyotr Kryuchkov, who acted as Gorky's secretary (initially a spy for Yagoda) for the remainder of his life, Gorky's son Max Peshkov, Max's wife, Timosha, and their two young daughters. He wrote several successful books while there,[36] but by 1928 he was having difficulty earning enough to keep his large household, and began to seek an accommodation with the communist regime. The General Secretary of the Communist Party Joseph Stalin was equally keen to entice Gorky back to the USSR. He paid his first visit in May 1928 – at the very time when the regime was staging its first show trial since 1922, the so-called Shakhty Trial of 53 engineers employed in the coal industry, one of whom, Pyotr Osadchy, had visited Gorky in Sorrento. In contrast to his attitude to the trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Gorky accepted without question that the engineers were guilty, and expressed regret that in the past he had intervened on behalf of professionals who were being persecuted by the regime. During the visit, he struck up friendships with Genrikh Yagoda (deputy head of the OGPU) who vested interest in spying on Gorky, and two other OGPU officers, Semyon Firin and Matvei Pogrebinsky, who held high office in the Gulag. Pogrebinsky was Gorky's guest in Sorrento for four weeks in 1930. The following year, Yagoda sent his brother-in-law, Leopold Averbakh to Sorrento, with instructions to induce Gorky to return to Russia permanently.[37] Return to Russia Avel Enukidze, Joseph Stalin and Maxim Gorky celebrate the 10th anniversary of Sportintern. Red Square, Moscow USSR. August 1931 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 (formerly belonging to the millionaire Pavel Ryabushinsky, which was for many years the Gorky Museum) in Moscow and a dacha in the suburbs. The city of Nizhny Novgorod, and the surrounding province were renamed Gorky. Moscow's main park, and one of the central Moscow streets, Tverskaya, were renamed in his honour, as was the Moscow Art Theatre. The largest fixed-wing aircraft in the world in the mid-1930s, the Tupolev ANT-20 was named Maxim Gorky in his honour. He was also appointed President of the Union of Soviet Writers, founded in 1932, to coincide with his return to the USSR. On 11 October 1931 Gorky read his fairy tale poem "A Girl and Death" (which he wrote in 1892) to his visitors Joseph Stalin, Kliment Voroshilov and Vyacheslav Molotov, an event that was later depicted by Viktor Govorov in his painting. On that same day Stalin left his autograph on the last page of this work by Gorky: "This piece is stronger than Goethe's Faust (love defeats death)" Voroshilov also left a "resolution": "I am illiterate, but I think that Comrade Stalin more than correctly defined the meaning of A. Gorky's poems. On my own behalf, I will say: I love M. Gorky as my and my class of writer, who correctly defined our forward movement."[38] As Vyacheslav Ivanov remembers, Gorky was very upset: They wrote their resolution on his fairy tale "A Girl and Death". My father, who spoke about this episode with Gorky, insisted emphatically that Gorky was offended. Stalin and Voroshilov were drunk and fooling around.[39] Apologist for the gulag On his definitive return to the Soviet Union in 1932, Maxim Gorky received the Ryabushinsky Mansion, designed in 1900 by Fyodor Schechtel for the Ryabushinsky family. The mansion today houses a museum about Gorky. In 1933, Gorky co-edited, with Averbakh and Firin, an infamous book about the White Sea–Baltic Canal, presented as an example of "successful rehabilitation of the former enemies of proletariat". For other writers, he urged that one obtained realism by extracting the basic idea from reality, but by adding the potential and desirable to it, one added romanticism with deep revolutionary potential.[40] For himself, Gorky avoided realism. His denials that even a single prisoner died during the construction of the aforementioned canal was refuted by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who claimed thousands of prisoners froze to death not only in the evenings from the lack of adequate shelter and food, but even in the middle of the day. Most tellingly, Solzhenitsyn and Dmitry Likhachov document a visit, on 20 June 1929 to Solovki, the "original" forced labour camp, and the model upon which thousands of others were constructed. Given Gorky's reputation, (both to the authorities and to the prisoners), the camp was transformed from one where prisoners (Zeks) were worked to death to one befitting the official Soviet idea of "transformation through labour". Gorky did not notice the relocation of thousands of prisoners to ease the overcrowding, the new clothes on the prisoners (used to labouring in their underwear), or even the hiding of prisoners under tarpaulins, and the removal of the torture rooms. The deception was exposed when Gorky was presented with children "model prisoners", one of who challenged Gorky if he "wanted to know the truth". On the affirmative, the room was cleared and the 14-year-old boy recounted the truth – starvation, men worked to death, and of the pole torture, of using men instead of horses, of the summary executions, of rolling prisoners, bound to a heavy pole down stairs with hundreds of steps, of spending the night, in underwear, in the snow. Gorky never wrote about the boy, or even asked to take the boy with him. The boy was executed after Gorky left.[41] Gorky left the room in tears, and wrote in the visitor book "I am not in a state of mind to express my impressions in just a few words. I wouldn't want, yes, and I would likewise be ashamed to permit myself the banal praise of the remarkable energy of people who, while remaining vigilant and tireless sentinels of the Revolution, are able, at the same time, to be remarkably bold creators of culture".[42] As Gorky's biographer Pavel Basinsky notes, it was impossible for Gorky to "take the boy with him" even with his reputation of a "great proletarian writer". As he says, Gorky had to spend over 2 years to free Julia Danzas.[43] Some of the Solovki historians[who?] doubt that there was a boy.[citation needed] Gorky also helped other political prisoners (not without the influence of his wife, Yekaterina Peshkova). For example, because of Gorky's interference Mikhail Bakhtin's initial verdict (5 years of Solovki) was changed to 6 years of exile. D: Mikhail Mikhailovich, have you met Gorky in person? B: With Gorky? No. I only saw him several times, and then (there is no need to write this down), when, therefore, I was imprisoned, Gorky even sent two telegrams to the appropriate institutions ... D: Gorky? B: Yes. In my defence. D: Well, it just needs to be written down. B: He knew my first book and generally heard a lot about me, and we had mutual acquaintances... <...> B: Well, it was... 1929. D: Yeees. And Gorky... Then he stopped interfering. B: So in the case... yes, in my case there were Gorky's telegrams, his two telegrams. <...> D: A lot of good things was made by his wife, Yekaterina Pavlovna. B: Yes. Yekaterina Pavlovna. I didn't know her <...> She was then the chairman of the so-called ... D: Red Cross. B: Yes. Political Red Cross. — Talks of V. D. Duvakin with M. M. Bakhtin[44] Quotes on homosexuality See also: Gay Nazis myth and LGBT history in Russia § LGBT history under Stalin: 1933–1953 Gorky strongly supported efforts in getting a law passed in 1934, making homosexuality a criminal offense. His attitude was coloured by the fact that some members of the Nazi Sturmabteilung were homosexual. The phrase "exterminate all homosexuals and fascism will vanish" is often attributed to him.[45][46] He was actually quoting a popular saying. Writing in Pravda on 23 May 1934, Gorky said: "There is already a sarcastic saying: Destroy homosexuality and fascism will disappear."[47][48] Gorky and the Soviet censorship And in my opinion, he (Vladislav Khodasevich) is right when he says that the Soviet critics have made up an anti-Soviet play from The Turbin Brothers. Bulgakov is "not a brother" to me; I have not the slightest desire to defend him. But he is a talented writer, and we don't have many people like that. So there's no point in making them "martyrs for an idea". — Letter to Joseph Stalin, 1930[49] Gorky was following Bulgakov's literary career since 1925, when he first read The Fatal Eggs. According to his letters, even then he admired his talent. Partly because of Gorky Bulgakov's plays The Cabal of Hypocrites and The Days of the Turbins were allowed for staging.[50] Gorky also tried to use his influence to allow the Moscow Art Theater production of Bulgakov's other play, Flight.[51] However, it was banned because of Stalin's personal reaction.[52] ...I strongly support the publication by Academia of the novel Demons and other counterrevolutionary novels, such as Pisemsky's' Troubled Seas, Leskov's No Way Out and Krestovsky's Marevo. I do this because I am against the transformation of legal literature into illegal literature, which is being sold "from under the counter" and which seduces young people with its "taboo"... You need to know the enemy, you need to know his ideology... The Soviet government is not afraid of anything, and least of all can frighten the publication an old novel. But ... Comrade Zaslavsky with his article brought true pleasure to our enemies, and especially to the White émigrés. "They ban Dostoyevsky" they screech, grateful to Comrade Zaslavsky. — "On the issue of Demons", Pravda, 24.01.1935[53] . Gorky' s article "On the issue of Demons" Anti-formalist campaign You have a big choice of weapons. Soviet literature has every opportunity to apply these types of weapons (genres, styles, forms and methods of literary creativity) in their diversity and completeness, selecting all the best that has been created in this area by all previous eras.[54] Socialist realism provides artistic creativity with an exceptional opportunity for the manifestation of creative initiative, the choice of various forms, styles and genres. — Declaration of the Union of Soviet Writers[54] Shostakovich is a young man, about 25 years old, undeniably talented, but very self-confident and very nervous. The article in Pravda hit him like a brick on the head, the guy is completely depressed. <...> "Muddle", but why? In what and how is it expressed – "muddle"? Critics must give a technical assessment of Shostakovich's music. And what the Pravda article gave allowed a bunch of mediocre people, hack-workers, to attack Shostakovich in every possible way. — Letter to Joseph Stalin, 1936[55] Conflicts with Stalinism Gorky's relationship with the regime got colder after his return to the Soviet Union in 1933: the Soviet authorities would never let him out in Italy again. He continued to write the propagandist articles in Pravda and glorify Stalin. However, by 1934 his relationship with the regime was getting more and more distant. Leopold Averbakh, whom Gorky regarded as a protégé, was denied a role in the newly created Writers Union, and objected to interference by the Central Committee staff in the affairs of the union[citation needed]; Gorky's conception of "Socialist realism" and creation of the Writers Union, instead of ending the RAPP "literary dictatorship" and uniting the "proletarian" writers with the denounced "poputchicks" becomes a tool to increase the censorship. This conflict, which may have been exacerbated by Gorky's despair over the early death of his son, Max, came to a head just before the first Soviet Writers Congress, in August 1934. His meetings with Stalin were getting more rare. At that time he gets influenced by Lev Kamenev, who was made the director of Academia publishing House because of Gorky's request, and Nikolai Bukharin, who had been Gorky's friend since 1920s.[56] On 11 August 1934, Gorky submitted an article for publication in Pravda which attacked the deputy head of the press department, Pavel Yudin with such intemperate language that Stalin's deputy, Lazar Kaganovich ordered its suppression, but was forced to relent after hundreds of copies of the article circulated by hand.[citation needed] Gorky's draft of the keynote speech he was due to give at the congress caused such consternation when he submitted it to the Politburo that four of its leading members – Kaganovich, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, and Andrei Zhdanov – were sent to persuade him to make changes.[57] Yesterday we, having familiarized ourselves with M. Gorky's speech to the Congress of Writers, came to the conclusion that the speech is not suitable in this form. First of all – the very construction and arrangement of the material – 3/4, if not more, is occupied by general historical and philosophical reasoning, and even then incorrect. Primitive society is presented as the ideal, and capitalism at all of its stages is portrayed as a reactionary force that hindered the development of technology and culture. It is clear that this position is non-Marxist. Soviet literature is almost not covered, but the speech is called "On Soviet Literature". <...> ...after a long talk he agreed to make some edits and changes. It seems that he is in a bad mood. <...> The point, of course, is not what he says, but how he says it. These talks have reminded me of comrade Krupskaya. I think that Kamenev plays an important role in shaping these sentiments of Gorky. <...> Today we exchanged views and think that it is better, after making some edits, to publish it than to allow it to be read as illegal. — Lazar Kaganovich. Letter to Joseph Stalin, 14.08.1934[58] In his speech he calls Fyodor Dostoevsky a "medieval inquisitor", however, he admires him for "having painted with the most vivid perfection of word portraiture a type of egocentrist, a type of social degenerate in the person of the hero of his Notes from Underground" and notes him as a major figure in Russian classic literature.[59] After the end of the congress Central Committee of the Party, in which maintained that writers the likes of Panferov, Ermilov, Fadeyev, Stavsky, and many other writers who were approved as the "masters of Socialist realism", were unworthy of membership in the Union of Soviet Writers, obviously preferring Boris Pasternak, Andrei Bely, Andrei Platonov and Artyom Vesyoly (Gorky took the latter two in his "writers brigade" because of their inability to be published,[60] although he criticized Bely and Platonov for their techniques). He also wrote an article about Panferov's novel Brusski: "One could, of course, not note the verbal errors and careless technique of the gifted writer, but he acts as an adviser and teacher, and he teaches the production of literary waste".[61] Gorky also tried to fight the Soviet censorship as it was growing more power. For example, he tried to defend an issue of Dostoevsky's Demons. As the conflict was becoming more visible, Gorky's political and literary positions became weaker. Panferov wrote an answer to Gorky, in which he criticized him. David Zaslavsky published an ironical response to Gorky's defense of Demons. According to some sources (such as Romain Rolland's diary), because of Gorky's refusal to blindly obey the policies of Stalinism, he had lost the Party' s goodwill and spent his last days under unannounced house arrest.[62] Death Grave of Maxim Gorky in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis With the increase of Stalinist repression and especially after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, Gorky was placed under unannounced house arrest in his house near Moscow in Gorki-10 (the name of the place is a completely different word in Russian unrelated to his surname). His long-serving secretary Pyotr Kryuchkov had been recruited by Yagoda as a paid informer.[63] Before his death from a lingering illness in June 1936, he was visited at home by Stalin, Yagoda, and other leading communists, and by Moura Budberg, who had chosen not to return to the USSR with him but was permitted to stay for his funeral. The sudden death of Gorky's son Maxim Peshkov in May 1934 was followed by the death of Maxim Gorky himself in June 1936 from pneumonia. Speculation has long surrounded the circumstances of his death. Stalin and Molotov were among those who carried Gorky's urn during the funeral. During the Bukharin trial in 1938 (one of the three Moscow Trials), one of the charges was that Gorky was killed by Yagoda's NKVD agents.[64] According to historian Roman Blackman, Stalin ordered Yagoda to search Gorky's house after his sudden passing. Blackman cited claims from a former NKVD officer, Alexander Novikov, that the results of the postmortem examination to identify traces of poison in Gorky's body had been falsified. Blackman also referenced an account from Dmitry Pletnyov that Gorky had consumed poisoned candies from Stalin which were sent as presents and two medical orderlies who were in attendance with Gorky and had also consumed the candies also died suddenly.[65] However, Arkady Vaksberg disputed the account involving Dmitry Pletnyov as disinformation which has gained currency in the West although not in relation to Gorky's death but the circumstances of the prison life.[66] Rather, Vaksberg endorsed an alternative explanation, due to his access to Russian archives, which suggested that Gorky's food was poisoned by a special substance manufactured at a special NKVD laboratory in Moscow.[67] In Soviet times, before and after his death, the complexities in Gorky's life and outlook were reduced to an iconic image (echoed in heroic pictures and statues dotting the countryside): Gorky as a great Soviet writer who emerged from the common people, a loyal friend of the Bolsheviks, and the founder of the increasingly canonical "socialist realism".[68] Bibliography Main article: Maxim Gorky bibliography Portrait of Maxim Gorky by Mikhail Nesterov (1901) Source: Turner, Lily; Strever, Mark (1946). Orphan Paul; A Bibliography and Chronology of Maxim Gorky. New York: Boni and Gaer. pp. 261–270. Novels Goremyka Pavel, (Горемыка Павел, 1894). Published in English as Orphan Paul[69] Foma Gordeyev (Фома Гордеев, 1899). Also translated as The Man Who Was Afraid Three of Them (Трое, 1900). Also translated as Three Men and The Three The Mother (Мать, 1906). First published in English, in 1906 The Life of a Useless Man (Жизнь ненужного человека, 1908) A Confession (Исповедь, 1908) Gorodok Okurov (Городок Окуров, 1908), not translated The Life of Matvei Kozhemyakin (Жизнь Матвея Кожемякина, 1910) The Artamonov Business (Дело Артамоновых, 1925). Also translated as The Artamonovs and Decadence The Life of Klim Samgin (Жизнь Клима Самгина, 1925–1936). Published in English as Forty Years: The Life of Clim Samghin Volume I. Bystander (1930) Volume II. The Magnet (1931) Volume III. Other Fires (1933) Volume IV. The Specter (1938) Novellas and short stories Sketches and Stories (Очерки и рассказы), 1899 "Makar Chudra" (Макар Чудра), 1892 "Old Izergil" (Старуха Изергиль), 1895 "Chelkash" (Челкаш), 1895 "Konovalov" (Коновалов), 1897 The Orlovs (Супруги Орловы), 1897 Creatures That Once Were Men (Бывшие люди), 1897 "Malva" (Мальва), 1897 Varenka Olesova (Варенька Олесова), 1898 "Twenty-six Men and a Girl" (Двадцать шесть и одна), 1899 Plays The Philistines (Мещане), translated also as The Smug Citizens and The Petty Bourgeois (Мещане), 1901 The Lower Depths (На дне), 1902 Summerfolk (Дачники), 1904 Children of the Sun (Дети солнца), 1905 Barbarians (Варвары), 1905 Enemies, 1906. The Last Ones (Последние), 1908. Translated also as Our Father[c] Reception (Встреча), 1910. Translated also as Children Queer People (Чудаки), 1910. Translated also as Eccentrics Vassa Zheleznova (Васса Железнова), 1910, 1935 (revised version) The Zykovs (Зыковы), 1913 Counterfeit Money (Фальшивая монета), 1913 The Old Man (Старик), 1915, Revised 1922, 1924. Translated also as The Judge Workaholic Slovotekov (Работяга Словотеков), 1920 Egor Bulychev (Егор Булычов и другие), 1932 Dostigayev and Others (Достигаев и другие), 1933 Non-fiction My Childhood. In the World. My Universities (1913–1923) Chaliapin, articles in Letopis, 1917[d] My Recollections of Tolstoy, 1919 Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Andreyev, 1920–1928 Fragments from My Diary (Заметки из дневника), 1924 V.I. Lenin (В.И. Ленин), reminiscence, 1924–1931 The I.V. Stalin White Sea – Baltic Sea Canal, 1934 (editor-in-chief) Literary Portraits [c.1935].[71] Essays O karamazovshchine (О карамазовщине, On Karamazovism/On Karamazovshchina), 1915, not translated Untimely Thoughts. Notes on Revolution and Culture (Несвоевременные мысли. Заметки о революции и культуре), 1918 On the Russian Peasantry (О русском крестьянстве), 1922 How I learnt to write[72] Poems "The Song of the Stormy Petrel" (Песня о Буревестнике), 1901 "Song of a Falcon" (Песня о Соколе), 1902. Also referred to as a short story Autobiography My Childhood (Детство), Part I, 1913–1914 In the World (В людях), Part II, 1916 My Universities (Мои университеты), Part III, 1923 Collections Sketches and Stories, three volumes, 1898–1899 Creatures That Once Were Men, stories in English translation (1905). This contained an introduction by G. K. Chesterton[73] The Russian title, Бывшие люди (literally "Former people") gained popularity as an expression in reference to people who severely dropped in their social status Tales of Italy (Сказки об Италии), 1911–1913 Through Russia (По Руси), 1923 Stories 1922–1924 (Рассказы 1922–1924 годов), 1925 Commemoration Gorky memorial plaque on Glinka street in Smolensk In almost every large settlement of the states of the former USSR, there was[74] or is Gorky Street. In 2013, 2110 streets, avenues and lanes in Russia were named "Gorky", and another 395 were named "Maxim Gorky".[75] Gorky was the name of Nizhny Novgorod from 1932 to 1990. Gorkovsky suburban railway line, Moscow Gorkovskoye village of Novoorsky District of Orenburg Oblast Gorky village in the Leningrad oblast Gorkovsky village (Volgograd) (formerly Voroponovo) Village named after Maxim Gorky, Kameshkovsky District of Vladimir Oblast Gorkovskoye village is the district center of Omsk Oblast (formerly Ikonnikovo) Maxim Gorky village, Znamensky District of Omsk Oblast Village named after Maxim Gorky, Krutinsky District of Omsk Oblast In Nizhny Novgorod the Central District Children's Library, the Academic Drama Theater, a street, as well as a square are named after Maxim Gorky. And the most important attraction there is the museum-apartment of Maxim Gorky Drama theaters in the following cities are named after Maxim Gorky: Moscow (MAT, 1932), Vladivostok (Primorsky Gorky Drama Theater – PGDT), Berlin (Maxim Gorki Theater), Baku (ASTYZ), Astana (Russian Drama Theater named after M. Gorky), Tula (Tula Academic Theatre), Minsk (Theater named after M. Gorky), Rostov-on-Don (Rostov Drama Theater named after M. Gorky), Krasnodar, Samara (Samara Drama Theater named after M. Gorky), Orenburg (Orenburg Regional Drama Theater), Volgograd (Volgograd Regional Drama Theater), Magadan (Magadan Regional Music and Drama Theater), Simferopol (KARDT), Kustanay, Kudymkar (Komi- Perm National Drama Theater), Young Spectator Theater in Lviv, as well as in Saint Petersburg from 1932 to 1992 (DB). Also, the name was given to the Interregional Russian Drama Theater of the Fergana Valley, the Tashkent State Academic Theater, the Tula Regional Drama Theater, and the Nur-Sultan Regional Drama Theater. Palaces of Culture named after Maxim Gorky were built in Nevinnomyssk, Rovenky, Novosibirsk and Saint Petersburg Universities: Maxim Gorky Literature Institute, Ural State University, Donetsk National Medical University, Minsk State Pedagogical Institute, Omsk State Pedagogical University, until 1993 Turkmen State University in Ashgabat was named after Maxim Gorky (now named after Magtymguly Pyragy), Sukhum State University was named after Maxim Gorky, National University of Kharkiv was named after Gorky in 1936–1999, Ulyanovsk Agricultural Institute, Uman Agricultural Institute, Kazan Order of the Badge of Honor The institute was named after Maxim Gorky until it was granted the status of an academy in 1995 (now Kazan State Agrarian University), the Mari Polytechnic Institute and Perm State University named after Maxim Gorky (1934–1993) The following cities have parks named after Maxim Gorky: Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog, Saratov, Minsk, Krasnoyarsk, Melitopol, Moscow, Alma-Ata In Kharkiv Gorky Park was renamed Central Park of Culture and Recreation in June 2023.[76] In Odesa in June 2023 a Historical and Toponymic Commission proposed renaming its Gorky Park to Park of Children's Dreams, a final decision on this is made by voting of the Odesa City Council.[77] Monuments Monuments of Maxim Gorky are installed in many cities. Among them: In Russia – Borisoglebsk, Arzamas, Volgograd, Voronezh, Vyborg, Dobrinka, Izhevsk, Krasnoyarsk, Moscow, Nevinnomyssk, Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg, Penza, Pechora, Rostov-on-Don, Rubtsovsk, Rylsk, Ryazan, St. Petersburg, Sarov, Sochi, Taganrog, Khabarovsk, Chelyabinsk, Ufa, Yartsevo. In Belarus – Dobrush, Minsk. Mogilev, Gorky Park, bust. In Ukraine – Donetsk, Kryvyi Rih, Melitopol, Yalta, Yasynuvata In Azerbaijan – Baku In Kazakhstan – Alma-Ata, Zyryanovsk, Kostanay In Georgia – Tbilisi In Moldova – Chişinău, Leovo In Italy – Sorrento In India – Gorky Sadan,[78] Kolkata On 6 December 2022 the City Council of the Ukrainian city Dnipro decided to remove from the city all monuments to figures of Russian culture and history, in particular it was mentioned that the monuments to Gorky, Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lomonosov would be removed from the public space of the city.[79] The monument of Gorky that been erected in 1977 was dismantled on 26 December 2022.[80] Monuments of Gorky Monument at Gorky Institute of World Literature Monument at Gorky Institute of World Literature Monument in Luhansk Monument in Luhansk Monument in Chisinau Monument in Chisinau Now dismantled monument in Dnipro as it was in 2021 Now dismantled monument in Dnipro as it was in 2021 Philately Maxim Gorky is depicted on postage stamps: Albania (1986),[81] Vietnam (1968)[82] India (1968),[83] Maldives (2018),[84] and many more. Some of them can be found below. Maxim Gorky postage stamps Postage stamp USSR, 1932 Postage stamp USSR, 1932 Postage stamp USSR, 1932 Postage stamp USSR, 1932 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1943 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1943 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1943 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1943 Postage stamp, the USSR, "10 years since the death of M. Gorky" (1946, 30 kopeeks) Postage stamp, the USSR, "10 years since the death of M. Gorky" (1946, 30 kopeeks) Postage stamp, the USSR, "10 years since the death of M. Gorky" (1946, 60 kopeeks) Postage stamp, the USSR, "10 years since the death of M. Gorky" (1946, 60 kopeeks) Postage stamp, GDR, 1953 Postage stamp, GDR, 1953 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1956 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1956 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1958 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1958 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1959 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1959 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1968 Postage stamp, the USSR, 1968 Postage stamp, Russia, "Rusiia. XX век. Culture" (2000, 1,30 rubles) Postage stamp, Russia, "Rusiia. XX век. Culture" (2000, 1,30 rubles) In 2018, FSUE Russian Post released a miniature sheet dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the writer. Numismatics Silver commemorative coin, 2 rubles "Maxim Gorky", 2018 In 1988, a 1 ruble coin was issued in the USSR, dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the writer. In 2018, on the 150th anniversary of the writer's birthday, the Bank of Russia issued a commemorative silver coin with a face value of 2 rubles in the series "Outstanding Personalities of Russia". Depictions and adaptations In 1912, the Italian composer Giacomo Orefice based his opera Radda on the character of Radda in Gorky's 1892 short story Makar Chudra. In 1932, German playwright Bertolt Brecht published his play The Mother, which was based on Gorky's 1906 novel Mother. The same novel was also adapted for an opera by Valery Zhelobinsky in 1938. In 1938–1939, Gorky's three-part autobiography was released by Soyuzdetfilm as three feature films: The Childhood of Maxim Gorky, My Apprenticeship and My Universities, all three directed by Mark Donskoy. In 1975, Gorky's 1908 play The Last Ones (Последние), had its New York debut at the Manhattan Theater Club, under the alternative English title Our Father, directed by Keith Fowler. In 1985, Gorky's 1906 play Enemies was translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair and Jeremy Brooks and directed in London by Ann Pennington in association with the Internationalist Theatre at the tail end of the British miners' strike of 1984–1985. Gorky's "pseudo-populism" is done away with in this production by the actors speaking "without distinctive accents and consequently without populist sentiment".[85] See also FK Sloboda Tuzla football club from Bosnia and Herzegovina, originally called FK Gorki Gorky Park in Moscow and Central Park (former Park of Maxim Gorky) in Kharkiv, Ukraine Maxim Gorky Literature Institute Palace of Culture named after Maxim Gorky, Novosibirsk Soviet cruiser Maxim Gorky, a Project 26bis (or Kirov-class) light cruiser, which served from 1940 to 1956 and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in 1944 Tupolev ANT-20 aircraft, nicknamed "Maxim Gorky" Znanie Publishers Maxim Gorky (born March 16 [March 28, New Style], 1868, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia—died June 14, 1936) Russian short-story writer and novelist who first attracted attention with his naturalistic and sympathetic stories of tramps and social outcasts and later wrote other stories, novels, and plays, including his famous The Lower Depths. Early life Gorky’s earliest years were spent in Astrakhan, where his father, a former upholsterer, became a shipping agent. When the boy was five his father died; Gorky returned to Nizhny Novgorod to live with his maternal grandparents, who brought him up after his mother remarried. The grandfather was a dyer whose business deteriorated and who treated Gorky harshly. From his grandmother he received most of what little kindness he experienced as a child. Gorky knew the Russian working-class background intimately, for his grandfather afforded him only a few months of formal schooling, sending him out into the world to earn his living at the age of eight. His jobs included, among many others, work as assistant in a shoemaker’s shop, as errand boy for an icon painter, and as dishwasher on a Volga steamer, where the cook introduced him to reading—soon to become his main passion in life. Frequently beaten by his employers, nearly always hungry and ill clothed, he came to know the seamy side of Russian life as few other Russian authors before or since. The bitterness of these early experiences later led him to choose the word gorky (“bitter”) as his pseudonym. His late adolescence and early manhood were spent in Kazan, where he worked as a baker, docker, and night watchman. There he first learned about Russian revolutionary ideas from representatives of the Populist movement, whose tendency to idealize the Russian peasant he later rejected. Oppressed by the misery of his surroundings, he attempted suicide by shooting himself. Leaving Kazan at the age of 21, he became a tramp, doing odd jobs of all kinds during extensive wanderings through southern Russia. First stories In Tbilisi (Tiflis) Gorky began to publish stories in the provincial press, of which the first was “Makar Chudra” (1892), followed by a series of similar wild Romantic legends and allegories of only documentary interest. But with the publication of “Chelkash” (1895) in a leading St. Petersburg journal, he began a success story as spectacular as any in the history of Russian literature. “Chelkash,” one of his outstanding works, is the story of a colourful harbour thief in which elements of Romanticism and realism are mingled. It began Gorky’s celebrated “tramp period,” during which he described the social dregs of Russia. He expressed sympathy and self-identification with the strength and determination of the individual hobo or criminal, characters previously described more objectively. “Dvadtsat shest i odna” (1899; “Twenty-Six Men and a Girl”), describing the sweated labour conditions in a bakery, is often regarded as his best short story. So great was the success of these works that Gorky’s reputation quickly soared, and he began to be spoken of almost as an equal of Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov. Plays and novels Next Gorky wrote a series of plays and novels, all less excellent than his best earlier stories. The first novel, Foma Gordeyev (1899), illustrates his admiration for strength of body and will in the masterful barge owner and rising capitalist Ignat Gordeyev, who is contrasted with his relatively feeble and intellectual son Foma, a “seeker after the meaning of life,” as are many of Gorky’s other characters. From this point, the rise of Russian capitalism became one of Gorky’s main fictional interests. Other novels of the period are Troye (1900; Three of Them), Ispoved (1908; A Confession), Gorodok Okurov (1909; “Okurov City”), and Zhizn Matveya Kozhemyakina (1910; “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin”). These are all to some extent failures because of Gorky’s inability to sustain a powerful narrative, and also because of a tendency to overload his work with irrelevant discussions about the meaning of life. Mat (1906; Mother) is probably the least successful of the novels, yet it has considerable interest as Gorky’s only long work devoted to the Russian revolutionary movement. It was made into a notable silent film by Vsevolod Pudovkin (1926) and dramatized by Bertolt Brecht in Die Mutter (1930–31). Gorky also wrote a series of plays, the most famous of which is Na dne (1902; The Lower Depths). A dramatic rendering of the kind of flophouse character that Gorky had already used so extensively in his stories, it still enjoys great success abroad and in Russia. He also wrote Meshchane (1902; The Petty Bourgeois, or The Smug Citizen), a play that glorifies the hero-intellectual who has revolutionary tendencies but also that explores the disruptions revolutionaries can wreak on everyday life. Special offer for students! Check out our special academic rate and excel this spring semester! Marxist activity of Maxim Gorky Gorky, Maxim Gorky, Maxim Maxim Gorky, c. 1900. Between 1899 and 1906 Gorky lived mainly in St. Petersburg, where he became a Marxist, supporting the Social Democratic Party. After the split in that party in 1903, Gorky went with its Bolshevik wing. But he was often at odds with the Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin. Nor did Gorky ever, formally, become a member of Lenin’s party, though his enormous earnings, which he largely gave to party funds, were one of that organization’s main sources of income. In 1901 the Marxist review Zhizn (“Life”) was suppressed for publishing a short revolutionary poem by Gorky, “Pesnya o burevestnike” (“Song of the Stormy Petrel”). Gorky was arrested but released shortly afterward and went to Crimea, having developed tuberculosis. In 1902 he was elected a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but his election was soon withdrawn for political reasons, an event that led to the resignations of Chekhov and the writer V.G. Korolenko from the academy. Gorky took a prominent part in the Russian Revolution of 1905, was arrested in the following year, and was again quickly released, partly as the result of protests from abroad. He toured America in the company of his mistress, an event that led to his partial ostracism there and to a consequent reaction on his part against the United States as expressed in stories about New York City, Gorod zhyoltogo dyavola (1906; “The City of the Yellow Devil”). Exile and revolution On leaving Russia in 1906, Gorky spent seven years as a political exile, living mainly in his villa on Capri in Italy. Politically, Gorky was a nuisance to his fellow Marxists because of his insistence on remaining independent, but his great influence was a powerful asset, which from their point of view outweighed such minor defects. He returned to Russia in 1913, and during World War I he agreed with the Bolsheviks in opposing Russia’s participation in the war. He opposed the Bolshevik seizure of power during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and went on to attack the victorious Lenin’s dictatorial methods in his newspaper Novaya zhizn (“New Life”) until July 1918, when his protests were silenced by censorship on Lenin’s orders. Living in Petrograd, Gorky tried to help those who were not outright enemies of the Soviet government. Gorky often assisted imprisoned scholars and writers, helping them survive hunger and cold. His efforts, however, were thwarted by figures such as Lenin and Grigory Zinovyev, a close ally of Lenin’s who was the head of the Petrograd Bolsheviks. In 1921 Lenin sent Gorky into exile under the pretext of Gorky’s needing specialized medical treatment abroad. Last period In the decade ending in 1923 Gorky’s greatest masterpiece appeared. This is the autobiographical trilogy Detstvo (1913–14; My Childhood), V lyudyakh (1915–16; In the World), and Moi universitety (1923; My Universities). The title of the last volume is sardonic because Gorky’s only university had been that of life, and his wish to study at Kazan University had been frustrated. This trilogy is one of the finest autobiographies in Russian. It describes Gorky’s childhood and early manhood and reveals him as an acute observer of detail, with a flair for describing his own family, his numerous employers, and a panorama of minor but memorable figures. The trilogy contains many messages, which Gorky now tended to imply rather than preach openly: protests against motiveless cruelty, continued emphasis on the importance of toughness and self-reliance, and musings on the value of hard work. Gorky finished his trilogy abroad, where he also wrote the stories published in Rasskazy 1922–1924 (1925; “Stories 1922–24”), which are among his best work. From 1924 he lived at a villa in Sorrento, Italy, to which he invited many Russian artists and writers who stayed for lengthy periods. Gorky’s health was poor, and he was disillusioned by postrevolutionary life in Russia, but in 1928 he yielded to pressures to return, and the lavish official celebration there of his 60th birthday was beyond anything he could have expected. In the following year he returned to the U.S.S.R. permanently and lived there until his death. His return coincided with the establishment of Stalin’s ascendancy, and Gorky became a prop of Stalinist political orthodoxy. Correspondence published in the 1990s between Gorky and Stalin and between Gorky and Genrikh Yagoda, the head of the Soviet secret police, shows that Gorky gradually lost all illusions that freedom would prevail in the U.S.S.R., and he consequently adjusted to the rules of the new way of life. He was now more than ever the undisputed leader of Soviet writers, and, when the Soviet Writers’ Union was founded in 1934, he became its first president. At the same time, he helped to found the literary method of Socialist Realism, which was imposed on all Soviet writers and which obliged them—in effect—to become outright political propagandists. Gorky remained active as a writer, but almost all his later fiction is concerned with the period before 1917. In Delo Artamonovykh (1925; The Artamonov Business), one of his best novels, he showed his continued interest in the rise and fall of prerevolutionary Russian capitalism. From 1925 until the end of his life, Gorky worked on the novel Zhizn Klima Samgina (“The Life of Klim Samgin”). Though he completed four volumes that appeared between 1927 and 1937 (translated into English as Bystander, The Magnet, Other Fires, and The Specter), the novel was to remain unfinished. It depicts in detail 40 years of Russian life as seen through the eyes of a man inwardly destroyed by the events of the decades preceding and following the turn of the 20th century. There were also more plays—Yegor Bulychov i drugiye (1932; “Yegor Bulychov and Others”) and Dostigayev i drugiye (1933; “Dostigayev and Others”)—but the most generally admired work is a set of reminiscences of Russian writers—Vospominaniya o Tolstom (1919; Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy) and O pisatelyakh (1928; “About Writers”). The memoir of Tolstoy is so lively and free from the hagiographic approach traditional in Russian studies of their leading authors that it has sometimes been acclaimed as Gorky’s masterpiece. Almost equally impressive is Gorky’s study of Chekhov. He also wrote pamphlets on topical events and problems in which he glorified some of the most brutal aspects of Stalinism. Some mystery attaches to Gorky’s death, which occurred suddenly in 1936 while he was under medical treatment. Whether his death was natural or not is unknown, but it came to figure in the trial of Nikolay I. Bukharin and others in 1938, at which it was claimed that Gorky had been the victim of an anti-Soviet plot by the “Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites.” The former police chief Genrikh Yagoda, who was among the defendants, confessed to having ordered his death. Some Western authorities have suggested that Gorky was done to death on Stalin’s orders, having finally become sickened by the excesses of Stalinist Russia, but there is little evidence of this except that it was characteristic of Stalin to frame others on the charge of accomplishing his own misdeeds. Legacy After his death Gorky was canonized as the patron saint of Soviet letters. His reputation abroad has also remained high, but it is doubtful whether posterity will deal with him so kindly. His success was partly due, both in the Soviet Union and to a lesser extent abroad, to political accident. Though technically of lower-middle-class origin, he lived in such poverty as a child and young man that he is often considered the greatest “proletarian” in Russian literature. This circumstance, coinciding with the rise of working-class movements all over the world, helped to give Gorky an immense literary reputation, which his works do not wholly merit. Gorky’s literary style, though gradually improving through the years, retained its original defects of excessive striving for effect, of working on the reader’s nerves by the piling up of emotive adjectives, and of tending to overstate. Among Gorky’s other defects, in addition to his weakness for philosophical digressions, is a certain coarseness of emotional grain. But his eye for physical detail, his talent for making his characters live, and his unrivaled knowledge of the Russian “lower depths” are weighty items on the credit side. Gorky was the only Soviet writer whose work embraced the prerevolutionary and postrevolutionary period so exhaustively, and, though he by no means stands with Chekhov, Tolstoy, and others in the front rank of Russian writers, he remains one of the more important literary figures of his age. Ronald Francis Hingley The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Mark Donskoy Table of Contents Introduction References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics Related Questions What are some of the major film festivals? Read Next Vandalized Art list. Combo of EB owned illustration (top) and parent Asset 182294. 4 of 11 The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velazquez was hit with a meat cleaver by Mary Richardson Art Abuse: 11 Vandalized Works of Art Painting palette with oil paints and brushes. Rainbow colored paints, arts and entertainment Art History: The Origins of 7 of Your Favorite Art Supplies Bag end on Bagshot row from the movies Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in Hobbiton, New Zealand, Australia You Ought to Be in Pictures: 8 Filming Locations You Can Actually Visit Members of the public view artwork by Damien Hirst entitled: The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living - in the Tate Modern art gallery on April 2, 2012 in London, England. (see notes) (1991) Tiger shark, glass, steel Vile or Visionary?: 11 Art Controversies of the Last Four Centuries Sculpture of woman before restoration (left) and after restoration on the exterior of an office building in Palencia, Spain. (art restoration) 5 Art Restorations Gone Wrong Discover King Cobra snake in Malaysia. (reptile) 9 of the World’s Deadliest Snakes King George V of Britain, c. 1910, shortly after his accession to the throne How Did King George V Really Die? jeans, denim, pants, clothing Why Do We Say “A Pair of Pants”? The Colosseum, Rome, Italy. Giant amphitheatre built in Rome under the Flavian emperors. (ancient architecture; architectural ruins) New Seven Wonders of the World Ancient Mayan Calendar Our Days Are Numbered: 7 Crazy Facts About Calendars Close up of books. Stack of books, pile of books, literature, reading. Homepage 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society 12 Novels Considered the “Greatest Book Ever Written” illustration of the walking titanosaurus, Patagotitan mayorum Titanosaurs: 8 of the World's Biggest Dinosaurs Home Entertainment & Pop Culture Movie, TV & Stage Directors Arts & Culture Mark Donskoy Russian motion-picture writer and director Also known as: Mark Semyonovich Donskoy Written and fact-checked by Article History Category: Arts & Culture In full: Mark Semyonovich Donskoy Born: March 6 [February 21, Old Style], 1901, Odessa, Ukraine, Russia Died: March 24, 1981, Moscow (aged 80) Awards And Honors: Order of Lenin Mark Donskoy, (born March 6 [February 21, Old Style], 1901, Odessa, Ukraine, Russia—died March 24, 1981, Moscow), motion-picture writer and director best known for a trilogy based on the autobiography of the Russian proletarian novelist Maxim Gorky. In 1926 Donskoy began his cinema career as a scriptwriter and assistant director. He soon became a director of lyrical and personal films that differed markedly from the grand-scale Russian melodramas of the 1930s. The three films based on the life of Donskoy’s friend Gorky, Detstvo Gorkogo (1938; Childhood of Maksim Gorky), V lyudyakh (1939; On His Own), and Moi universitety (1940; University of Life), sensitively interpolate scenes from Gorky’s short stories into the factual narrative to compose one of the finest of all film biographies. Other major films are Raduga (1944; “The Rainbow”) and Nepokoryonnye (1945; “Unconquered”), which show Donskoy’s skill with child actors; two more films adapted from the writings of Gorky, Mat (1956; Mother) and Foma Gordeyev (1956; The Gordeyev Family); and his diptych, Serdtsye matery/Vernost matery (1966–67; Heart of a Mother/A Mother’s Devotion). Donskoy was twice given the Order of Lenin, the U.S.S.R.’s highest civilian award. This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn. Anton Chekhov Table of Contents Introduction & Top Questions Boyhood and youth Literary maturity Melikhovo period: 1892–98 Yalta period: 1899–1904 Quotes References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics Images & Videos Anton Chekhov Listen to Norris Houghton discuss the difficulty of staging Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard Watch part of the final act of Anton Chekhov's last play, The Cherry Orchard Examine Anton Chekhov's rebellion against the theatrical conventions of his day, as voiced in his play The Seagull For Students Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov summary Related Questions How did Anton Chekhov become famous? What was Anton Chekhov’s legacy? Why is Anton Chekhov so influential? What were Anton Chekhov’s major accomplishments? How did Anton Chekhov die? Read Next Close up of books. Stack of books, pile of books, literature, reading. 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After a perfect launch, spectators try to catch a last glimpse of Space Shuttle Columbia, barely visible at the top end of the twisted column of smoke. 7 Accidents and Disasters in Spaceflight History Secret Service Agent Listens To Earpiece Secret Service Code Names of 11 U.S. Presidents Statue of Nostradamus Nostradamus and His Prophecies Home Literature Novels & Short Stories Short Story Writers Arts & Culture Anton Chekhov Russian author Also known as: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov Written by Fact-checked by Last Updated: Jan 25, 2024 • Article History Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov See all media Category: Arts & Culture In full: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov Born: January 29 [January 17, Old Style], 1860, Taganrog, Russia Died: July 14/15 [July 1/2], 1904, Badenweiler, Germany Notable Works: “A Dreary Story” “Ivanov” “Peasants” “The Bear” “The Black Monk” “The Cherry Orchard” “The Seagull” “Three Sisters” “Uncle Vanya” “Ward Number Six” “Wood Demon” Notable Family Members: spouse Olga Knipper-Chekhova Top Questions How did Anton Chekhov become famous? What was Anton Chekhov’s legacy? Why is Anton Chekhov so influential? What were Anton Chekhov’s major accomplishments? How did Anton Chekhov die? Anton Chekhov (born January 29 [January 17, Old Style], 1860, Taganrog, Russia—died July 14/15 [July 1/2], 1904, Badenweiler, Germany) Russian playwright and master of the modern short story. He was a literary artist of laconic precision who probed below the surface of life, laying bare the secret motives of his characters. Chekhov’s best plays and short stories lack complex plots and neat solutions. Concentrating on apparent trivialities, they create a special kind of atmosphere, sometimes termed haunting or lyrical. He is known for the principle in drama called "Chekhov’s gun," which asserts that every element introduced in a story should be necessary to the plot, and he frequently illustrated the principle by using a gun as an example of an essential element. Chekhov described the Russian life of his time using a deceptively simple technique devoid of obtrusive literary devices, and he is regarded as the outstanding representative of the late 19th-century Russian realist school. Boyhood and youth Chekhov’s father was a struggling grocer and pious martinet who had been born a serf. He compelled his son to serve in his shop, also conscripting him into a church choir, which he himself conducted. Despite the kindness of his mother, childhood remained a painful memory to Chekhov, although it later proved to be a vivid and absorbing experience that he often invoked in his works. After briefly attending a local school for Greek boys, Chekhov entered the town gimnaziya (high school), where he remained for 10 years. There he received the best standard education then available—thorough but unimaginative and based on the Greek and Latin classics. During his last three years at school Chekhov lived alone and supported himself by coaching younger boys; his father, having gone bankrupt, had moved with the rest of his family to Moscow to make a fresh start. In the autumn of 1879 Chekhov joined his family in Moscow, which was to be his main base until 1892. He at once enrolled in the university’s medical faculty, graduating in 1884 as a doctor. By that time he was already the economic mainstay of his family, for his father could obtain only poorly paid employment. As unofficial head of the family Anton showed great reserves of responsibility and energy, cheerfully supporting his mother and the younger children through his freelance earnings as a journalist and writer of comic sketches—work that he combined with arduous medical studies and a busy social life. Chekhov began his writing career as the author of anecdotes for humorous journals, signing his early work pseudonymously. By 1888 he had become widely popular with a “lowbrow” public and had already produced a body of work more voluminous than all his later writings put together. And he had, in the process, turned the short comic sketch of about 1,000 words into a minor art form. He had also experimented in serious writing, providing studies of human misery and despair strangely at variance with the frenzied facetiousness of his comic work. Gradually that serious vein absorbed him and soon predominated over the comic. Literary maturity Chekhov’s literary progress during his early 20s may be charted by the first appearance of his work in a sequence of publications in the capital, St. Petersburg, each successive vehicle being more serious and respected than its predecessor. Finally, in 1888, Chekhov published his first work in a leading literary review, Severny vestnik (“Northern Herald”). With the work in question—a long story entitled “Steppe”—he at last turned his back on comic fiction. “Steppe,” an autobiographical work describing a journey in Ukraine as seen through the eyes of a child, is the first among more than 50 stories published in a variety of journals and selections between 1888 and his death in 1904. It is on that corpus of later stories, but also on his mature dramas of the same period, that Chekhov’s main reputation rests. Special offer for students! Check out our special academic rate and excel this spring semester! Although the year 1888 first saw Chekhov concentrating almost exclusively on short stories that were serious in conception, humour—now underlying—nearly always remained an important ingredient. There was also a concentration on quality at the expense of quantity, the number of publications dropping suddenly from over a hundred items a year in the peak years 1886 and 1887 to only 10 short stories in 1888. Besides “Steppe,” Chekhov also wrote several profoundly tragic studies at that time, the most notable of which was “A Dreary Story” (1889), a penetrating study into the mind of an elderly and dying professor of medicine. The ingenuity and insight displayed in that tour de force was especially remarkable, coming from an author so young. The play Ivanov (1887–89) culminates in the suicide of a young man nearer to the author’s own age. Together with “A Dreary Story,” that belongs to a group among Chekhov’s works that have been called clinical studies. They explore the experiences of the mentally or physically ill in a spirit that reminds one that the author was himself a qualified—and remained a sporadically practicing—doctor. By the late 1880s many critics had begun to reprimand Chekhov, now that he was sufficiently well known to attract their attention, for holding no firm political and social views and for failing to endow his works with a sense of direction. Such expectations irked Chekhov, who was unpolitical and philosophically uncommitted. In early 1890 he suddenly sought relief from the irritations of urban intellectual life by undertaking a one-man sociological expedition to a remote island, Sakhalin. Situated nearly 6,000 miles (9,650 km) east of Moscow, on the other side of Siberia, it was notorious as an imperial Russian penal settlement. Chekhov’s journey there was a long and hazardous ordeal by carriage and riverboat. After arriving unscathed, studying local conditions, and conducting a census of the islanders, he returned to publish his findings as a research thesis, which attained an honoured place in the annals of Russian penology: The Island of Sakhalin (1893–94). Chekhov paid his first visit to western Europe in the company of A.S. Suvorin, a wealthy newspaper proprietor and the publisher of much of Chekhov’s own work. Their long and close friendship caused Chekhov some unpopularity, owing to the politically reactionary character of Suvorin’s newspaper, Novoye vremya (“New Time”). Eventually Chekhov broke with Suvorin over the attitude taken by the paper toward the notorious Alfred Dreyfus affair in France, with Chekhov championing Dreyfus. During the years just before and after his Sakhalin expedition, Chekhov had continued his experiments as a dramatist. His Wood Demon (1888–89) is a long-winded and ineptly facetious four-act play, which somehow, by a miracle of art, became converted—largely by cutting—into Dyadya Vanya (Uncle Vanya), one of his greatest stage masterpieces. The conversion—to a superb study of aimlessness in a rural manor house—took place some time between 1890 and 1896; the play was published in 1897. Other dramatic efforts of the period include several of the uproarious one-act farces known as vaudevilles: Medved (The Bear), Predlozheniye (The Proposal), Svadba (The Wedding), Yubiley (The Anniversary), and others. Melikhovo period: 1892–98 After helping, both as doctor and as medical administrator, to relieve the disastrous famine of 1891–92 in Russia, Chekhov bought a country estate in the village of Melikhovo, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Moscow. That was his main residence for about six years, providing a home for his aging parents, as also for his sister Mariya, who acted as his housekeeper and remained unmarried in order to look after her brother. The Melikhovo period was the most creatively effective of Chekhov’s life so far as short stories were concerned, for it was during those six years that he wrote “The Butterfly,” “Neighbours” (1892), “An Anonymous Story” (1893), “The Black Monk” (1894), “Murder,” and “Ariadne” (1895), among many other masterpieces. Village life now became a leading theme in his work, most notably in “Peasants” (1897). Undistinguished by plot, the short sequence of brilliant sketches created more stir in Russia than any other single work of Chekhov’s, partly owing to his rejection of the convention whereby writers commonly presented the Russian peasantry in sentimentalized and debrutalized form. Continuing to provide many portraits of the intelligentsia, Chekhov also described the commercial and factory-owning world in such stories as “A Woman’s Kingdom,” (1894) and “Three Years” (1895). As has often been recognized, Chekhov’s work provides a panoramic study of the Russia of his day, and one so accurate that it could even be used as a sociological source. In some of his stories of the Melikhovo period, Chekhov attacked by implication the teachings of Leo Tolstoy, the well-known novelist and thinker, and Chekhov’s revered elder contemporary. Himself once (in the late 1880s) a tentative disciple of the Tolstoyan simple life, and also of nonresistance to evil as advocated by Tolstoy, Chekhov had now rejected those doctrines. He illustrated his new view in one particularly outstanding story: “Ward Number Six” (1892). Here an elderly doctor shows himself nonresistant to evil by refraining from remedying the appalling conditions in the mental ward of which he has charge—only to be incarcerated as a patient himself through the intrigues of a subordinate. “In My Life ”(1896) the young hero, son of a provincial architect, insists on defying middle-class convention by becoming a house painter, a cultivation of the Tolstoyan simple life that Chekhov portrays as misconceived. In a later trio of linked stories, “The Man in a Case,” “Gooseberries,” and “About Love” (1898), Chekhov further develops the same theme, showing various figures who similarly fail to realize their full potentialities. As those pleas in favour of personal freedom illustrate, Chekhov’s stories frequently contain some kind of submerged moral, though he never worked out a comprehensive ethical or philosophical doctrine. Chayka (The Seagull) is Chekhov’s only dramatic work dating with certainty from the Melikhovo period. First performed in St. Petersburg on October 17, 1896 (Old Style), the four-act drama, misnamed a comedy, was badly received; indeed, it was almost hissed off the stage. Chekhov was greatly distressed and left the auditorium during the second act, having suffered one of the most traumatic experiences of his life and vowing never to write for the stage again. Two years later, however, the play was revived by the newly created Moscow Art Theatre, enjoying considerable success and helping to reestablish Chekhov as a dramatist. The Seagull is a study of the clash between the older and younger generations as it affects two actresses and two writers, some of the details having been suggested by episodes in the lives of Chekhov’s friends. Yalta period: 1899–1904 In March 1897 Chekhov had suffered a lung hemorrhage caused by tuberculosis, symptoms of which had become apparent considerably earlier. Now forced to acknowledge himself a semi-invalid, Chekhov sold his Melikhovo estate and built a villa in Yalta, the Crimean coastal resort. From then on he spent most of his winters there or on the French Riviera, cut off from the intellectual life of Moscow and St. Petersburg. That was all the more galling since his plays were beginning to attract serious attention. Moreover, Chekhov had become attracted by a young actress, Olga Knipper, who was appearing in his plays, and whom he eventually married in 1901; the marriage probably marked the only profound love affair of his life. But since Knipper continued to pursue her acting career, husband and wife lived apart during most of the winter months, and there were no children of the marriage. Never a successful financial manager, Chekhov attempted to regularize his literary affairs in 1899 by selling the copyright of all his existing works, excluding plays, to the publisher A.F. Marx for 75,000 rubles, an unduly low sum. In 1899–1901 Marx issued the first comprehensive edition of Chekhov’s works, in 10 volumes, after the author had himself rejected many of his juvenilia. Even so, that publication, reprinted in 1903 with supplementary material, was unsatisfactory in many ways. Listen to Norris Houghton discuss the difficulty of staging Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard Listen to Norris Houghton discuss the difficulty of staging Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard Theatre director Norris Houghton considering the challenges of staging Anton Chekhov's Vishnyovy sad (1904; The Cherry Orchard); from a film by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation, 1967. See all videos for this article Chekhov’s Yalta period saw a decline in the production of short stories and a greater emphasis on drama. His two last plays—Tri sestry (Three Sisters), first performed in 1901, and Vishnyovy sad (The Cherry Orchard), first performed in 1904—were both written for the Moscow Art Theatre. But much as Chekhov owed to the theatre’s two founders, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and Konstanin Stanislavsky, he remained dissatisfied with such rehearsals and performances of his plays as he was able to witness. Repeatedly insisting that his mature drama was comedy rather than tragedy, Chekhov grew distressed when producers insisted on a heavy treatment, overemphasizing the—admittedly frequent—occasions on which the characters inveigh against the boredom and futility of their lives. Despite Stanislavsky’s reputation as an innovator who had brought a natural, nondeclamatory style to the hitherto overhistrionic Russian stage, his productions were never natural and nondeclamatory enough for Chekhov, who wished his work to be acted with the lightest possible touch. And though Chekhov’s mature plays have since become established in repertoires all over the world, it remains doubtful whether his craving for the light touch has been satisfied except on the rarest of occasions. Yet oversolemnity can be the ruin of Three Sisters, for example—the play in which Chekhov so sensitively portrays the longings of a trio of provincial young women. Insisting that his The Cherry Orchard was “a comedy, in places even a farce,” Chekhov offered in that last play a poignant picture of the Russian landowning class in decline, portraying characters who remain comic despite their very poignancy. The play was first performed in Moscow on January 17, 1904 (Old Style), and less than six months later Chekhov died of tuberculosis. Though already celebrated by the Russian literary public at the time of his death, Chekhov did not become internationally famous until the years after World War I, by which time the translations of Constance Garnett (into English) and of others had helped to publicize his work. Yet his elusive, superficially guileless style of writing—in which what is left unsaid often seems so much more important than what is said—has defied effective analysis by literary critics, as well as effective imitation by creative writers. It was not until 40 years after his death, with the issue of the 20-volume Polnoye sobraniye sochineny i pisem A.P. Chekhova (“Complete Works and Letters of A.P. Chekhov”) of 1944–51, that Chekhov was at last presented in Russian on a level of scholarship worthy—though with certain reservations—of his achievement. Eight volumes of that edition contain his correspondence, amounting to several thousand letters. Outstandingly witty and lively, they belie the legend—commonly believed during the author’s lifetime—that he was hopelessly pessimistic in outlook. As samples of the Russian epistolary art, Chekhov’s letters have been rated second only to Aleksandr Pushkin’s by the literary historian D.S. Mirsky. Although Chekhov is chiefly known for his plays, his stories—and particularly those that were written after 1888—represent, according to some critics, an even more significant and creative literary achievement. Ronald Francis Hingley The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Leo Tolstoy Table of Contents Introduction & Top Questions Early years First publications The period of the great novels (1863–77) Conversion and religious beliefs Fiction after 1880 Last years Legacy Quotes References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics Images Leo TolstoyYasnaya Polyana: estate of Leo TolstoyLeo TolstoyLeo Tolstoy with his grandchildren For Students Leo Tolstoy Leo Tolstoy summary Quizzes Row of colorful books on a bookshelf. Stack of books, pile of books, literature, reading. Homepage 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society The Literary World Summer red bird, Tanager from The Birds of America by John James Audubon, 4 vol. (435 hand-coloured plates, 1827-38), pl. 44, London. Engraver Robert Havell. Engraving, hand-colored. Authors of Classic Literature Nobel prize-winning American author, Pearl S. Buck, at her home, Green Hills Farm, near Perkasie, Pennsylvania, 1962. 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Homepage 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society The 10 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time Baseball laying in the grass. Homepage blog 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society, sports and games athletics 10 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time pg 229Nazi parade features a banner proclaiming, "Death to Marxism."The possibility of a peaceful Germany after World War I was precluded entirely by the terms of the Versailles Treaty and theintransigent hostility of France and England. Stripped of indu Were the Nazis Socialists? illustration of the walking titanosaurus, Patagotitan mayorum Titanosaurs: 8 of the World's Biggest Dinosaurs Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart portrait. Austrian composer. (Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) Did Mozart Write “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”? King Cobra snake in Malaysia. (reptile) 9 of the World’s Deadliest Snakes Ice Sledge Hockey, Hockey Canada Cup, USA (left) vs Canada, 2009. 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Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Vancouver Olympics 10 Best Hockey Players of All Time Home Literature Novels & Short Stories Novelists L-Z Arts & Culture Leo Tolstoy Russian writer Also known as: Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoi Written by Fact-checked by Article History Leo Tolstoy Leo Tolstoy See all media Category: Arts & Culture Tolstoy also spelled: Tolstoi Russian in full: Lev Nikolayevich, Graf (count) Tolstoy Born: August 28 [September 9, New Style], 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, Russian Empire Died: November 7 [November 20], 1910, Astapovo, Ryazan province (aged 82) Notable Works: “An Examination of Dogmatic Theology” “Anna Karenina” “Boyhood” “Childhood” “Father Sergius” “Hadji-Murad” “Kholstomer” “My Confession” “Resurrection” “Sevastopol in August” “Sevastopol in December” “Sevastopol in May” “The Cossacks” “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” “The Kingdom of God Is Within You” “The Kreutzer Sonata” “The Living Corpse” “The Power of Darkness” “The Raid” “Three Deaths” “Union and Translation of the Four Gospels” “War and Peace” “What I Believe” “What Is Art?” “Yasnaya Polyana” “Youth” Movement / Style: realism Top Questions Why is Leo Tolstoy significant? What was Leo Tolstoy’s childhood like? How did Leo Tolstoy die? What are Leo Tolstoy’s achievements? Leo Tolstoy (born August 28 [September 9, New Style], 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, Russian Empire—died November 7 [November 20], 1910, Astapovo, Ryazan province) Russian author, a master of realistic fiction and one of the world’s greatest novelists. Tolstoy is best known for his two longest works, War and Peace (1865–69) and Anna Karenina (1875–77), which are commonly regarded as among the finest novels ever written. War and Peace in particular seems virtually to define this form for many readers and critics. Among Tolstoy’s shorter works, The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) is usually classed among the best examples of the novella. Especially during his last three decades Tolstoy also achieved world renown as a moral and religious teacher. His doctrine of nonresistance to evil had an important influence on Gandhi. Although Tolstoy’s religious ideas no longer command the respect they once did, interest in his life and personality has, if anything, increased over the years. Most readers will agree with the assessment of the 19th-century British poet and critic Matthew Arnold that a novel by Tolstoy is not a work of art but a piece of life; the Russian author Isaak Babel commented that, if the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy. Critics of diverse schools have agreed that somehow Tolstoy’s works seem to elude all artifice. Most have stressed his ability to observe the smallest changes of consciousness and to record the slightest movements of the body. What another novelist would describe as a single act of consciousness, Tolstoy convincingly breaks down into a series of infinitesimally small steps. According to the English writer Virginia Woolf, who took for granted that Tolstoy was “the greatest of all novelists,” these observational powers elicited a kind of fear in readers, who “wish to escape from the gaze which Tolstoy fixes on us.” Those who visited Tolstoy as an old man also reported feelings of great discomfort when he appeared to understand their unspoken thoughts. It was commonplace to describe him as godlike in his powers and titanic in his struggles to escape the limitations of the human condition. Some viewed Tolstoy as the embodiment of nature and pure vitality, others saw him as the incarnation of the world’s conscience, but for almost all who knew him or read his works, he was not just one of the greatest writers who ever lived but a living symbol of the search for life’s meaning. Early years Yasnaya Polyana: estate of Leo Tolstoy Yasnaya Polyana: estate of Leo Tolstoy Estate of Leo Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana, Russia. The scion of prominent aristocrats, Tolstoy was born at the family estate, about 130 miles (210 kilometres) south of Moscow, where he was to live the better part of his life and write his most-important works. His mother, Mariya Nikolayevna, née Princess Volkonskaya, died before he was two years old, and his father Nikolay Ilich, Graf (count) Tolstoy, followed her in 1837. His grandmother died 11 months later, and then his next guardian, his aunt Aleksandra, in 1841. Tolstoy and his four siblings were then transferred to the care of another aunt in Kazan, in western Russia. Tolstoy remembered a cousin who lived at Yasnaya Polyana, Tatyana Aleksandrovna Yergolskaya (“Aunt Toinette,” as he called her), as the greatest influence on his childhood, and later, as a young man, Tolstoy wrote some of his most-touching letters to her. Despite the constant presence of death, Tolstoy remembered his childhood in idyllic terms. His first published work, Detstvo (1852; Childhood), was a fictionalized and nostalgic account of his early years. Nobel prize-winning American author, Pearl S. Buck, at her home, Green Hills Farm, near Perkasie, Pennsylvania, 1962. (Pearl Buck) Britannica Quiz Novels and Novelists Quiz Educated at home by tutors, Tolstoy enrolled in the University of Kazan in 1844 as a student of Oriental languages. His poor record soon forced him to transfer to the less-demanding law faculty, where he wrote a comparison of the French political philosopher Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws and Catherine the Great’s nakaz (instructions for a law code). Interested in literature and ethics, he was drawn to the works of the English novelists Laurence Sterne and Charles Dickens and, especially, to the writings of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau; in place of a cross, he wore a medallion with a portrait of Rousseau. But he spent most of his time trying to be comme il faut (socially correct), drinking, gambling, and engaging in debauchery. After leaving the university in 1847 without a degree, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana, where he planned to educate himself, to manage his estate, and to improve the lot of his serfs. Despite frequent resolutions to change his ways, he continued his loose life during stays in Tula, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. In 1851 he joined his older brother Nikolay, an army officer, in the Caucasus and then entered the army himself. He took part in campaigns against the native peoples and, soon after, in the Crimean War (1853–56). In 1847 Tolstoy began keeping a diary, which became his laboratory for experiments in self-analysis and, later, for his fiction. With some interruptions, Tolstoy kept his diaries throughout his life, and he is therefore one of the most copiously documented writers who ever lived. Reflecting the life he was leading, his first diary begins by confiding that he may have contracted a venereal disease. The early diaries record a fascination with rule-making, as Tolstoy composed rules for diverse aspects of social and moral behaviour. They also record the writer’s repeated failure to honour these rules, his attempts to formulate new ones designed to ensure obedience to old ones, and his frequent acts of self-castigation. Tolstoy’s later belief that life is too complex and disordered ever to conform to rules or philosophical systems perhaps derives from these futile attempts at self-regulation. Special offer for students! Check out our special academic rate and excel this spring semester! First publications of Leo Tolstoy Concealing his identity, Tolstoy submitted Childh OR MUCH of the early twentieth century, Maxim Gorky was probably the world’s most famous writer. His early romantic stories from the 1890s, with heroes drawn from the millions of peasants-turned-tramps then roaming the Russian countryside, marked him as an exciting new force in Russian letters that cut across class lines, blurring the distinction between high and low literature. His 1902 play The Lower Depths took his homeland and then Europe by storm. These works and his 1914 autobiographical masterpiece, Childhood, found millions of readers, including many Russians who had rarely, if ever, read before. He appeared out of the blue, a contemporary critic recalled, “an emissary from the anonymous Russian masses.” Rejecting with contempt Russian literature’s traditional sympathy for “the insulted and injured” along with its glorification of the peasant as a repository of wisdom and national values, he celebrated instead action, will, initiative, creativity. “‘Man’—it has a proud ring!” he proclaimed in his most famous line. “Man” was the active center of his optimistic new faith. “Man” could do anything: “He even invented God.” Amid a widespread, if inchoate, feeling that an age was ending, Gorky offered a bracing vision of the new and beautiful world that could and should replace it, to be brought about by the harnessing of individual and collective will, the transformative power of culture, and the application of technology. Gorky’s fame arose from his writings, but quickly threatened to transcend them as he became a celebrity in the full modern sense, his image for sale on cigarette boxes and postcards, his movements and opinions of equal interest to the public—whose commitment to revolution he sought to mobilize—and to the repressive tsarist regime. His place in Russian life and letters was unique. A prodigiously gifted autodidact who quit school at 10, he came of a once well-to-do family of artisans that had fallen into poverty; as a result, he spent his formative years in an astonishing variety of jobs before becoming a writer. An archetypal outsider, he fit none of the familiar social and cultural categories and he cultivated that image. It suited his commitment to political activism quite as much as his commitment to literature, and his activism, making good on the implicit urgings of his writing, made him a hero to many. His was, in sober fact, a fabulous career. A brief summary reveals the fellow-hobo and chronicler of the uprooted peasantry; friend of Lenin and fundraiser for the Bolsheviks; political exile on Capri (1906-1913); outspoken opponent of Lenin’s fledgling regime (Petrograd, 1917-1918); savior of thousands of writers and scholars from starvation, and rescuer of many from arrest (Petrograd, 1918-1921); expatriate author of memoirs and dark, quasi-symbolist stories in Germany and Italy (1921-1928); returnee in the early 1930s to Soviet Russia, hailed as “the great proletarian writer,” herald of the revolution, founding father of Soviet literature and inventor of “socialist realism,” for whom his native city and Moscow’s main thoroughfare, along with hundreds of institutes and enterprises, were renamed; and finally the preacher of merciless class hatred, smothered with state honors but increasingly isolated, in effect the prisoner of Stalin, who may have had him murdered. But the life trajectory just described is that of a pseudonym. Gorky was born Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov; he adopted the pen name (gorky means “bitter” in Russian) in his late twenties as a kind of public provocation, and it soon took on a life of its own. “A time will come,” Anton Chekhov wrote in 1903, “when people will forget Gorky’s works, but he himself will hardly be forgotten even in a thousand years.” Another contemporary noted, “[M]ore important than anything he says is what he is”—and, we might add, what he was taken to be. With the opening of Russian archives and lifting of longstanding taboos since the fall of the USSR, the ways in which Gorky’s public image was formed and propagated are at last available for serious study and reassessment. Recent Russian publications show in new and often surprising detail just how (and how far) he was indeed a key figure—at once absolutely unique and supremely representative—in the history of his times. And the man behind all the contradictory positions and beliefs, the whole huge but wavering public image? He was notoriously reticent about his personal life, which he professed to dislike except as raw material for his writing, and odd as it may sound, he seems to have taken pains to have as little of one as possible. (The autobiographical Childhood, a critic noted, “is about everybody but himself.”) His interest in behavior, his own and others’, was not accompanied by any interest in analyzing its causes—the “anti-psychologism” of his writing is often noted; hence detailed discussions of his loves and hatreds, his finances, his relations with Bolshevik leaders and with writers of the most varied stripe, have had to wait for the disclosures now coming to light in Russia. These new materials offer the outlines of an astonishingly broad, complex, and multifaceted personality—highly fallible, on occasion willfully blind, stubborn, passionately inconsistent—that fascinates more deeply with every new revelation. That it continues to elude final definition reminds us that this is precisely what characters in the greatest literature do. There, surely, as Chekhov seems to have sensed, is one earnest of his immortality.
  • Binding: Softcover, Wraps
  • Language: English
  • Special Attributes: Manuscript
  • Author: Maxim Gorky
  • Topic: Literature
  • Original/Facsimile: Original

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