Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov adopted the pseudonym Maxim Gorky in 1892. The name meant bitter, reflecting his simmering anger about life in Russia and a determination to speak the truth. He was born on the 16th of March 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod. His father died when he was very young, leaving him an orphan at age eleven. A maternal grandmother raised him until he ran away from home in 1880. That year marked the start of a five-year journey across the Russian Empire. He changed jobs frequently during this time, working as a shoemaker's apprentice and doing menial labor for the Caucasian Railway workshops. These experiences accumulated impressions that would later shape his writing style. In December 1887, he attempted suicide before continuing his travels. By 1895, he had quit school at age ten and become a journalist for provincial newspapers. He wrote under various names before settling on Gorky. His first short story, Makar Chudra, appeared in the newspaper Kavkaz in Tiflis. This publication launched his career as a writer.
Gorky became active in the emerging Marxist socialist movement by 1899. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime and was arrested many times. In 1902, he befriended Vladimir Lenin after they met. The Tsar Nicholas II annulled Gorky's election as an honorary Academician of Literature. Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Korolenko left the academy in protest. From 1906 to 1913, Gorky lived on the island of Capri in southern Italy. He stayed there partly for health reasons and partly to escape the repressive atmosphere in Russia. During this period, he developed a philosophy called God-Building alongside Anatoly Lunacharsky and Alexander Bogdanov. Lenin ridiculed this idea but Gorky retained his belief that culture would be more critical to the revolution than political arrangements. After World War I began in 1914, Gorky became devastated by the destruction of European culture. He wrote anti-war publications but succeeded in publishing only one before censors stopped him. His newspaper Novaya Zhizn fell prey to Bolshevik censorship during the civil war. In 1918, he published Untimely Thoughts, a collection of essays critical of the Bolsheviks. These essays would not be republished in Russia until after Perestroika. By September 1921, he left Russia for Berlin. He heard about the Moscow Trial of Socialist Revolutionaries which hardened his opposition to the regime.
Gorky returned to the USSR in May 1928 at Joseph Stalin's personal invitation. The city of Nizhny Novgorod was renamed Gorky in his honor. Moscow's main park and Tverskaya street were also renamed after him. The largest fixed-wing aircraft in the mid-1930s, the Tupolev ANT-20, bore his name. He was appointed President of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1932. On the 11th of October 1931, he read his fairy tale poem A Girl and Death to visitors including Stalin, Kliment Voroshilov, and Vyacheslav Molotov. Stalin wrote an autograph on the work stating it was stronger than Goethe's Faust. Despite public support, relations with the Soviet regime remained difficult. While being Stalin's public supporter, he maintained friendships with Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharin. These leaders of the anti-Stalin opposition were executed after Gorky's death. He hoped to ease Soviet cultural policies and made efforts to defend writers who disobeyed them. This resulted in him spending his last days under unannounced house arrest. His secretary Pyotr Kryuchkov had been recruited by Genrikh Yagoda as a paid informer before Gorky died from pneumonia in June 1936.
Gorky's most famous works include early short stories written in the 1890s such as Chelkash and Old Izergil. The play The Lower Depths appeared in 1902. His fictional autobiographical trilogy My Childhood, In the World, and My Universities ran from 1913 to 1923. The novel Mother came out in 1906. Gorky himself judged some of these works as failures. He thought Mother was one of his biggest failures because it was long, boring, and carelessly written. However, warmer appraisals exist for lesser-known post-revolutionary works like The Artamonov Business (1925) and The Life of Klim Samgin (1925, 1936). Some critics consider Klim Samgin his masterpiece and view it as a modernist work. Unlike his pre-revolutionary writings known for anti-psychologism, later works differ with an ambivalent portrayal of the Russian Revolution. They show interest in human psychology. Despite critical opinions, many major works including post-revolutionary novels have remained largely unknown in the West. Richard Freeborn notes that while his reputation suffered due to politics, his achievement as creator of vivid portraits is undeniable.
In 1933, Gorky co-edited an infamous book about the White Sea-Baltic Canal with Averbakh and Firin. The book presented itself as successful rehabilitation of former enemies of the proletariat. For other writers, he urged realism by extracting ideas from reality but adding romantic potential. Gorky avoided realism himself. His denials that even a single prisoner died during construction were refuted by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who claimed thousands froze to death. Solzhenitsyn and Dmitry Likhachov documented a visit on the 20th of June 1929 to Solovki, the original forced labor camp. The camp was transformed to fit Soviet ideas of transformation through labor. Prisoners wore new clothes used to laboring in underwear. Torture rooms were hidden. Deception occurred when children model prisoners challenged Gorky if he wanted truth. A fourteen-year-old boy recounted starvation, men worked to death, pole torture, and summary executions. Gorky never wrote about the boy or asked to take him away. The boy was executed after Gorky left. He left the room in tears and wrote in the visitor book that he was not in a state of mind to express impressions. Most tellingly, his description said there was no impression of life being over-regulated. It seemed like passengers rescued from a drowned ship.
Gorky's son Maxim Peshkov died suddenly in May 1934. This was followed by Gorky's own death in June 1936 from pneumonia. Speculation has long surrounded the circumstances of his death. Stalin and Molotov carried Gorky's urn during the funeral. During the Bukharin trial in 1938, one charge claimed Gorky was killed by Yagoda's NKVD agents. According to several historians, both father and son were poisoned by NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda on orders from Stalin. They may have used substances developed at a special NKVD laboratory in Moscow with assistance from Kremlin doctors Pletnyov and Lev Levin. Before his death, he was visited at home by Stalin, Yagoda, and other leading communists. Moura Budberg chose not to return to the USSR but stayed for his funeral. The sudden death of his son preceded his own passing. The political climate had become increasingly repressive especially after Sergei Kirov's assassination in December 1934. Gorky spent his final days under unannounced house arrest near Moscow in Gorki10.
In the Soviet Union, complexities in Gorky's life were reduced to an iconic image. He appeared as a great Soviet writer who emerged from common people and founded Socialist Realism. Such treatment compromised his reputation and literary legacy especially in the West. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn later called him an apologist for executioners though scholars wrote about his contradictory relationship with Bolsheviks. German scholar Armin Knigge concluded that Gorky was never a Stalinist. In the West, only The Lower Depths retained significant position among dramatic works. Few early short stories remained influential. His best-known works like Mother are hardly available today. Post-revolutionary novels including The Artamonov Business have not been republished for long periods. Aaron Lake Smith noted his work is so unavailable it seems suspicious. In Russia, his figure is better known due to state-sponsored cult but legacy has been overtaken by fog widely depoliticized and misunderstood. Out of four intended volumes of Klim Samgin, he finished three published between 1927 and 1931. The fourth volume remained unfinished until after his death in 1937. Despite controversies, his achievement as creator of vivid portraits remains undeniable.
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Common questions
When was Maxim Gorky born and where did he grow up?
Maxim Gorky was born on the 16th of March 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod. He grew up as an orphan after his father died when he was very young, and a maternal grandmother raised him until he ran away from home in 1880.
Why did Maxim Gorky adopt the pseudonym Maxim Gorky in 1892?
Alexei Peshkov adopted the name Maxim Gorky in 1892 because it means bitter, reflecting his simmering anger about life in Russia and a determination to speak the truth. This name change marked the beginning of his career as a writer who published works like Makar Chudra in the newspaper Kavkaz.
What happened during Maxim Gorky's time living on Capri between 1906 and 1913?
From 1906 to 1913, Maxim Gorky lived on the island of Capri in southern Italy partly for health reasons and partly to escape the repressive atmosphere in Russia. During this period, he developed a philosophy called God-Building alongside Anatoly Lunacharsky and Alexander Bogdanov while Lenin ridiculed the idea.
How did Maxim Gorky die and what are the theories surrounding his death?
Maxim Gorky died from pneumonia in June 1936 after spending his final days under unannounced house arrest near Moscow. Several historians claim that both he and his son were poisoned by NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda on orders from Stalin using substances developed at a special laboratory with assistance from Kremlin doctors Pletnyov and Lev Levin.
Which major literary works did Maxim Gorky write and how were they received?
Maxim Gorky wrote famous early short stories such as Chelkash and Old Izergil along with the play The Lower Depths which appeared in 1902. His fictional autobiographical trilogy My Childhood, In the World, and My Universities ran from 1913 to 1923, though some critics consider The Life of Klim Samgin his masterpiece despite its limited availability in the West.