We've answered the most popular questions - check, maybe we've answered yours too?
- We are a cultural institution and want to broadcast on the Kultura.RF portal. Where should we turn?
- How to propose an event to the portal’s “Poster”?
- I found an error in a publication on the portal. How to tell the editors?
I subscribed to push notifications, but the offer appears every day
We use cookies on the portal to remember your visits. If cookies are deleted, the subscription offer will pop up again. Open your browser settings and make sure that the “Delete cookies” option is not marked “Delete every time you exit the browser.”
I want to be the first to know about new materials and projects of the portal “Culture.RF”
If you have an idea for broadcasting, but do not have the technical ability to carry it out, we suggest filling out an electronic application form within the framework of the national project “Culture”: . If the event is scheduled between September 1 and November 30, 2019, the application can be submitted from June 28 to July 28, 2019 (inclusive). The selection of events that will receive support is carried out by an expert commission of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.
Our museum (institution) is not on the portal. How to add it?
You can add an institution to the portal using the “Unified Information Space in the Field of Culture” system: . Join it and add your places and events in accordance with. After checking by the moderator, information about the institution will appear on the Kultura.RF portal.
18. Maxim Gorky. The play "At the Bottom"
Universities of Alexey Peshkov
Today we will talk about the work of Maxim Gorky, or more precisely, we will briefly analyze the play “At the Lower Depths,” written in 1902. And here we will have to explain ourselves a little. In the course of these lectures, we are talking mainly about Russian modernism. The exception is Bunin. And the second exception is Gorky.
Of course, this was done intentionally, because he was such a large, such an important figure that it was absolutely impossible to do without him. Not to mention the fact that Gorky, of course, was influenced by Russian, and even more so by Western modernism, primarily in the person of Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher.
Well, many modernists, even the most distant biographically and creatively from Gorky, also read his books carefully, and many, such as the wonderful poet, prose writer and, above all, humorist Vladislav Khodasevich, wrote what a big role Gorky played in their fate, in their creative development.
First, just a few words, necessary to the extent that we will need it to analyze the text, about Gorky’s biography. In fact, his last name was Peshkov, his name was not Maxim, but Alexey Maksimovich. He was born in 1868, and he was not born at the very bottom of the social ladder, but not at the top either. Closer to the bottom.
His grandfather was a very cruel and at the same time a very strong man, his name was Vasily Vasilyevich Kashirin. They lived in Nizhny Novgorod. And this time is wonderfully described in one of Gorky’s best works - in his story “Childhood”. And it was in this story that he used a formula that will be important for us and which generally seems so accurate to me when describing Gorky’s life: “the leaden abomination of Russian life.”
Indeed, they lived hopelessly, they lived hard, the grandfather counted every penny and found fault with little Alyosha Peshkov all the time. And from childhood, he learned to appreciate those people who decorate this life, who know how to not only correct this situation, but also fix such a person who is in power in the family, like Vasily Vasilyevich Kashirin, but who know how to somehow soften, change the situation. And such a person was Gorky’s grandmother Akulina Ivanovna, who knew how to bring joy into this life. And I repeat once again, we will need this, it is essential: these are the people who meant a lot to Alexei Maksimovich.
He graduated from two classes at the Sloboda Kunavinsky School. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the family in which he was placed was very poor, he was not able to receive a regular education. In 1878, he was sent “to the people” - this is the name of the second book of Gorky’s trilogy “Childhood” - “In People” - “My Universities”.
It must, of course, be said that Gorky was one of the most well-read people of his generation. He read a lot, he had an excellent photographic memory, and his contemporaries remember him reading books very often. He really knew a lot. But at the same time, I repeat once again, this education was not systematic. It wasn't stacked on shelves, it was kind of chaotic. He was a chaotic but very well read man.
Ornithological prologue
One more date needs to be mentioned, one more event that was very important in Gorky’s life and will also be useful to us. In 1884, Gorky read Marx, and Marxism became for him a kind of, if you like, substitute for religion. He perceived Marxism not just as some teaching, but as a program that needed to be implemented.
And again, even from the little that we said about Gorky, it seems clear why this happened. The leaden abominations of Russian life, the difficult, unbearable existence. Marxism offered a certain program. In fact, in the 20th century this fascinated many, many people. He offered not just some abstract ways out of the situation, but a consistent program, step by step, on how one could get out of this difficult life into the light. And Gorky adopted this worldview.
And right away I want to draw your attention to this fork. In fact, our interpretation of the play “At the Bottom” will be built around it. His worldview was one, it required decoration, consolation. Gorky loved even liars, who at least somehow decorated this life, at least somehow saved him from the heaviness and boredom of this life. And his Marxist worldview, on the contrary, demanded speaking the truth, demanded ruthlessness. And, in fact, many of Gorky’s works seem to be built on contradiction. There this contradiction arises, a creatively fruitful contradiction between the worldview and worldview. From this point of view, let's try to look at the play “At the Bottom”.
But before that, let us remember one more text, a rather weak text by Gorky that is not very readable today. This is a short parable called “About the Siskin Who Lied, and About the Woodpecker – a Lover of Truth.” This is such a parable, it was written by a very young young Gorky in 1893. And there, what he later did masterfully, skillfully, complexly, all this is said there, loudly, I would say, with such directness.
The main characters are two birds. One of them is a siskin, he flies in, he is a stranger and calls on the birds, who live quietly, sitting and pecking their food, to leave their cozy places. He calls on the birds, who are sitting comfortably, calmly and pecking at their food, to fly away. “I proceed from an unshakable conviction in the high calling of birds as the final, most complex and wise act in the creativity of nature. We must not get tired, we must always fight and conquer everything in order to justify ourselves in our own eyes, in order to have the right to say: everything past, present and future is us, not the blind force of the elements. The path we need to follow is unfamiliar to me, but I am confident that we need to move forward. There is a country worthy of being a reward for the labors we have endured along the way!”
Well, here you can see what a clumsy writer Gorky is. Birds must follow the path, not fly somewhere, but walk! Those. he takes an abstract formula and superimposes it on his ornithological metaphor. But - this is already important - he pronounces important words here. This is actually one of his ideas that will be significant for him.
And there is a woodpecker, an unpleasant woodpecker, who always hammers at one point, who upsets this very siskin. “Mr. Chizh’s attempt to win your attention by misleading you with brilliant and loud phrases clearly indicates the level of his opinion of you as sensible beings! ...none of you has ever taken off and can’t fly higher than yourself,” says this same woodpecker. And, in fact, Gorky’s text is based on this simple confrontation. Of course, the woodpecker wins as a result, of course, these birds don’t fly anywhere.
Both this woodpecker, a lover of truth, and the siskin, who sweetly lied, turn out to be the main characters of this text. But, in addition, there are also birds that at first get inspired, and then the woodpecker convinces them that there is no need to fly anywhere.
Siskin and woodpecker in new scenery
In fact, this fairy tale, this parable already largely contains the core, the grain of the conflict that will later unfold in the play “At the Bottom.” And it will unfold mainly between two characters, one of whom, and this is generally the key figure of the entire play, will be called Luka. He, of course, plays the role of such a siskin. We remember that this character... Why is he important, why is he significant, why is he more important than everyone else? Here they are sitting in some immobility, all these characters “At the Bottom”, like those birds on this fence. Luka appears, and he also presents everyone with such a beautiful story. He tries to console everyone, tries to encourage everyone.
Then he disappears. Look, the characters are motionless, he appears and he disappears, and for each of the characters who remained on this day, their destinies turn out differently, but mostly their destinies turn out unhappily. Those. his, as other characters in the play say, “sweet lies” do not lead to anything good.
The role of the woodpecker here is played by a character whose name is Kostylev, this is the owner of the shelter. And they conduct just such conversations among themselves, and their conversations are in many ways reminiscent of what the siskin and the woodpecker talk about in the parable that we have just discussed briefly. Because one of the important topics is the topic “sit still or rush somewhere?”
Kostylev (approaches Luka): What, old man?
Luke: Nothing, old man!..
Kostylev: So... Are you leaving, they say?
Luke: It's time...
Kostylev: Where?
Luke: Where do your eyes lead...
Kostylev: Wandering means... It's an inconvenience, apparently, do you have to live in one place?
Luke: Under a lying stone - it is said - and the water does not flow...
Kostylev: That's a stone. But a person must live in one place... It is impossible for people like cockroaches to live... Wherever anyone wants, he crawls there... A person must determine himself to the place... and not get confused in vain on the ground...
Indeed, this theme - sitting still or traveling in search of a beautiful world - is important to the play. Let me remind you that Luke suggests that the Actor search, i.e. leave this same bottom, look for some kind of hospital where alcoholics are brought back to normal. Ash, a hereditary thief, offers, together with Natasha, a girl who is in love with him and with whom he is in love, to leave the bottom and go to Siberia to look for some new life there. And he himself leaves this place. Those. The solution is this: searching. We need to look for a new place, a new life. Or you need to sit still and live as you were ordered, as you were given to live.
Between false consolation and merciless truth
But the main conflict of the play is not this conflict. The main conflict is different, and Kostylev, although an important figure in the play, is by no means the key one. The key characters are different there. And the main conflict unfolds in this play, given by the title of Gorky’s old parable: “the lover of truth” and “who lied.” Indeed, the key conflict of the play is between lies and truth. True or false - which is better? What helps people survive, what helps them somehow escape?
To begin with, I want to say that the word “truth” is one of the key words of the play. It is repeated very often in the play, 46 times in different versions - a noun, an adjective formed from it, etc. 46 times. By comparison, the word “poverty,” which also seemed very important for this play, is repeated only four times. And the theme of truth and lies arises at the very, very beginning of the play, when two of its characters, Kleshch and Kvashnya, have the following dialogue:
Mite: You're lying!
Kvashnya: Wha-oh?
Mite: You're lying! Get married to Abramka...
The story is that Kvashnya, who pretends that she does not want to get married, ends up marrying a policeman. The most interesting thing is that closer to the middle of the play the characters will change places, i.e. the situation will be reversed. It will no longer be Mite who accuses and denounces Kvashnya, but Kvashnya who will denounce Mite.
Kvashnya: Certainly! Of course... of course! You beat your wife half to death...
Mite: Shut up, old dog! It's none of your business...
Kvashnya: Ahh! You can't stand the truth!
And it seems that already from this exchange of remarks it is clear what function the motive of truth plays in the play “At the Lower Depths”. The truth is bullshit. Truth is an axe. Truth is a heavy weapon with which characters nail each other. They already have a bad life, it’s already difficult for them to live, and they also strive to tell each other the truth in order to humiliate each other, in order to make the weak person you are talking to even weaker.
And in the play there is a character who expresses this point of view. This is a character whose last name is Bubnov, or Bubnov. He speaks very expressively. He says this: “Mm-yes!.. But I... I don’t know how to lie! For what? In my opinion, tell the whole truth as it is! Why be ashamed? This wonderful verb is “tell the truth.” The truth is something that can be dumped, dumped in front of another person, without hesitation, exposing his ulcers, exposing the weaknesses of another person. This is the kind of truth that arises all the time in the play.
And another character, Kleshch, is the one who separates himself from all the night shelters - he is a working man... They have already lost their social, some marked places, roles, but he is a working man, he continues to work. At the end, he despairs after his wife dies, and one of his monologues sounds like this: “What is the truth? Where is the truth? (Ruffles the rags on himself with his hands.) That’s the truth! No work... no power! That's the truth! Shelter... there is no shelter! You have to breathe... here it is, the truth! Devil! Why... what do I need it for - really? Let me breathe... let me breathe! What is my fault?.. Why do I need the truth? Living is a devil - you can’t live... here it is - the truth!”
This is “why do I need the truth”, i.e. truth as punishment, truth as a weapon with which the weak beat the weak - this is Gorky’s very characteristic approach to this motive, to this theme. And this truth, a terrible and terrible truth, is opposed in the play by the lie that Luke introduces.
There is a character in the play called the Actor, I have already mentioned him. He pronounces and cannot remember the words of the monologue that he once read, when he was still an actor and not a bitter drunkard. A monologue that, according to him, shocked the audience. This is a poetic monologue. Here I want to draw your attention to this: when we are dealing with a prose text and there is a poetic insertion in it, this is almost always the strong point of the play. Well, at least because it definitely stops the attention of readers. This is even a written text in a different form. Well, either he stops his eyes, or the listener also perceives it in a special way, because he hears the rhyme. Those. this is a strong place. What is this strong point? What are these words that the Actor says?
“Old man, hey! Where are you? I remembered... listen. (Staggering, he takes two steps forward and, assuming a pose, reads.)
Gentlemen! If the Holy World does not know how to find the way to truth, - Honor to the madman who brings a golden dream to Humanity!”
This is a really very important, key fragment of the play. “Honor to the madman who will bring / to humanity a golden dream!” Yes, a lie is like heaven, a lie is like a drug, a lie is like an anesthetic agent that an anesthesiologist-doctor uses to put a patient to sleep so that he does not feel so much pain - this is a very important topic.
Key monologue of the play
And here we are, little by little, approaching the most interesting, it seems, key place in the play - that place, that monologue, which is known even to those who do not properly remember the play “At the Bottom” and have read little of it. It is spoken by a character about whom we have not yet said a single word, but who is perhaps more important than Bubnov, who utters words about merciless truth, more important than Kostylev, the owner of the flophouse, who talks about the need to sit on place. That person who, at the end of the play, is often perceived (and, it seems, is) the main antagonist opposing Luke, of course, the key character of the play. This is Satin, who already in the last act, when Luka leaves the shelter, leaves it, pronounces the famous monologue. Let's read it now and try to analyze it a little.
“Satin (hitting the table with his fist): Silence! You are all brutes! Dubye... keep quiet about the old man!<Старик – это Лука ушедший. Они только что обсуждали Луку, и Барон говорил, что Лука много врал как раз.>
(Calmer.) You, Baron, are the worst of all!.. You don’t understand anything... and you’re lying! The old man is not a charlatan! What is the truth? Man - that's the truth! He understood this... you don’t! You are dumb as bricks... I understand the old man... yes! He lied... but it was out of pity for you, damn you! There are many people who lie out of pity for their neighbors... I know! I read! They lie beautifully, inspiredly, stimulatingly!.. There are comforting lies, reconciling lies... lies justify the heaviness that crushed the worker's hand... and blame those dying of hunger... I know the lies! Those who are weak at heart... and those who live on other people's juices need lies... some are supported by it, others hide behind it... And who is his own master... who is independent and does not eat someone else's things - why does he need lies? Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!”
I will forgive you for citing such a large piece, but this is indeed a very interesting, very important fragment of text, which, it seems to me, should definitely be read in order to understand how Gorky himself generally feels about what he did in his play, to understand what the author's position is in the play. And you definitely need to reflect a little on this text, you definitely need to try to understand it and somehow figure it out.
And the first thing I want to draw your attention to is the abundance of words in this monologue that mark the sociality of this monologue. There are quite a lot of these words here. Look: “... the lie justifies the weight that crushed the worker’s hand...” Moreover, we know this worker, this is Tatar, another character whose hand was crushed and who now cannot work. Satin in this monologue raises the image of this funny, absurd man to an emblem: a lie that crushed the hand of the worker. Further: “blames those dying of hunger” - also a social motive. Further: “who is independent and does not eat someone else’s” - again a social motive. “Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!”
This is almost a slogan, I don’t know, at some Marxist gathering, at a Marxist rally. This could have been said calmly there. At the same time, one more observation needs to be made, which, it seems to me, is very important and explains a lot. Please note that all these social motives are all collected in the second part of the monologue. In the second part of the monologue, indeed, in a row, like a necklace, Gorky lowers these social words, words from some kind of Marxist speech.
If we talk about the first part of the monologue, then they simply aren’t there! There are completely different words! “You are dumb as bricks...” Pity for your neighbor arises. Beautiful, inspiring, exciting, comforting. This was taken from somewhere else in the dictionary. And, generally speaking, this monologue does not give the impression of a logically structured text. Well, see for yourself. It begins with Satin beginning to justify Luka. Satin begins to talk about the old man, while realizing that the old man was lying. “The old man is not a charlatan! What is the truth? Man - that's the truth! He understood this... you don’t!” - he says. “He lied... but it was out of pity for you, damn you! There are many people who lie out of pity for their neighbors..."
No rating here! No judgment here! There is admiration for the man... He protects him from the Baron and admires the man who saves people with his lies, who consoles people with his lies. And only in words - look, for the first time! – “beautiful, inspiring, exciting”... In the word “exciting” for the first time this negative assessment can be heard just a little. The word “exciting” is already a bit... There is the word “deception” in this. By deceiving, they lie.
Further. “There are comforting lies, reconciling lies...” Again he seems to return to his previous positions. A lie that saves, a lie that reconciles these people who are quarreling all the time. Moreover, they quarrel throughout the entire play. They quarrel, argue, fight with each other... This is a lie that reconciles. Then there is an ellipsis, and then - “the lie justifies the weight that crushed the worker’s hand,” something that we have already discussed. Those. the monologue turns out to be so glued together, as if composed of two halves. In the first half of this monologue, he admires Luka, he defends him, speaks of him as a comforter, a savior. And in the second, suddenly, he suddenly jumps into a completely different register and this same Luka begins to blame for the same thing, for lying, and pronounces all these socially necessary recipes, pronounces the necessary slogans.
And I must say that the actors who played Satin in the theater... This play was staged many times, it was very popular. Satine was played by Stanislavsky, for example, in the first production, a great director and actor, founder of the Art Theater. Unfortunately, no recording of this monologue performed by Stanislavsky has survived; there is only a photograph of Stanislavsky reading it with pathos.
But another actor, the brilliant Russian actor Evgeny Evstigneev, also played this role in the production of Sovremennik, a recording has been preserved. I remember I was at this performance where he played Satin. So, what did he do, how did he get out of this difficult situation of inconsistency between the two halves of the monologue? He played like this: since Satin drinks with his friends, with his roommates, he played here such light or not light intoxication. The man is intoxicated, he carries himself, and he says things that contradict each other.
Yes, it is possible that Gorky, realizing that there is not enough logic in this monologue, it is possible that this is really justified in part by the fact that Satin is in a situation where he cannot control himself, his logic, the construction of his speech. Maybe it is so. But this, it seems, does not answer the key question: what about Gorky himself, how is he? What is his position? After all, it is clear that in this one of the few monologues of the play, the essence is that very important words for the play are spoken here. Gorky - who is he for? Is he for Satin or for Luke? And if it is not clear what Satin is saying, then what does it all mean and how should we understand it?
Worldview vs. worldview
I think that at the end, at the end of our conversation about this play, we can return to the very beginning. You and I said that Gorky’s worldview justified lies. He saw these people who, with their vivid stories, their vivid lies, saved other people from boredom, from heaviness, from the unbearable suffering of this life.
Vladislav Khodasevich, whom I have already mentioned, recalls in his memoirs about Gorky how once in Italy, on Capri, a cab driver gave them a lift, and when they got off the horse, Gorky handed him a huge bill so that he would give change. And he snatched this bill and, whipping the horses, rode off without giving him any change.
The most interesting thing here is Gorky’s reaction. Gorky was delighted. He beat himself on the knees, laughed until he cried and said: “What a man! What a man!” Here it is! Those. at least somehow, even if he is a deceiver, a swindler, he deceived them and did not return the money. But somehow into this life, into this everyday life, he brought some kind of joy, at least some. I repeat once again: Gorky’s worldview seems to be such people... They were part of those heroes that Gorky liked, whom he admired, whom he looked at with admiration.
But Gorky’s worldview demanded something completely different. It demanded mercilessness, it demanded to expose those who live on other people's juices, and it demanded the truth. Well, I will remind you here of such a completely obvious thing that the main Bolshevik newspaper already at that time, already in 1902, was called “Pravda”. And as a Marxist, Gorky simply could not help but expose the very lie that was so close to him and was so saving for him as a person.
And in this monologue, it seems, it turned out wonderful, really wonderful and artistically wonderful. Starts for health - ends for peace. It starts with justification and ends with reproof. And, it seems, to put it unscientifically, we can say just a little bit why this play is so brilliant, why it is even against the backdrop of Gorky’s work... He wrote very different things, he was an uneven writer. He wrote many bad plays, books, essays, and several beautiful ones. “At the Bottom” is a masterpiece, one of the best he wrote.
So I think that in such a paradoxical way, it is the contradiction that sits within him, the impossibility that sits within himself to resolve the question of truth and lies, which provides the volume of this play. We are not dealing with propaganda, not with a straightforward frontal text, like Gorky had - for example, the novel “Mother”, which is difficult to read, because it is a frontal text, where there are almost no difficulties. There he entered the service of the Bolsheviks and wrote such a new gospel of communism. It is not for nothing that Lenin considered this book to be one of the main books that humanity has produced. “This thing is stronger than Goethe’s Faust” - this is about Gorky.
So, here there is no this straightforwardness, sometimes characteristic of Gorky, there is no this clumsiness here. Something so complicated arises here... We ourselves cannot figure it out. I suggest you simply remember your feeling from reading this play, for example, at school and its complex discussion: so for whom? It seems that the teacher is telling us - Luka is exposed, Luka is bad (I studied in a Soviet school). But in me and in others, those who have read this play, there is a “No.” He is cute, he is the sweetest, most pleasant hero of this play. And it is this contradiction, this complex interweaving, as it seems, that ensured the immortality of Maxim Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths,” written in 1902, which is read, staged, and I think will continue to be read and staged for many years.
Luke and his author
It's actually funny how Luka gets motivated. Because, on the one hand, they call him “Luke the Evil Elder,” and quite a lot is built on this, i.e. he is a liar. On the other hand, of course, Luke has a projection on the Evangelist Luke, and this is also important. I think this: they talk about it quite a lot there. Just the standard Christian from the point of view of this kind of scolding is Kostylev. He throws some extra money at them, and with this money he will buy candles and put them in the church. This is how Gorky treats it. And Luke - I would say that he is more of a pantheist. It seems like there is a God... He even speaks there. "Is there a God?" - “Well, if you believe, he is there for you. If you don’t believe it, it’s not there for you.”
I think that, again, Gorky himself could not solve this problem for himself. Again, his worldview demanded from him, of course, rigid atheism, and his worldview - he wanted, he wanted there to be a God, but God seemed to him such a comforter who embraces everyone, can comfort everyone... A punishing God is not his, he is not such an image I loved. And so I think that no, Luke is still not a model Christian. I think that he did not think in these categories at all. Luke is an exemplary person. Such a wonderful person, kind, decisive, who leads people, who saves, raises people who have completely lost their way, I would say so.
On the one hand, this is clearly some kind of province. And, for example, in Nizhny Novgorod, where Gorky is from, when I was there, they actually still show: this is where this basement was, where all these characters were sitting, this is where everything happened. But this, of course, is really a stretch and an exaggeration, because Gorky strived... It’s not for nothing that his play was even called “At the Bottom of Life” at first. He then called it “At the Bottom” to further generalize it. Clearly he was trying to show not just a specific shelter, but a shelter in general.
There are memories that when Stanislavsky was just about to stage “At the Lower Depths” at the Moscow Art Theater, they needed an entourage, they needed to know how they dress, how they speak. Stanislavsky needed to see how these people dress, what they eat, how they cut their hair, etc. And such a bright, although very ambiguous person, Vladimir Gilyarovsky, who later wrote the famous book “Moscow and Muscovites”, took Stanislavsky and Gorky to Khitrovka - this is the district of Moscow where the famous Khitrovsky market was located, where these “Khitrovans”, i.e. These are the ragamuffins that Gorky describes where they lived.
And accordingly, then Stanislavsky built the mise-en-scène of his play and made the scenery largely taking into account what he saw at this Khitrovsky market. But Khitrovka is also, naturally, not the place where these people live. Those. Some of Gorky’s experience is, of course, taken into account. It is possible that he really saw something similar in Nizhny Novgorod. Stanislavsky took into account what he saw at the Khitrovsky market. But in general, we cannot say that this one is Satin, and this one is Luke, as far as I understand.
Since the end of the 19th century. he positioned himself as a Marxist. The Bolsheviks were closest to him because they offered the most radical methods of salvation from the “leaden abominations of Russian life.” But in general it was quite difficult for him; it was different over the years. He was, you know, like a capricious bride. He was very close to them, generally defended them, and did not allow anyone who began to speak badly about the Bolsheviks or Lenin to offend them. But, as you know, when the revolution occurred, he did not accept it initially. He wrote a series of very harsh articles that were published in the Socialist Revolutionary newspaper and which were later collected in the book “Untimely Thoughts.” This book was written against the Bolsheviks.
And then he just left. Formally, for health reasons, but in reality he simply emigrated to Italy. But again: he left with a Soviet passport and left with a specific mission. Those. again in the West he took a complex position, rather pro-Bolshevik.
Well, we know about the ending: unfortunately, he was simply deceived and bought. He returned to the Soviet Union, settled in a luxurious house near the large Church of the Ascension, where Pushkin was married. And he simply closed his eyes to everything.
Solzhenitsyn has a very strong passage in his book “The Gulag Archipelago,” where Gorky travels through the Gulag and looks at how the education system is structured there and, in general, how everything is done there. Well, it’s understandable, they show him a terrible fake, a terrible show. And the political prisoners who were imprisoned under the tsar, and then began to imprison the Bolsheviks, the Socialist Revolutionaries, decided to show Gorky that he was being deceived. They were put in a room called the Lenin Room, with newspapers, so that they would be sitting when he came in - that’s how cozy and beautiful everything is arranged with us. And before that, they died at work, they were killed. And they, to show Gorky that all this was a lie and a phony, sat down with their newspapers turned upside down. They turned the pages of the newspapers, their newspapers were upside down. Gorky came in, saw this, went up to one of these Bolsheviks, turned the newspaper over and left. And everything and nothing.
Those. he is already at the end of his life... We can only guess why. Either this was already senility, or he was already tired. Either he really wanted to believe it. But he, of course, has already taken such a position that knowledge about this, about what position he occupied, unfortunately highlights the attitude towards him to this day. Let me remind you that the terrible phrase that was later used to kill people: “If the enemy does not surrender, he is destroyed” - Gorky said this.
General view of Red Square during the funeral of Maxim Gorky. Photo by Emmanuel Evzerikhin. 1936 ITAR-TASSThe Gorky myth, having formed in its basic outlines even before the revolution, was cemented by the Soviet canon, and then debunked by dissident and perestroika criticism. The true figure of the writer blurred to the point of absolute indistinguishability under layers of contradictory mythologizations and demythologizations, and a biography full of fascinating episodes successfully replaced his work in the collective imagination. Arzamas has collected controversial aspects of the biography and work of the tramp writer, petrel of the revolution, founder of socialist realism, close friend of Lenin, Soviet boss, singer of the White Sea Canal and Solovetsky camp.
1. Gorky is an insignificant writer
The most famous formulation of this thesis apparently belongs to Vladimir Nabokov. “Gorky’s artistic talent is not of great value” and “is not without interest” only “as a bright phenomenon of Russian social life,” Gorky is “pseudo-intelligent,” “deprived of visual acuity and imagination,” he “completely lacks intellectual scope,” and his gift "poor." He strives for “flat” sentimentalism
“in the worst case scenario,” there is “not a single living word” in his works, “just ready-made cliches,” “all molasses with a small amount of soot.” Merezhkovsky spoke no less caustically about Gorky’s talent as a writer:
“It’s not worth saying more than two words about Gorky as an artist. The truth about the tramp, told by Gorky, deserves the greatest attention; but poetry, with which he, unfortunately, sometimes considers it necessary to decorate this truth, deserves nothing but condescending oblivion.”
Dmitry Merezhkovsky. "Chekhov and Gorky" (1906)
Another recognized bearer of high literary taste, I. A. Bunin, directly wrote about the “unparalleled undeservedness” of Gorky’s world fame (“Gorky”, 1936), accusing him of almost falsifying his own tramp biography.
Stepan Skitalets, Leonid Andreev, Maxim Gorky, Nikolai Teleshov, Fyodor Chaliapin, Ivan Bunin, Evgeny Chirikov. Postcard from the early 20th century vitber.lv But next to these derogatory characteristics it is easy to put others - exactly the opposite, breathing love for Gorky and admiration for his talent. According to Chekhov, Gorky is a “real”, “rolling” talent, Blok calls him a “Russian artist”, the always caustic and reserved Khodasevich writes about Gorky as a writer of high standard, and Marina Tsvetaeva notes on the occasion of Bunin being awarded the Nobel Prize: “I I’m not protesting, I just don’t agree, because Gorky is incomparably greater than Bunin: greater, and more humane, and more original, and more necessary. Gorky is an era, and Bunin is the end of an era” (in a letter to A.A. Teskova dated November 24, 1933).
2. Gorky - creator of socialist realism
Soviet literary criticism interpreted the development of realistic art as a transition from critical realism, embodied in the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev and Tolstoy, to socialist realism, which was the official and only artistic method of Soviet art. Chekhov was appointed the last representative of critical realism, and Gorky was given the role of “the founder of the literature of socialist realism” and “the founder of Soviet literature” (Great Soviet Encyclopedia).
Gorky’s play “Enemies” (1906) and especially the novel “Mother” (1906) were recognized as “outstanding works of socialist realism”. At the same time, the theory of socialist realism finally took shape only in the 30s, it was then that the genealogy of this “artistic method... which is an aesthetic expression of the socialistically conscious concept of the world and man” was built - with Gorky at the head and with his writing almost 30 years ago in America with the novel “Mother” as the highest example.
Later, Gorky felt the need to justify the fact that the masterpiece of socialist realism was written in America, far from Russian realities. In the second edition of the essay “V. I. Lenin" (1930) the phrase appeared: “In general, the trip was not a success, but I wrote “Mother” there, which explains some of the “mistakes” and shortcomings of this book.”
Maxim Gorky in Italy, 1907 ITAR-TASS Archive
Maxim Gorky in Italy, 1912 ITAR-TASS Archive
Maxim Gorky in Italy, 1924 ITAR-TASS Archive
Today, Gorky researchers discover the ideological spring of the exemplary Soviet novel not at all in Marxism, as Soviet literary criticism wanted, but in the peculiar ideas of god-building that occupied Gorky throughout his life:
“Gorky was not fascinated by Marxism, but was fascinated by the dream of a new man and a new God...<...>The main idea of “Mother” is the idea of a new world, and it is symbolic that the place of God the Father in it is occupied by the Mother.<...>The scenes of the meetings of the workers’ circle are designed in the same quasi-biblical style: they resemble the secret meetings of the apostles.”
Dmitry Bykov.“Was there Gorky?”
It is noteworthy that, contrary to the iron chronological logic of the Soviet theory of styles, Gorky’s last work, “The Life of Klim Samgin” (1925-1936; the fourth part was not completed), is classified as critical realism in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia article on socialist realism.
3. Gorky - a fighter against social injustice
Maxim Gorky at the presidium of the ceremonial meeting dedicated to the celebration of May 1. Petrograd, 1920 Wikimedia Commons There is no doubt that Gorky rebelled against the world order of his time, but his rebellion was not limited to the social sphere. The metaphysical, atheistic nature of Gorky’s work was pointed out by his fierce critic D. S. Merezhkovsky:
“Chekhov and Gorky are indeed “prophets,” although not in the sense that they are thought of, or perhaps in the sense that they think of themselves. They are “prophets” because they bless what they wanted to curse, and they curse what they wanted to bless. They wanted to show that man without God is God; but they showed that he is a beast, worse than a beast is cattle, worse than cattle is a corpse, worse than a corpse is nothing.”
Dmitry Merezhkovsky."Chekhov and Gorky", 1906
It is known that Gorky was close to the ideas of Russian cosmism, the idea of fighting death as the embodiment of absolute evil, overcoming it, gaining immortality and the resurrection of all the dead (“Common Cause” by N. F. Fedorov). According to the testimony of O. D. Chertkova, two days before his death, in delirium, Gorky said: “... you know, I was just arguing with the Lord God. Wow, how I argued!” The Gorky rebellion captured the universe, life and death, was called upon to change the world order and man, that is, it aimed much higher than a simple change in the social structure. A direct artistic expression of this is the fairy tale in verse “The Girl and Death” (1892), which prompted Stalin’s famous resolution: “This thing is stronger than Goethe’s Faust (love conquers death).”
4. Gorky is an anti-modernist
The image of Gorky - a champion of realistic trends in literature, an opponent of decadence and modernism, the founder of socialist realism - crumbles if you look closely at his real place in the literary process of the Silver Age. The bright romanticism of the early stories, Nietzscheanism and God-seeking are in tune with the modernist trends of Russian literature at the turn of the century. Annensky writes about the play “At the Lower Depths”:
“After Dostoevsky, Gorky, in my opinion, is the most pronounced Russian symbolist. His realism is not at all the same as that of Goncharov, Pisemsky or Ostrovsky. Looking at his paintings, you remember the words of the author of “The Teenager,” who once said that at some moments the most everyday surroundings seem to him like a dream or an illusion.”
Innokenty Annensky."Drama at the Bottom" (1906)
Portrait of Maxim Gorky. OK. 1904 Getty Images/Fotobank Gorky’s mythologization of his life can also be read in a new way in the context of symbolist life-creativity, and closeness with many modernists clearly demonstrates the relativity of the traditional Soviet view of Gorky’s place in the literary process. It is no coincidence that the most subtle view on the nature of Gorky’s art belongs to none other than Vladislav Khodasevich, the most important figure of Russian modernism, who was part of the writer’s home circle for several years.
5. Gorky and Lenin
The image of Gorky as a great proletarian writer, canonized by Soviet official culture, necessarily included the legend of the closest friendship that connected the petrel of the revolution with Lenin: the legend had a powerful visual component: numerous sculptures, paintings and photographs depicting scenes of lively conversations between the creator of socialist realism and the proletarian leader.
Lenin and Gorky with fishermen on Capri. Painting by Efim Cheptsov. 1931 Getty Images/Fotobank In fact, Gorky's political position after the revolution was far from clear, and his influence was limited. Already from 1918, the writer played a somewhat ambiguous role in Petrograd, the reason for which was his very critical essays in relation to the socialist revolution, which made up the book “Untimely Thoughts” (the book was not reprinted in Russia until 1990), and enmity with the powerful chairman of the Petrograd Soviet Grigory Zinoviev. This situation ultimately led to Gorky’s honorable exile, which lasted almost twelve years: there was no place for the singer of the revolution in post-revolutionary reality.
However, Gorky himself had a hand in creating this myth, depicting his friendship with Lenin in sentimental colors in a biographical sketch about him.
6. Gorky and Stalin
The last period of Gorky's life - after his return to Soviet Russia - just like his entire biography, was overgrown with legends that, however, carried the opposite ideological charge. A special place among them is occupied by popular rumors that Gorky, having returned, fell under the strict control of the security officers, that Stalin threatened him and his family and ultimately dealt with the objectionable writer (after organizing the murder of his son).
But the facts indicate that Gorky’s Stalinism was sincere, and relations with Stalin were at least neutral. After returning, the writer changed his opinion about the methods of the Bolsheviks, seeing in Soviet reality a grandiose laboratory for remaking a person, which aroused his deep admiration.
“In 1921-1928, Gorky was embarrassed and burdened by the semi-disgraced position of a petrel of the revolution, forced to live abroad in an almost emigrant position. He wanted to be where the proletarian revolution was happening. Stalin, having dealt with his enemy Zinoviev (I do not mean the execution of Zinoviev, but his preliminary disgrace), gave Gorky the opportunity to return and take that high position of arbiter on cultural issues, which Gorky could not achieve even under Lenin. Stalin's personality itself, of course, impressed him to the highest degree.<...>Undoubtedly, he flattered Stalin not only in official speeches and writings.”
Vladislav Khodasevich."On the Death of Gorky" (1938)
Molotov, Stalin, Mikoyan carry the urn with Gorky’s ashes to the Kremlin wall.
Gorky's funeral. Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich carry out the urn with ashes from the House of Unions.
Moscow workers at a funeral rally on Red Square.Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow
Gorky's funeral. Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Ordzhonikidze and Andreev carry an urn with ashes during a funeral meeting.
The version that Gorky was killed was first voiced during the Third Moscow Trial of 1937: former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Genrikh Yagoda, as well as Gorky's secretary Pyotr Kryuchkov and three famous doctors Lev were accused of the villainous murder of the writer and his son, Maxim Peshkov Levin, Ignatius Kazakov and Dmitry Pletnev. All this was presented as part of a vast “right-wing Trotskyist” conspiracy. In particular, Yagoda admitted that he killed Gorky on the personal instructions of Trotsky, transmitted through Yenukidze: allegedly the conspirators tried to quarrel between Gorky and Stalin, and when nothing worked out, they decided to eliminate him, fearing that after the overthrow of the Stalinist leadership, Gorky, whose opinion was listened to and in the country and abroad, “will raise their voice of protest against us.” Yagoda allegedly ordered Maxim Peshkov to be poisoned for personal reasons, because he was in love with his wife. A little later, versions arise according to which Stalin himself ordered Yagoda to poison Gorky, or even did it with his own hands, sending him a box of chocolates. It is known, however, that Gorky did not like sweets, and loved to give sweets to his family and guests, so it would have been difficult to poison him in this way. In general, no convincing evidence of the murder version is known, although much has been written about it.
But this version turned out to be beneficial: Stalin used it as a pretext for reprisals against the Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc. Stalin's denunciators, in turn, gladly included Gorky among Stalin's victims.
7. Gorky, Russian people and Jews
Portrait of Maxim Gorky. Painting by Boris Grigoriev. 1926 Wikipedia Foundation The image of Gorky as the singer of the Russian people will crumble if we take into account that the great proletarian writer treated the Russian peasantry and countryside with hatred. In Gorky’s system of views, the peasant personified all the negative properties of human nature: stupidity, laziness, mundaneness, narrow-mindedness. The tramp, Gorky's favorite type, coming from a peasant environment, towered over her and denied her with his entire existence. The clash between Chelkash, the “old poisoned wolf,” “an inveterate drunkard and a clever, brave thief,” with the cowardly, weak and insignificant peasant Gavrila, clearly illustrates this opposition.
“The semi-wild, stupid, heavy people of Russian villages and hamlets will die out... and they will be replaced by a new tribe - literate, reasonable, cheerful people. In my opinion, they will not be very “sweet and attractive Russian people,” but they will, finally, be a business people, distrustful and indifferent to everything that is not directly related to their needs.”
Maksim Gorky."On the Russian Peasantry" (1922)
In his own way, Merezhkovsky understood Gorky’s attitude towards the peasantry: “The tramp hates the people, because the people - the peasantry - are still unconscious Christianity, while old, blind, dark - the religion of God, only God, without humanity, but with the possibility of paths to a new Christianity , sighted, bright - to the conscious religion of God-manhood. The last essence of tramping is anti-Christianity...” (“Chekhov and Gorky”, 1906).
For Gorky, the Jews served as an example of a nation in which the sought-after ideals of reason, hard work and efficiency were already embodied. He more than once wrote about Jews in the same terms in which he painted the image of a new man who would replace the Russian peasant. The Jewish theme occupies an important place in the writer’s journalism; he always acts as a consistent defender of Jewry and a tough opponent of anti-Semitism:
“During the entire difficult path of humanity towards progress, towards light... the Jew stood in a living protest... against everything dirty, everything low in human life, against gross acts of violence of man against man, against disgusting vulgarity and spiritual ignorance.”
Maksim Gorky."About the Jews" (1906)
Lesson 11 LIFE AND WORK OF MAXIM GORKY (ALEXEY MAKSIMOVITCH PESHKOV). REVIEW
30.03.2013 37375 0Lesson 11
Life and work of Maxim Gorky
(Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov). Review
Target : introduce the life and work of M. Gorky, drawing attention to the complexity of the writer’s fate and the ambiguity of his creative path.
During the classes
His life itself is a book, a fascinating novel.
E. Zamyatin
Gorky is the material of his books.
V. Shklovsky
I. Introductory conversation.
– What memories do you have of your childhood? What do you remember more, good or bad?
The fate of this writer was very difficult, his childhood was difficult, he, perhaps, chose his pseudonym in accordance with this.
The words “Gorky’s tragedy” appear more and more often in our press. Under Stalin's political regime, when the writer was recognized as a Soviet classic, they not only undermined Gorky's authority in the world, but also deprived him of the sympathy of many people who had loved him before. “Whoever claims that everything in Gorky’s fate is legal, natural and even beautiful,” wrote the most influential critic in the Russian emigration, Georgy Adamovich, “serves a very disservice to his memory.”
II. Lecture with the work of assistants.
March 16 (28), 1868 In Nizhny Novgorod, in the family of a carpenter - cabinetmaker Maxim Savvatievich Peshkov and Varvara Vasilievna from the bourgeois family of the Kashirins had a son, Alexey. E. Zamyatin noted the extraordinary picturesqueness of this region in his memoirs about Gorky:
“On the high bank of the river are the battlements of the ancient Kremlin, golden crosses and domes of numerous churches. Below, by the water, there are endless warehouses, barns, piers, shops: here every summer the famous Russian fair was noisy, where Homeric revelries took place and millions were made, where Asian robes mingled with the long frock coats of Russian merchants. And finally, on the other side - a piece of Europe - a forest of factory chimneys, fiery vents of a domain, iron hulls of ships...
This city, where Russia lived side by side in the 16th and 20th centuries, is Nizhny Novgorod, the birthplace of Gorky. The river on the banks of which he grew up is the Volga, which gave birth to the legendary Russian rebels Razin and Pugachev, the Volga, about which so many songs have been written by Russian barge haulers. Gorky is primarily connected with the Volga: his grandfather was a barge hauler here.”
1873–1878 After the death of his father, he lives with his mother in the family of his grandfather Vasily Kashirin, the owner of a dyeing workshop. According to E. Zamyatin, “He was a type of Russian American, ... having started life as a barge hauler, he ended it as the owner of three brick factories and several houses. Gorky spent his childhood in the house of this stingy old man. It was very short: at the age of 8 the boy was already apprenticed to a shoemaker; he was thrown into the muddy river of life, from which he imagined he could swim out as he pleased. This was the educational system chosen by his grandfather.”
1879–1884 After the death of his mother, his grandfather sends Alyosha “to the people.” E. Zamyatin wrote about this: “A self-taught person who spent only six months in primary school throughout his life, Gorky did not stop learning throughout his life and knew a lot. And towards the fact that he did not know, he had a touching, kind of childishly respectful attitude. I have seen this trait in him many times.”
In 1884 Alexey Peshkov is unsuccessfully trying to enter the university. Works on the piers.
December 12, 1887 After the death of his grandfather and grandmother, as a result of a painful discord between dreams and reality, Alyosha Peshkov tries to commit suicide.
1891 Leaves Nizhny Novgorod to travel “throughout Rus'.” “All this - on foot, in the company of homeless, picturesque vagabonds, with overnight stays in the steppe near fires, in abandoned houses, under overturned boats. How many incidents, meetings, friendships, fights, nightly confessions! What material for a future writer!..” (E. Zamyatin.)
September 12, 1892 The Tiflis newspaper “Caucasus” published the story “Makar Chudra” signed “M. Bitter".
“...A romantic tramp published a book of stories,” writes about the beginning of Gorky's writing activity E. Zamyatin. – Before the astonished reader, not only the hitherto unknown world of “tramps” appeared, but also a whole system of anarchist philosophy of these stepchildren of society. “Paint shop worker Alexey Peshkov,” as it was written in his passport, turned into Maxim Gorky. He immediately became one of the most popular writers in Russia, especially among young people and intellectuals.”
1901 Participates in a demonstration in St. Petersburg on the square near the Kazan Cathedral. Along with other writers and public figures, he signs a protest against violence during the dispersal of demonstrations. Arrested for revolutionary activities and imprisoned. Released for health reasons under house arrest as a result of the efforts of L. Tolstoy.
1902 The Academy of Sciences, at a meeting of the Department of Russian Language and Literature, elects Gorky as an honorary academician, but the decision was reversed. Nicholas II, in his report on Gorky’s election to honorary academician, writes: “More than original!”
1905 Actively participates in the revolutionary movement. Supplies Bolshevik newspapers with money. Imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress in connection with charges of “state crime.”
Since 1906- Abroad. In Capri he takes part in a congress of writers and gives lectures on Russian literature.
IN 1914 returns to St. Petersburg. The real disaster for Gorky was the First World War, a monstrous example of “collective madness,” when Man turned from a proud creature into a “trench louse” and “cannon fodder,” when people went wild before our eyes, when the human mind suddenly proved its complete powerlessness in the face of tragic events . In a little-known poem by Gorky we will find the following lines:
How will we live then?
What will this horror bring us?
What now from hatred of people
Will he save my soul?
1917 After the overthrow of the autocracy, he was restored to the rank of honorary academician.
April 21 in the newspaper “New Life” notes from the series “Untimely Thoughts” begin to appear, which are also published in 1918
A group of prepared students presents a message based on Gorky’s articles “Untimely Thoughts”, after listening to which the students in writing answer the following questions:
1. What are the main themes raised by M. Gorky in “Untimely Thoughts”?
2. Why were Gorky’s thoughts called “untimely” in 1917–1918? and what is their current “timeliness”?
The existence of “Untimely Thoughts” has been talked about for a long time. These were silent conversations that the “proletarian writer” Maxim Gorky did not accept the October Revolution, did not agree with the policies of the Bolsheviks and sharply condemned Lenin personally.
Unfortunately, there are no authentic documents, for example, about Gorky’s life in the USSR, when he was virtually isolated from the outside world and even in his frequent trips around the country could not be an objective observer of what was really happening.
Yes, he argued with Lenin and the Bolsheviks in 1917–1918 and later, when in 1922 in a letter to An. Fransou wrote: “The trial of the Social Revolutionaries has the cynical character of a public preparation for the murder of people who sincerely were devoted to the cause of liberation of the Russian people." Although before the revolution, Gorky helped the Bolsheviks with his creativity, and even just with his money.
It is clear that the departure to the West was dictated not only by illness, but also by the inability to further cooperate with the Bolsheviks in the cultural field. The main idea of the writer at this time was the desire to preserve the culture of Russia.
This is the reason for the creation of the publishing house “World Literature” and the article “Untimely Thoughts.” It’s hard for us to imagine now, but in 1918 in Petrograd, ancient family diamonds were sold for a bag of frozen potatoes. Gorky also wrote in these articles about how various kinds of swindlers profited from this.
Gorky’s “Untimely Thoughts” is, first of all, a sharp protest against neglect of cultural values and, most importantly, those people who create these values. Gorky came from the bottom and therefore reacted with particular pain to all kinds of savagery, rudeness, and ignorance. It was as if he felt them with all his skin.
And vice versa - even the weakest germs of culture, even the most ordinary manifestations of politeness and decency evoked rejoicing in him.
In Gorky's story "The Town of Okurov" there is a wonderful scene where the nature of the revolution in Russia seems to be predicted. The policeman says regarding the announcement of “freedom” in Russia: “Now this will begin - wow! Now everyone will remind everyone of all their grievances!”
Don’t you think that this also applies to the current situation, when the declaration of “freedom” turns not into cultural tasks, but into everyone reminding each other of their “grievances”? And where the reminder of “grievances” begins, the policeman will always have work!
That’s why the policeman in the “Town of Okurov” was calm. He understood that declaring “freedom” does not mean making everyone truly free.
Here is the second theme of Gorky’s “Untimely Thoughts”: culture and freedom. Freedom is necessary for the development of culture, but external freedom alone is not enough. After all, she can turn her terrible side: freedom to rob, steal and kill. Gorky shouts about this danger.
And look around you: doesn’t his cry reach our days?
“They rob – amazingly, artistically; There is no doubt that history will tell about this process of self-robbery of Rus' with the greatest pathos.”
And finally, the third topic: Russian national character in Gorky’s understanding. No one has written as many lofty words about the Russian people as Gorky.
In the cycle “Across Rus'”, in “Notes from the Diary”, he shows our people as the most talented and creative people on earth. But at the same time, he said the most terrible words about the Russian people that have ever been spoken.
From Gorky’s point of view, the talent of the people often turns into atrocities. The Civil War certainly provided examples of atrocities, and Gorky did not invent this.
And yet, his speeches about the Russian character cannot be taken literally. All world revolutions were cruel. But Gorky judges mine the people judge him as if from the inside. This is called “national self-criticism.”
In the 19th century, such “self-criticism” was practiced by, for example, Chaadaev, Griboedov, Pushkin, and Gogol. They did not flatter their people, they wrote the truth about them. Pushkin wrote about the atrocities of the Cossacks in The Captain's Daughter, Gogol made fun of the peasants in Dead Souls.
But Gorky’s “self-criticism” turned out to be more terrible, more furious, and therefore, perhaps, not entirely fair. But the time was different. And the character of the writer, who took a pseudonym for himself Maksim(“maximum”) was different.
It is important to remember that Untimely Thoughts is not just a collection of journalism, but passionate newspaper responses to daily events in the country.
Reading them, we feel the breath of that time, we hear the cries and groans of that era, a time to which we hardly need to return, but which we must not forget.
“The other day, some damned sages condemned a seventeen-year-old boy to seventeen years of community service because this young man openly and honestly declared: “I do not recognize Soviet power!”
Not to mention the fact that there are tens of millions of people in Russia who do not recognize the authority of the commissars and that all these people cannot be exterminated, I find it useful to remind strict but not smart judges of where this honest young man came from, so absurdly - severely condemned by them.
This young man is the flesh of those straightforward and fearless people who, for decades, living in an atmosphere of police surveillance, espionage and betrayal, tirelessly destroyed the lead prison of the monarchy, introducing ideas into the dark masses of workers and peasants, at the risk of freedom and their lives. freedom, law, socialism. This young man is the spiritual descendant of people who, having been captured by enemies and languishing in prison, refused to talk to the gendarmes during interrogation out of contempt for the victorious enemy.
This young man was brought up by the high example of those best Russian people who died in hundreds and thousands in exile, in prisons, in hard labor, and on whose bones we are now going to build a new Russia.
This is a romantic, an idealist, who is organically disgusted by the “realpolitik” of violence and deception, the politics of dogma fanatics, surrounded – according to their own consciousness – by swindlers and charlatans.
To raise a courageous and honest young man in the vile conditions of Russian life, a huge expenditure of spiritual strength was required, almost a century of hard work.
And now the people, for the sake of whose freedom this work was done, not understanding that an honest enemy is better than a vile friend, condemned the courageous young man for the fact that he, as it should be, cannot and does not want to recognize the power that tramples freedom. There is a very clever fable about a pig under an ancient oak - maybe the wise judges will find time to read it? They need to learn the moral of the story."
After listening to the material, students do written work (compose answers to the questions proposed at the beginning of the group’s presentation). The resulting answers are read and discussed.
September 4, 1918 concludes an agreement with the Bolsheviks on the formation of the publishing house "World Literature".
1918–1921 In addition to literary work, he is actively involved in social activities: he gives lectures on culture, works on the “commission for improving the life of scientists.”
August 9, 1921 at the insistence of Lenin, he goes abroad, where he continues his literary activity.
May 9, 1933 returns to Russia, where he writes numerous journalistic articles and leads the preparations for the First Congress of Writers.
May 27, 1936 M. Gorky fell ill with the flu and died on June 18 in Gorki, near Moscow.
June 20 After the funeral meeting, the urn with the writer’s ashes was walled up in the Kremlin wall.
This was the fate of the famous Russian writer and public figure M. Gorky. Let’s finish our conversation with the words of Leonid Leonov:
“...We know from our own experience how unnecessary grandfather’s idols and affections are for descendants. But only every time, looking back at our century with its unfading glow of great battles, epoch-making burnings... on the way to the promised land, among other gigantic shadows... they will distinguish the characteristic stooped figure of Maxim Gorky... From under the visor pressed to the forehead of the palm, with the same unique, slightly ironic smile of approval, he will peer searchingly after them, ever forward and further to the passing generations in which he believed so much - tribune, poet, rebel, father and mentor of Men on earth.”
III. Lesson summary.
– How did M. Gorky appear before you?
Individual task: read and analyze M. Gorky’s story “Chelkash”.
Hello, dear friends. We continue our project “One Hundred Books of the 20th Century”, one hundred Russian books, which is especially important. And of course, one can hardly miss the most popular Russian play of 1902, which premiered in December - this, of course, is “At the Lower Depths”. The play enjoyed such fame all over the world, all over the world even more than in Russia, because in Russia it was allowed to the only theater - namely, the Moscow Art Theater. All over the world it was staged in such a way that only in German productions, say, the RSDLP existed from 1903 to 1905, so Gorky was highly valued in the party.
The play was originally called “At the Bottom of Life,” Leonid Andreev * removed the unnecessary stuff from the title - and it became, of course, much better. Gorky began writing the play in 1901, and its original plan was very sharply different from what happened. Gorky, I must say, in general was not very good at writing plays, no matter how terrible it sounds.
Firstly, all the characters speak in his voice, with his endless dashes. Well, I must say, in his memoirs everyone talks like that too, even Tolstoy speaks in Gorky. Secondly, dramatic tension and plot are difficult for him. Gorky himself repeatedly said about himself that he is “more of an essayist than a writer,” he achieved real laconicism only in the stories of the 20s, he mainly uses his own life observations, and life, as we know, is not so rich in plots as in fragrant details , it is precisely in the construction of a dramatic plot that Gorky is not strong. Perhaps he has 2 really strong plays - just like plays, these are “The Old Man” and “The Counterfeit Coin”, well, this is where the actual plot is, they are just the most little-known. “At the bottom” is quite the result of a random development; in a nutshell, we’ll tell you how it happened.
He decided to write a play with a completely Christmas-like, idyllic plot. There is a shelter in which people who are angry at each other, as he called them, “former people.” They swear, crowd each other, are rude, indignant, but then spring comes... And they leave their shelter, begin to somehow improve their plot, and against the backdrop of this spring idyll they begin to talk to each other and even love each other, and in in general, everything ends, I won’t say some kind of catharsis, but almost reconciliation. He began to read the first act of this play to Tolstoy. Tolstoy had a difficult attitude towards Gorky. At first, he really liked the young writer, then he began to treat him more and more skeptically; perhaps there was some element of literary jealousy on his part, because Gorky’s fame very quickly eclipsed Tolstoy’s. Gorky, this was a kind of Prilepin of the end of the 19th century, and he was considered to have sprouted from the thick of life, and his fame also grew rapidly, and many professional colleagues, it must be said, were very jealous of this fame. Perhaps only Chekhov, who had a fairly high opinion of himself, was not jealous. As for Tolstoy, Tolstoy was very jealous in this regard and even, perhaps, a little vain, which is usually good for a genius. And Gorky began to irritate him very quickly. It is no coincidence that he said surprisingly precise words about him to Sulerzhitsky: “Gorky walks around, looks at people, writes down, remembers everything and reports to some kind of his unprecedented terrible god, and his god is a freak.” Quite harsh words, and generally true.
And so, after some time, when already in 1901 the already famous, illustrious Gorky reads the first scenes from the play to Tolstoy, this caused Tolstoy rage and irritation, he said: “Why, why are you digging in this dirt? Who needs all this so-called realism? Why do you describe ugliness, poverty, illness, drunkenness, because this is some kind of pleasure in vice, some kind of savoring of it?” - and he didn’t even listen to the end. And Gorky was offended. And as we know, for example, from the history of Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”, from the history of the same Tolstoy, high-class literature very often comes out of grievances, out of personal revenge, because the whole “Onegin” is revenge on Raevsky, and in general on secular youth, who She mocked Pushkin disgustingly. So Pushkin took revenge on them once and for all, on all these parodies of Napoleon, on all these nonentities. It must be said that “At the Lower Depths” is also an act of revenge, only an act of revenge on Tolstoy. Thanks to Tolstoy, Luka appeared in the play, the only truly living character.
What is “At the Bottom”, because it is a rather strange story, what is the play about? Indeed, traces of the original plan remained in the first act: the horror of life remained, contempt, indignation remained, a very Gorky feeling remained that these people rejected by society were in fact real, new people, trampiness, well, a turning point. It must be said that by this time Gorky’s attitude towards tramps, as he climbed the social ladder, began to change: if in the essays “Former People” it still seemed to him that this was the seed of a new man, a superman, well, such Chelkash, yes, rejected society and became a superman, then by 1902 Gorky was already thinking differently - for him it was just silt, the bottom layer, and he no longer saw anything good in people living in shelters. They torture Anna, who is dying, they mock the Baron, they mock Nastya - nothing sacred, exes, really. But Luka is, perhaps, a more serious character.
And here the main idea, very important for Gorky, enters into the play: “Does a person need the truth?” Because Luka is a comforter, Luka is, in a sense, of course, a “Tolstoyan”. Gorky is sure that Tolstoy is precisely the consoler of humanity: Tolstoy constantly quotes Marcus Aurelius, that “man is free and even in prison he can feel free.” Tolstoy reconciles a person with his fate, he says that a real revolution, a real change occurs within, and not in social reality, this is very important for Tolstoy. And it is precisely the perception of Tolstoy as a comforter that is extremely typical for Gorky. Well, look, it would seem that we are accustomed from Lenin, from Leninist criticism, that Tolstoy is a fearless realist. Indeed, he brought a mirror with a very high resolution to the face of Russia, that’s true; but he himself is afraid of his own art. And Tolstoy comes up with a lot of consolations for a person: the fact that one can really be free within unfreedom; the fact that a person does not need much. Remember the famous essay “How much land does a man need?”, it turned out that he only needed one arshin - for a coffin. By the way, Chekhov was very indignant against this: “A dead man needs one or two arshins, but a living man needs the whole world.”
And, by the way, the polemic with Tolstoy resulted in Chekhov’s best work, in my opinion, “Ward No. 6,” where Ragin is just a Tolstoyan trying to be free in Ward No. 6, where all the main Russian types are gathered. “All of Russia is Ward No. 6,” Lenin wrote absolutely accurately. Is it possible to be free there? No way, the watchman Nikita will kill you. This, in fact, is the question and the main problem of Gorky’s play - does a person need the truth? Can he handle the truth? Or does he need to console himself, reconcile? Or he needs to come up with a concept that allows him to live with it. Well, as her roommates invent: one dreams of getting up and starting to work again, and returning to normal life, another is inventing fantastic love adventures for himself, the third all the time, like an Actor, dreams that he will be cured, go to a hospital, there are such hospitals - his they will cure you there. This play is really about escapism. And then reality comes and hits these people on the head - and the Actor hangs himself. And Gorky’s conclusion is extremely simple - there is no escape, there is no consolation, a person needs the truth - and the most cruel one, and a person needs only one thing - the consciousness of his pride, dignity, greatness; a person should not be reconciled with anything, should not be reconciled with his fate. It was this pathos of Satin’s speeches that frightened everyone the most.
The dramatic mastery here is that only one minor dialogue takes place between Satin and Luka: the two main antagonists practically do not collide at all - Satin silently listens to Luka, Luka silently listens to Satin. But, says Satin: “The old man affected me like acid on an old coin.” And indeed, contact with Luka, meeting him, made Satin understand a lot about himself, made him understand what he was holding on to. Here, by the way, it is very important for us that this apologist for the truth: “Truth is the god of a free person, lies are the religion of slaves and masters! Truth is the god of a free man!” It is very important for us that this man is a sharper, a card player, this apologist for the truth is a swindler. But this is a very important idea for Gorky, which is emphasized all the time, for example, by Khodasevich when he talks about him, and by Bunin in his memoirs: Gorky had great respect for thieves, for him theft, cheating, and cheating were one of the forms of art. This, if you like, is also a variant of creativity, and Satin is what is called a “free artist.” Actually, he is a telegraph operator, but he stood up for his sister’s honor, killed a man - he accidentally killed him, he didn’t want to kill. And as a result, after prison he became a sharper - he lives in a rooming house. He is, in principle, an educated person, he knows some words: “Sicambre!” - he says. These clothes from the past are for him like the Baron’s memories of the clothes that he changed all his life. They had all really given up everything, naked people on bare ground. But what is surprisingly important is that it is in the mouth of the swindler that the words are put: “Truth is the god of a free man!”
Why is that? Because for Gorky, an artist is, first of all, a person, this is such a Nietzschean understanding of freedom, because a superman is also, first of all, an artist. Satin is precisely an artist, and Gorky feels exactly like this in 1902 - an artist who tells people the truth, an artist who tries to elevate people. The actor constantly utters Nadson’s words: “Honor to the madman who will bring a golden dream to humanity.” Gorky denies the golden dream; consolation is not his truth. And look, what’s interesting is that recently, in the last ten years or so, the most popular character in Russian public life is probably a psychologist - it’s fashionable to have your own psychologist, to read a psychologist; the most popular doctor, well, besides nutritionists, of course, is Dr. Kurpatov. This is such an important principle for modern Russian culture, because the one who knows how to reconcile you with reality is right. Who knows how to instill in you the correct mode of behavior: “You don’t need to change the world, you need to change your attitude towards it.” That’s how Luke actually is, as Luke says: “What you believe is what you believe. Not a single flea is bad - they’re all black, they all jump” - the pathos of reconciliation with reality.
This is especially disgusting to Gorky, because for him it is worse than the most blatant lie: for him it is philistinism, for him it is, if you like, betrayal, because for Gorky the task of a person is not to adapt to circumstances, but to fight at any cost. Bubnov, in the end, as the only person who is trying to do something, Bubnov - he is also trying on: he is trying to get out of this flophouse for the sake of something - simply for the sake of another slavery, for the sake of working for pennies, but Satin - he is a rebel , he refuses this life altogether, he does not want to live according to their laws, he would rather be a sharper than go to work. Remember, there is a wonderful monologue: “Make work a pleasure for me and then maybe I will work.” So what is it? Gorky considered physical labor a curse for a person and considered it humiliation. Why exchange one slavery, overnight slavery, for another? For him, the winner, the real one, is the one who has completely rejected the rules of this world, who does not want to adapt to it in anything, and Luka is precisely the genius of adaptation.
By the way, Luka’s speech very accurately, more accurately even than Gorky’s memoirs, reproduces Tolstoy’s fragmentary old man’s talk; we always recognize his intonation - the intonation of a rather cynical joke, and this is a very accurate portrait. And the most amazing thing is that this is a portrait that combines hatred with great love: Gorky loves Luka, Gorky admires Luka, and what is especially important, pay attention - Gorky made Luka an escaped convict, very possibly a murderer. And just the first, the first after the murder of Kostylev, the first to disappear is Luka. This gave rise to some interpreters of the play to say that maybe it was not Ash who killed, but he. But, in any case, Luka is a very cunning old man - he always knows how to escape first. The fact that Gorky made Tolstoy an escaped convict - this is the highest revenge, of course - he sensed in Tolstoy this terrible literary cynicism that was in him, of course, and it is not by chance that in the comments, auto-comments to the play, Gorky writes: “ Comforters like Luka console only so that they can get rid of them, so that, literally, they do not disturb the peace of a cold soul that has become accustomed to everything.” These are very cruel words about Tolstoy, because he is a “cold soul.”
One of my students once expressed a sensible thought, he said: “Well, Luke doesn’t believe in man, that’s true. So, Tolstoy didn’t believe in man either?” And here I thought deeply - guys, I didn’t believe it. In fact, according to Tolstoy, a person consists of lust and vanity, and in order to exist, he necessarily needs two crutches - either faith or family, and it would be better together. And therefore, by the way, when Tolstoy found out that some new acquaintance had no family, no children, he immediately lost interest in him, this is the reason why he did not take Veresaev to be his family doctor - there are no children, “and Why"? For him - either family, or church, not necessarily the official church - the inner church, spiritual, faith, God. Without this, a person, of course, does not exist, he falls apart; he turns either into a hedonist, like Stiva, or into a calf, like Vronsky, or into an evil machine, like Karenin. A person needs this inner core, these supports; if they are not there, then there is nothing. But in general, Luke is precisely a manifesto of disbelief in man.
Why did this play become so popular? Because the year nine hundred and two is a time of quite deep social depression, the revolution of the fifth year is still ahead, the future is unclear, Russia is stuck in timelessness. The Japanese tragedy is ahead, the tragedy of 1914 is ahead, there is a premonition of great troubles and collapsing supports, and at this time Satin proclaims these very words: “Man - this sounds proud!”
There is a famous story about how Evstigneev, playing Satin... There was a lot of courage in general to take the not avant-garde Evstigneev for such a role, because in the first production he was played by the handsome Alekseev-Stanislavsky, and here Evstigneev is small, bald, and that’s when he said this famous monologue, it sometimes happened, these words: “Man - that sounds proud!” - he generally said it somehow out of the blue, like a moo, it seemed like he had forgotten them. “Man... This is... Mmmm” - and Vaida, seeing this production, said: “This is the most accurate interpretation,” because the truth that Satin is trying to express more than Satin himself is very important. To say in the year nine hundred and two to a society that is unworthy of these words, to say: “Man, that sounds proud!”, this is the greatest fiction. Who is speaking? A tramp in a shelter, a sharper, who was beaten terribly - and he says: “Man - that sounds proud!”
Yes, this probably has its own comedy, its own humiliation, its own nonsense, but, with all this, I must say, this is the greatest challenge - that in insignificance a person understands this about himself, this is probably the main thing Gorky's discovery, in relation to the second year, is why this play ended with such demonstrations. I must say one more rather interesting thing: Lenin did not like this play. And he, there can be different attitudes to his social views, he was a good literary critic, he was, in general, a person endowed with literary taste and empathy, literary empathy - he had an idea of what he was talking about. He said: “His shelter is somehow too cultured.” This is so, theoretical reasoning in flophouses - well, it’s somehow, you know, too much. It is interesting that the entire troupe of the Moscow Art Theater, the Moscow Art Theater then, in order to become more familiar with the life of the flophouse, went to the Khitrov market, Gilyarovsky, a wonderful expert on this environment, took them there. There they were almost beaten because one of the night shelters showed them a drawing kept on their chest, cut out from an illustrated magazine - “The Return of the Prodigal Son”, where the prodigal son returns, and the father immediately draws up a will for him. There was general delight, tears, and one of the Moscow Art Theater artists risked a smile at the sight of this drawing. Immediately all these people, as Gilyarovsky wrote, “resembling vessels filled with cloudy alcohol,” began to fight and then someone swung a stool. Gilyarovsky stopped them, managing to utter such a forceful phrase with a deafening obscenity that everyone stopped in admiration. Indeed, Gilyai knew how.
So, in the doss houses they talked more like this, and Gorky’s doss house is really very similar to the School of Athens, where everyone develops his own philosophy. Lenin was probably partly right, but still there is a certain stage convention, stage reality, so the public believed in it. I think that the relevance of this play for us today is that we are already fed up with any forms of consolation and reconciliation, stop being patient, we need to say to ourselves one day: “Truth is the god of a free man!” It doesn’t matter who says it, let Satin say it: better is Satin, who says it, than Luke, who consoles us - and ultimately drives us to suicide.
Well, thanks for the questions.
“What rules does a person who has broken out of the system of social relations obey?”
Brothers, this is a very meaningful question, very correct - if he is no longer in the system of these relations, what rules does he obey? I will say a very cruel thing, and this thing is very unpleasant for me - he obeys only his own criteria, he must withstand the criteria that he has taken upon himself, this most terrible struggle. “With whom did his struggle take place? With yourself, with yourself!” - the laws of society no longer have power over him, he must correspond to his own level, and this is the most difficult thing. Gorky broke down, for example, I even know why he broke down - his reputation began to mean too much to him. In recent years, he kept saying: “You’ll ruin your biography.” And he ruined his biography, worse than anyone else he ruined his biography; worse than Merezhkovsky, because Stalinism is an unforgivable thing for an artist, and he was a loyal Stalinist, here Solzhenitsyn is absolutely right. I don’t know, it’s hard for me to find an artist, listen, you’ve put me somewhat at a dead end with this question, it’s hard for me to find an artist who would break out of society and meet his criteria.
Brothers, I will tell you two very unexpected names: one is Oscar Wilde, an esthete who lived by his own laws. And he withstood these laws, and he died because - well, he had to die. The second is Shalamov. To put Wilde and Shalamov side by side, I’ll tell you, it’s almost impossible impudence, but that’s how it is. Shalamov met his criteria, lived and died in accordance with them. He made one weakness - he renounced the Kolyma Tales, but paid for it in full. One lived, one died.
I can name one more person, by the way, a rather interesting person. You know, here is Bogomolov, an absolute loner, Vladimir Bogomolov. He was not a member anywhere, he lived alone as he wanted; It took ten years to write “In August 1944”—I wrote it the way I wanted. It took him twenty years to write “My Life, Or Did I Dream About You”—I wrote it the way I wanted. He wrote two exemplary novels, great ones. He didn’t belong anywhere, didn’t participate in anything, didn’t ask for anyone’s help - an absolute lone wolf, that’s right - he broke out of society. He didn’t just break out of society - I knew him a little, it was impossible to talk to him at all, he functioned in monologue mode. And he didn’t trust anyone, didn’t love anyone. Vasil Bykov told me that he had never seen a person more difficult to communicate with than Bogomolov - that’s probably true, but there was some truth to it. And he had beliefs that were quite cannibalistic - he loved the Chekists, the Smershevites, yes, but in principle he absolutely followed these beliefs; He didn’t hang out with anyone, achieved nothing, died absolutely alone - well, it’s good that his wife was understanding.
I can name these three writers. Maybe Tsvetaeva partly, although she had cases of passion for other people's techniques, other people's truths. Yes, maybe Tsvetaeva. But in principle, a person who has broken out of society is a huge rarity in literature, and they deserve maximum respect.
And also a very good question:
“Pushkin, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky himself - continuous reconciliation and struggle with oneself, shame for internal conformism. Where are the real fighters?
I tried to name them, but there were others. You know, Khlebnikov, too, did not reconcile on anything. A non-conformist writer is very rare, do you know why? Because a writer, he empathizes with everyone, and very often he recognizes someone else’s truth, he takes someone else’s position, this happens. Even Brodsky almost allowed himself to be persuaded to come to Leningrad. Thank God, I didn’t persuade myself. It is common for a writer to understand someone else’s truth, conformity is a normal thing in literature, and Gorky had this conformism, and Tolstoy sometimes had it. Tolstoy, by the way, is the least conformist of the Russian classics, but great madmen like Kharms, Vvedensky, Khlebnikov are examples of a person who sounds proud: they were not members of anything, did not participate in anything, and did what they wanted.
There is also a Satin, probably in Russian literature - this is Green, who throughout his life proved that “man sounds proudly,” and for him, man is always a winner. Not a superman, as in “The Wandering World”***, but a man, which is very important. And therefore, I insist that Green is closer to life than all of his realistic peers.
Loading...