Maxim Gorky became famous as a spokesman for the Russian poor in his novels. He is considered the father of Soviet literature, and famous for his novel The Lower Depths. From personal experience he wrote with sympathy and optimism about the impoverished people of Russia.
Miserable Early Beginnings
Gorky (1868-1936) was born on March 28, in the Russian town of Nizhny Novgorod. It was later renamed Gorky in his honour. His real surname was Maxim Peshkov, but he used the pen name Gorky, meaning 'bitter' in memory of his early most trying and unhappy years. His father died when Gorky was five, and by the age of nine he was living on his own. He wandered through Russia, working on a river steamer where he learned to read. He became a baker, a street peddler and railroad worker, practically anything he could have a hand in to survive. At 21, he became a hobo.
Surviving Life's Worst
Despite having no formal education, according to him, life was his school. He became a journalist. His first short story 'Makar Chudra' was published when he was 24. Considering his lack of education, it was a feat, a great achievement.
More Successes for the Novelist
In all of his novels, Gorky wrote about the gypsies, hobos and down-and-outs whom he knew so well. Aged 27, he scored an immediate success with 'Chelkash', the story of a harbour thief. Over the next few years Maxim Gorky produced a stream of stories, novels and plays, including Twenty-Six Men and a Girl and his best-known The Lower Depths. Gorky's work became increasingly political as he attacked the society that caused such hardship.
The Writer-Exile
Gorky lived in exile for many years. During that time he wrote The Mother, a novel about the revolutionary movement which was later made into a play by Bertolt Brecht. Between 1913 and 1923 he published his best-known work, a three-part autobiography, beginning with My childhood, then In My World, and My Universities. His emphasis on the worker as his hero, writing about his own unhappy experiences and the reality of them all, made him closest to his novels. In Russia, he became a leading writer of the period.
Maxim Gorky Works
- 'Makar Chudra', 1892
- 'Chelkash', 1895
- Twenty-Six Men and a Girl, 1899
- Foma Gordeyev, 1899
- The Lower Depths, 1902
- The Mother, 1906-1907,
- My Childhood, 1913-1914
- In My World, 1915
- My Universities, 1923
- The Arlamonov Business, 1925
Sources:
Illustrated Biographical Dictionary, edited by John Clark, Chancellor Press (1994)
Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)
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