Gorky, a great proletarian writer in the former Soviet Union, the founder of socialist and realist literature, a mentor of proletarian revolutionary literature, and the founder of Soviet literature. The following is the life story of Gorky that I share with you. Everyone is welcome to read and learn.
Bio of Gorky
1. Experience
Maxim Gorky, former Soviet writer, formerly known as Alexey Maximovich P. Shkov. Gorky is his pen name ("Gorky" means "suffering, pain" in Russian). Gorky is "the greatest representative of proletarian art", "the founder of socialist realist literature" and "the mentor of proletarian revolutionary literature". Born on March 28, 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod (formerly known as Gorky). His father died when Gorky was 3 years old. Gorky then stayed with his mother at his grandfather's house.
He began to enter the "human world" at the age of 11 and worked as an apprentice, porter, and baker. In the 1880s, he joined a secret study group of intellectuals holding populist views in Kazan and began to live a wandering life in 1883.
Gorky had a strong desire to study since he was a child. When he was in school, he did very well and won the best award. However, poverty meant that he only went to school for two years. In order to support his family, he traveled around and worked various jobs, but he never forgot to read. He often took risks to find books to read. In order to avoid being imprisoned by his boss, he often read books late at night. He made an oil lamp out of a can, collected the residual oil from his master's candle tray, and hid in storage rooms, sheds, and other places to study hard. Really unable to find an oil lamp, he read under the moonlight. In an extremely difficult and difficult environment, Gorky worked hard to study on his own, thus mastering a high cultural level and laying a solid foundation for his literary creation.
2. Creation
A striking feature of Gorky’s early creation (1892? 1899) is the coexistence of romantic works and realist works. On the one hand, it reflects that the writer is still in the exploratory stage of artistic creation; on the other hand, it is also inseparable from his understanding of the mission of literature and art at that time. Gorky believes that the times require that literature should be like an "alarm bell" to awaken and push people to pursue light and ideals. His romantic works mainly express the ideal heroic spirit.
In 1892, he published his first short story "Makar Chudela" under the pseudonym Gorky in "Caucasus" and devoted himself to writing ever since.
"The Old Woman of Izegil" and "The Song of the Eagle" written in 1895 are outstanding works.
In 1898, his first collection of works "Essays and Short Stories" was published, which attracted widespread attention at home and abroad.
In his early creations, there were both romantic works and realist works.
Romantic works include "The Girl and Death", "The Old Lady of Ezegil", "Song of the Eagle", "Petrel", etc. On the one hand, these works reflect the people's desire for revolution and freedom, and also express the author's longing for a bright future. In particular, the image of Haiyan created in 1901 is considered a symbol of the coming revolutionary storm and greatly inspires people. .
Early realist works include: "The Orlovs", "Konovalov", "The Fallen People", "On the Grassland", "Because of Boredom", "Twenty-Six and One" It mainly criticizes the misery of bourgeois society and the despicability of the philistines. It also expresses the political awakening of the people and expresses their anger and protest against the exploitative system.
Most of Gorky's early realistic works were based on his experiences and feelings about life at the bottom, the most representative of which are novels about tramps. In addition to strongly indicting the evils of capitalist society, these works also strive to reveal the inner pain of homeless people and the struggle between old and new consciousness, and capture the characteristics of the times in the lives of working people. Their purpose is still to arouse people's positive attitude towards life. . Representative work: "Cherkash".
The novel "Cherkash" (1895) vividly describes the brave, independent and noble character of the old tramp Cherkash, who does not succumb to money and maintains human dignity. It shows that although these people The spiritual burden is still very heavy, but it is much nobler than the selfish and vulgar small private owners. Artistically, "Cherkash" fully demonstrates Gorky's excellent skills in depicting complex characters in his early realist works.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Gorky's creation turned to drama, reflecting the social contradictions of the time in the fastest, most direct and concise form.
Before and after the 1905 revolution (1900?1909) was the second stage of the development of Gorky's thoughts and creations. During this period, Gorky made a qualitative leap in his worldview due to his active participation in the revolutionary movement, his acquaintance with Lenin and his joining the Bolshevik Party. In terms of creation, he also serves the cause of proletarian revolution more consciously, strives to create new heroes, and writes things that are higher, better, and more beautiful than life.
From 1901 to 1910, he successively wrote many important social and political scripts such as "Little Bourgeois", "The Bottom", "Summer Guests", "Children of the Sun" and "The Barbarians", some of which reflected the struggle in death. The online lives of poor people sometimes expose the spiritual emptiness of intellectuals and bourgeois philistines. In the play "Little Burgher", the author describes the glorious image of Neil, an advanced worker, for the first time. The performance of these plays was warmly welcomed by the revolutionary people and caused panic in the tsarist government.
After the revolution of 1910, Gorky's creation reached a mature stage. The play "The Enemy" (1906) for the first time described the fighting collective of the working class that attacked the bourgeoisie frontally, creating a typical image of the Communist Sintsov. The novel "Mother" (1906) written in the same period has epoch-making significance in the history of world literature. These two works are both the foundation works of Russian proletarian literature.
During the Russian Revolution in 1905, Gorky actively participated in the proletarian revolutionary struggle, joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, and met with Lenin.
In 1906, Gorky wrote the two most important works "Mother" and "The Enemy", which brought his creation to a new peak. "Mother" is the foundation work of socialist literature. The images of the protagonist Pavel and his mother Nirovna summarize the excellent qualities of the Russian working class revolutionary fighters in the early 20th century. Lenin praised the novel as "a very timely book" and suggested that it would be "of great benefit" to Russian workers.
The period between the two revolutions (1908? 1917) can be regarded as the third stage of Gorky’s thought and creation.
After the failure of the revolution in 1905, Gorky lived in Italy for a long time and was ideologically influenced by the "god-making theory" of the opportunist faction within the party. Gorky once accepted the god-making theory and published a novella. "Confessions" (1908), was seriously criticized by Lenin. Gorky also wrote many important works before and after the October Revolution: "Summer", "Three People", "The Life of Matvey Kzhmyakin", "Russian Fairy Tales", "Song of the Petrel" and the autobiographical trilogy "Childhood" "In the World", "My University", etc. Among them, "Childhood", "In the World" and "My University" are autobiographical novels based on his own experiences.
In 1922, Gorky went abroad to recuperate from illness, and while he was ill, he completed the novel "The Business of the Artamonov Family" (1925).
After returning to China in 1928, he witnessed the vigorous socialist construction of the motherland and became enthusiastic. In his later years, in addition to writing many passionate features, political commentaries, and commentaries, he also wrote the epic novel "The Life of Klim Samkin" (1925-1936).
In 1934, Gorky chaired the First Congress of Soviet Writers and was elected chairman of the conference.
At 2:30 on June 18, 1936, Gorky passed away at the age of 68.
Gorky’s literary creation
1. Early life and creation
Gorky lost his father when he was 3 years old. He started to make a living independently at the age of 11, working as an apprentice, porter and baker.
He was exiled to Kazan in 1884. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, he traveled across Russia twice to gain extensive knowledge of the people. During this period, he was arrested in 1889 for participating in a secret revolutionary organization. After his release, his actions were still monitored by the military police. In 1892, he published his debut novel "Makar Chudra" and soon began to work as an editor and reporter in local newspapers. In 1898, he published the two-volume collection "Essays and Short Stories", which became famous in Russian and European literary circles. He only went to school for three years and was completely self-taught.
Most of his early creations were short stories. Among them, works such as "Makar Chudra", "The Girl and the God of Death", "Old Lady Izegil" and "Eagle Song" use a strong contrast between darkness and light to praise those who yearn for the light and devote themselves to the interests of the people. A heroic figure with distinctive romantic characteristics. Novels such as "Cherkash", "Konovalov" and "Because I'm Bored" focus on truly and concretely describing the suffering life of the lower class people and expressing their anger towards reality. They belong to realism in art. The short story "The Reader" and the critical article "Paul Verlaine and the Decadence" included in the two-volume collection also show the author's emphasis on the social role of literature and his clear anti-decadence artistic stance from the beginning.
The two novellas "Foma Gordeev" and "Three People", written at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, focus on revealing the life of the young protagonist through a broader realistic picture. themes to explore.
From 1900, Gorky participated in and presided over the work of Knowledge Publishing House, and united a large number of democratic writers in Russia at that time by publishing the "Knowledge" series. In 1901, he wrote a leaflet in St. Petersburg to expose the atrocities of the Tsarist government in suppressing student demonstrators and called for the overthrow of the autocratic system. In the same year, he published a prose poem "Song of Haiyan", which was full of revolutionary passion and was considered a "manifesto of the revolution"; in this year he He was also commissioned by the revolutionary party to establish a secret printing office, for which he was arrested and exiled for the second time.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Gorky wrote several plays one after another. Among them, "Little Burgher" exposed the contradiction between bourgeois conservatives and liberals and created a living image of workers; "The Bottom" profoundly criticized the concept of happiness. The thought of passive waiting, a character in the play declares: "How proud the word man sounds." The three plays "Summer Guest", "Children of the Sun" and "Barbarians" timely revealed the divisions of Russian intellectuals at that time, whipping People who abandon revolutionary ideals. In the early days of the revolution in 1905, as an eyewitness, he wrote a leaflet against the Tsarist government for shooting down petitioners, calling on the people to rise up in struggle. At the same time, he actively participated in the publication of the Social Democratic Labor Party's "New Life" and "Combat", which contributed to many parties. Efforts were made to prepare funds and weapons for the rebels. During this period, he also published a large number of political commentaries. Among them, the article "Talk about the Habits of the Petty Citizens" deeply analyzed the social roots and psychological characteristics of the habits of the petty citizens and their harm to the revolutionary cause.
2. Mid-term life and creation
In early 1906, Gorky secretly left Russia for the United States, where he promoted the revolution and raised funds for the party. In the same year, he wrote the play "Enemy" and the novel "Mother" in the United States. The former successfully demonstrated the united fighting spirit of the working class who was not afraid of sacrifice through a fierce face-to-face conflict between workers and factory owners in a factory; the latter was based on the May Day demonstration of workers in Solmovo in 1902, highlighting the role of a self-conscious social worker. The image of Pavel, who struggled for the cause of communism, and his mother Nilovna, who transformed from resignation to a staunch revolutionary warrior under the education of reality. Both works are permeated with a firm belief in historical progress, embody the creative principle of expressing reality in the actual revolutionary development, and are recognized as the foundation works of socialist realism. While in the United States, the writer also wrote the political commentary "My Interview" and the feature "In America" ??that exposed and criticized the capitalist system.
After the temporary failure of the revolution, Gorky came to Italy from the United States in the autumn of 1906 and settled on the Island of Capri. In May of the following year, he and Lenin participated in the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party held there.
In the following years, he wrote novellas such as "The Life of a Useless Man", "Summer" and "Ogulov Town", screenplays such as "The Last Generation" and "Vasa Zhileznova", and A number of outstanding works such as "Italian Fairy Tales" and "Russian Fairy Tales". During this period, due to work relationships, he was close to Bogdanov, who was then a member of the Party Central Committee, and participated in the Forward activities headed by the latter. And influenced by his idealist philosophy. His novella "Confession" promotes obvious theistic ideas. Some of the papers and monographs he published at that time, such as "History of Russian Literature", also contained varying degrees of erroneous views such as "complexity of concepts", "organization of experience" and theism of theism. With the help of Lenin's criticism, he gradually raised his awareness and broke away from the forward group.
In the summer of 1921, he went abroad for medical treatment due to a recurrence of his illness. Until 1928, he basically lived in Sorrento, Italy. While he was recovering from illness, he tried his best to resist the ultra-leftist and sectarian errors of some groups such as Rapp through letters and meetings with visitors. He did a lot of work to cultivate young writers and unite writers of different styles. He also worked hard to create, published the memoir "Leo Tolstoy" and the feature "Lenin", and completed the autobiographical trilogy "Childhood", "In the World" and "My University", describing the writer's rise from the bottom of life to revolution Road, the process of workers searching for truth and pursuing light. The novel "The Artamonov Family Career", written in 1924-1925, describes the changes of three generations of a family against the broad historical background from the Russian serfdom reform in the mid-19th century to the October Revolution. It shows the inevitable decline of the bourgeoisie.
After returning to China in 1928, Gorky traveled to various parts of the country twice and wrote a long reportage "Travel Notes on the Soviet Union". Settled in Moscow in 1931. In his later years of creation, the plays "Yegor Brechev and Others" and "Dostchigaev and Others" showed the decline of capitalism and the victory of socialism, and the novel "Krim Samkin" "A Life" describes the 40 years of historical changes in Russian society before the October Revolution, using an individualist intellectual as the central figure to reflect the growth of revolutionary power. He also published a series of papers such as "On Socialist Realism" and advocated socialist realism. In 1934, he was elected the first president of the Soviet Union of Writers.
Gorky’s works have been gradually introduced to China since the early 20th century. Many of his novels, plays and treatises have not only been translated into Chinese, but have also been compiled and published in single or multi-volume "Collected Works of Gorky".
His literary creation and literary theoretical views had an important influence on the development of new literature in China after the May Fourth Movement.
Gorky’s main works
List of works
Gorky studied hard on his own cultural knowledge, actively participated in revolutionary activities, and explored ways to transform reality. In 1892, he published his debut novel "Makar Chudra" and entered the literary world. His early works were a mixture of realism and romanticism. This was an inevitable stage before the formation of his proletarian worldview. Gorky became famous as a trilogy of his life: "Childhood", "In the World", and "My University", which has become a classic work of the world's proletarian writers describing personal growth and struggle experiences.
Romantic works such as "Makar Chudra", "The Old Lady Ezegil" (1895), "Song of the Eagle" (1895), etc., praise the freedom-loving, longing for light and heroic deeds. Strong personality, showing the passion for fighting; realist works such as "Cherkash", "The Fallen People", "Konovalov", etc., describe the suffering life of the people and their noble moral character, expressing Their anger and resistance. Most of the protagonists in these works are characters who strive to explore new paths in life, think about the meaning of life, and are full of intense inner conflicts. In 1901, he personally participated in the demonstration in Petersburg and wrote the famous prose poem "Song of the Petrel", which created the image of the brave petrel that symbolized the wise and courageous revolutionaries fighting against the wind and waves, foretelling the coming revolutionary storm and inspiring people to Welcome to the great battle, this is a motto and hymn for the proletarian revolutionary battle, which was enthusiastically praised by Lenin.
1. Drama
On the eve of the Russian Revolution in 1905, Gorky's creation turned to drama. From 1901 to 1905, he successively wrote "Little Burgher", "The Bottom" and "Summer Guest" Plays such as "Children of the Sun" and "The Savages." In particular, "Little Burgher" and "The Bottom" showed the new image and new mental outlook of workers in real life, and showed their determination and optimism in fighting for their rights. Their performances caused a stir in the Russian theater world at that time. sensation.
In 1906, Gorky wrote the novel "Mother" and the play "The Enemy", two of his most important works, marking a new peak in his creation. "Mother" created the heroic image of the first group of proletarian revolutionaries in the history of world literature who consciously fought for socialism, and was the foundation of socialist realist literature. Lenin affirmed its practical significance. He (Gorky) was also called "the most outstanding representative of proletarian art" by Lenin.
After the failure of the revolution in 1905, Gorky went to the United States and Italy and wrote a series of political articles, criticizing the Western capitalist system and all kinds of reactionary trends that filled the ideological and literary circles. The novella "Confessions" written in 1908 revealed idealist theistic thoughts of creation and was severely criticized by Lenin. Despite this, Gorky's dominant tendency is still positive and full of revolutionary fighting spirit. Many theoretical explorations were conducted on the characteristics of the new proletarian literary creation method, and the viewpoint of combining realism and romanticism was put forward. He produced many creative achievements between the two revolutions, such as "Ogulov Town" (1909), "Summer" (1909), and "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin" (1910-1911). , "Italian Fairy Tales" (1911-1913), "Russian Fairy Tales" (1912-1917), and the later completed "Childhood" and "In the World" (1913-1916).
2. Novel
In the ten years after the October Revolution, Gorky was in poor health and only wrote memoirs about Lenin and some writers with unique artistic styles and important documentary value. And the last part of the autobiographical trilogy "My University" (1922~1923), "The Artamonov Family Career" (1924~1925) and several other works. In 1921, he followed Lenin's advice and went abroad to recuperate. After returning to China in 1925, he began to write the voluminous and epic work "The Life of Klim Samkin" in 1931. This is an unfinished work. Before his death in 1936, he also wrote "Travels in the Soviet Union" (1929), "The Story of Heroes" and many plays "Yegor Brechev and Others" (1932), "Toschigaev and Others" (1933), "Vasa Zhileznova" (1935), as well as a large number of literary theory, literary criticism and political articles, which made significant contributions to Marxist literary theory and socialist cultural undertakings.
Evaluation of Gorky’s character
In terms of his achievements, Gorky is not only a great writer, but also an outstanding social activist. He founded the organization and presided over the first All-Soviet Writers' Congress in 1934 to cultivate new literary talents and actively participate in the cause of defending world peace. Gorky's works have been introduced to China since 1907. His excellent literary works and treatises have become the common wealth of the proletariat around the world. Lenin called him "the most outstanding representative of proletarian art."
Before the October Revolution, Gorky supported the leftist theory of revolution, and was particularly inclined to the Bolshevik view of violent revolution. But when the October Revolution broke out, Gorky turned against the Bolsheviks, and then went abroad. Later, due to Lenin's tolerance and Stalin's schemes, he gradually returned. After returning home, he was unable to resist the temptation of power and interests, and eventually became a "red literary giant" who was "employed". . It can be said that Gorky's political ideas fluctuated greatly, and his emotional personality also doomed his later tragedy.
People who read "Gorky's Life and Deeds" also read:
1. Gorky's success story
2. Gorky's inspirational quotes
3. Good words and sentences from Gorky My University
4. Famous quotes about Gorky
5. Growth stories of celebrities as children