168 



1)I.s(;()Vi:hy 



Maxim Gorki 



By M. V. Trofimov, M.A. 



Pr'/essor ol Russian in the Universilu nf Manchester 



Of contemporary Russian writers, Maxim Gorki 

 is the most representative of the spirit and tendencies 

 of his age. He has concentrated the despair and the 

 hope of Russia, the sense of social wTongs and evils, 

 the horror of moral decline and the passion for 

 regeneration, the shadows and lights of the human 

 soul. In the penetration and vigour of his methods 

 of analysis and description, no other Russian WTiter 

 of the present time equals him. 



Gorki's personality excited keen interest. His 

 stories at once seized on the imagination by their 

 refreshing breath of life and force of style. The general 

 mood both in the life and literature of the time was 

 distinctly " Chehovian." The country was enveloped in 

 the twilight of political reaction, and the educated 

 classes moved indifferent and aimless in the atmo- 

 sphere of gloom and depression. Gorki struck a new 

 note. He brought, to the stage a new hero who 

 scorned all intellectual conventions and challenged all 

 established traditions. In contrast to Chehov's dim, 

 grey, and immovable pictures of Russian life, Gorki's 

 stories fascinated the reader by flashes of boisterous 

 spirit, pulsations of human energy, outbursts of 

 strong passions, and yearnings for a new ideal. The 

 spirit of fire and revolt in Gorki's stories was a welcome 

 contrast to Chehov's hopeless pessimism. 



In the face of the most adverse circumstances — -for 

 he was born in a mean and poor family — Gorki has 

 hammered out for himself a path into literature as the 

 champion of the downtrodden and outcast. The social 

 milieu which produced him and sent him forward with 

 a message was the town democracy roused to the 

 realisation of its own rights and aspirations. He 

 broke the eminently rural character of Russian 

 literature by portraying tj'pes, ideas, and emotions 

 brought forth by the development of town civilisation. 

 But before making workmen and tramps his chosen 

 heroes, Gorki touched on some themes previouslj' 

 known in Russian literature, and in these he struck a 

 romantic chord. His imaginative tales and legends 

 resounded with a note of passion for the life full of 

 vigorous emotions, unbending strength, beauty, and 

 glory. This belief in the spaciousness, luxurj', and 

 potency of life made Gorki feel dissatisfied with the 

 existing conditions, and led him to the idealisation of 

 tramps and vagabonds. He represents the ragged, 

 hungry, and shelterless vagabonds as refugees from 

 modern civilisation which they denounce for its false- 

 ness, its suppression of natural instincts, and its 

 trampling upon the weak and the poor. Gorki's 



great gift for pungent criticism and his extraordinary 

 capacity for scorn shine throughout the vivid and biting 

 speeches of his heroes. 



Under the shabbj' exterior of the tramps, Gorki 

 traced passion for freedom, love for nature, unselfish- 

 ness, hatred of shams, and a great capacity for joy. 



Some of Gorki's heroes are philosophic nihilists who 

 have broken away from the community with the object 

 of asserting their own freedom and becoming masters 

 and creators of their own lives. One feels that the 

 views and ideals they profess are those of the writer 

 himself, who strained his imagination and violated 

 psychological truth by dressing his idlers, thieves, 

 and drunkards in the romantic garb of crusaders of 

 the new humanity. Gorki assumed the attitude of 

 the realist when he came to describe the tramps as 

 social types, without entrusting them with a special 

 message. Ugly and sordid is the life of the paupers 

 and outcasts he then portrayed. Under the present 

 order of things, they are obnoxious social refuse, 

 worthless chaff of humanitj'. Like the dust raised 

 and carried away by the wind, the WTetched crowd 

 of Gorki's outcasts are wandering through Russia's 

 expanse, leaving everywhere traces of their sad and 

 miserable existence. At times, the gloom of the 

 stories is dispelled by bracing descriptions of nature, 

 or by the rays of warm poetic feeling proceeding from 

 the author's faith in the potent beauty of life. But 

 with all the passion for freedom beating strongly in 

 their hearts, the tramps are incapable of making any 

 efforts at constructing a new life. The desire for 

 the expression of individuality finds vent with them 

 in drunken speeches and brawls and in criminal 

 adventures. 



\\hen Gorki realised the inefficacy of his vagabonds, 

 he turned his hopes towards the industrial workers. 

 The place of action was now transported to workshops 

 and factory quarters. He viewed the labour move- 

 ment through the prism of the Marxian doctrine, 

 coloured with his own enthusiasm for the ideals of 

 Socialism. The worker appealed to Gorki's imagina- 

 tion as a man with a heart elevated by unselfish 

 feelings, with energy and resolution, with blood rich 

 both in phosphorus and in iron. The working class 

 as a whole rose before his eyes as an army of labour 

 animated by the passion for the emancipation of man. 

 In this spirit he wrote the novel Mother, describing 

 the conditions and mentality of the factory workmen. 

 Here Gorki traced the intellectual growth of a young 

 workman and his conversion to a new political and 

 social faith. The general atmosphere, as well as the 

 minute features and incidents in the life of the work- 

 man's community, are depicted with knowledge, skill, 

 and s\Tnpathy, and the author showed his profound 

 sense of character in painting the portrait of the peasant 



