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Maxim Gorky Максим Горький | |
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| Born | Alexei Maximovich Peshkov 28 March 1868 Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire |
| Died | 18 June 1936 Moscow Oblast, RSFSR, Soviet Union |
| Cause of death | Assassination |
| Nationality | Russian |
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (28 March 1868 – 18 June 1936), better known as Maxim Gorky, was a Russian writer and founder of socialist realism.
Early life
Gorky was born in 1868 and his father died shortly after he was born. He lived with his grandmother before becoming homeless, working as a proletarian on steamships and in factories. His early works My Childhood and My Universities were about proletarian life and he soon became a Marxist revolutionary. His 1900 story Tradesmen sold 25,000 copies in 15 days.[1]
Revolutionary movement
Gorky purchased banned books for a library in Nizhny run by Narodnaya Volya. The local RSDLP committee helped him go into exile to avoid persecution by tsarist authorities. Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich annulled his appointment to a literature department, and fellow writer Anton Chekov resigned in protest. Gorky was imprisoned during the 1905 revolution and left Russia afterwards.[1]
Post-revolution
After the October Revolution, Gorky returned to Russia and wrote a history of the Civil War. He criticized futurists who believed all art was anti-proletarian and harmful to the masses. In 1932, he and Zhdanov were placed in charge of organizing a union of Soviet writers and combatting bourgeois and imperialist art. Gorky presided over the first congress of the Soviet Writer's Union in 1934.[1] An anti-Soviet group of Trotskyists and Right-Oppositionists assassinated Gorky in 1938.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "An introduction to the life and times of Maxim Gorky" (2019-06-23). Lalkar. Archived from the original on 2022-05-29. Retrieved 2022-12-22.
- ↑ Joseph Stalin (1939). History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): 'The Bolshevik Party in the Struggle to Complete the Building of the Socialist Society. Introduction of the New Constitution'. [MIA]