"To an old man any place that's warm is homeland."

Russian short story writer, novelist, autobiographer and essayist, who ended his long career as the preeminent spokesman for culture under the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin. Gorky formulated the central principes of Socialist Realism, which became doctrine in Soviet literature.

Gorky was born in Ninzhni Novgorod (later named 'Gorky' in his honour). He lost his parents at an early age, and underwent the deprivations of a poverty-stricken childhood. Gorky left home at the age of 12, and followed form one profession to another, working in shops and on the Volga River steamers, using later material from his wandering years in his works. In 1884 he failed to enter Kazan University, and in the late 1880s he was arrested for revolutionary activities.

After travels through Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the Crimea Tiflis (late Tbilisi) Gorky published his first literary work, MAKAR CHUDRA (1892), a short story. He started to write for newspapers, and his first book, the 3-volume Sketches and Stories (1898-1899), established his reputation as a writer.

Gorky was literary editor of Zhizn from 1899 and editor of Znanie publishing house in St. Petersburg from 1900. He became involved in a secret printing press and was temporarily exiled to Arzamas, central Russia in 1902. In the same year he was elected to the Russian Academy, but election was declared invalid by the government and several members of the Academy resigned in protest.

In his early writing career Gorky became friends with Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, and Vladimir Lenin. Because of his political activism, Gorky was constantly in trouble with the tsarists authorities. He joined the Social Democratic party's left wing, headed by Lenin, and settled in 1906 in Capri.

During his visit to America to raise funds for the Bolshevik cause, Gorky wrote greater part of his most famous novel, , which appeared in 1907. Its heroine, a mother, adopted the cause of socialism in a religious spirit after her son's arrest as a political activist.

In 1913 Gorky returned to Russia, and helped to found the first Workers' and Peasants' University, the Petrograd Theater, and the World Literature Publishing House. The first part of his acclaimed autobiographical trilogy, My Childhood appeared in 1913-14. After Russian revolution Gorky enjoyed protected status, althought in 1918 his protests against Bolsheviks dictatorial methods were silenced by Lenin's order.

Dissatisfaction with the communist regime lead to his voluntary exile during 1920s. Gorky spent three years at various German and Czech spas, and was editor of Dialogue in Berlin (1923-25). On Capri in the 1920s Gorky wrote his best novel, The Artamov Business (1925), dealing with three generations of a pre-revolutionary merchant family.

In 1924-25 Gorky lived in Sorrento and returned in 1931 to Russia. He founded a number of journals and became head of the Writers' Union. Gorky died suddenly in country home near Moskow on June 18, 1936. Rumors have lived ever since that he may have been assassinated on Joseph Stalin orders. Gorky was buried in the Red Square and Stalin started earnest his Show Trials.

As an essayist Gorky dealt with wide range of subjects. Underlying most of Gorky's essays is a strong humanistic thrust and political commitment to bolshevism. In Notes on the Bourgeois Mentality he accuses the bourgeoisie of self-absorption and concern only with its own comfort. On the Russian Peasantry sees peasants as resistant to the new social order and City of the Yellow Devil, written in New York, condems American capitalism. On the other hand Gorky early opposed Bolsheviks, criticizing their use of violence against their fellow men. Among Gorky's important essays are also biographical sketches of such writers as Tolstoy, Leonid andreev and Anton Chechov.

Dvadsat' shest' i odna (1899, Twenty-Six Men and a Girl) - a story of lost ideals. The story is set in semi-basement workshop where twenty-six jobbing bakers works all day. Their only joy and bright spot in the darkness of their lives is 16-year old Tania, who works in the same building. A handsome ex-soldier, one of the master bakers, boasts of his success with women. He is challenged to seduce Tania. When Tania succumbs she is mocked by the men, who have lost their ideal. Tania curses them and walks away, and is never again seen in the basement.

For further reading: Maxim Gorky: Romatic Realist and Conservative Revolutionary by Richard Hare (1962); Gorky: His Literary Development and Influence on Soviet Intellectual Life by Irwin Weil (1966); Stormy Petrel: the Life and Work of Maxim Gorki by D. Levin (1967); by F.M. Borras (1967); The Bridge and the Abyss: The Troubled Friendship of Maxim Gorky and V.I.Lenin by Bertram D. Wolfe (1967); Maxim Gorky by Barry P. Scherr (1988); Gorky by Henri Troyat (1989); The Early Fiction of Maxim Gorky by Andrew Barratt (1993); File on Gorky, ed. by Cynthia Marsh (1993)

See also:Isaak Babel, Ivan Bunin

Selected works:

• MAKAR CHUDRA, 1892
• TSHELKASH, 1895 - Chelkash
• SUPRUGI ORLOVI, 1895 - The Orlovs film 1978, dir. Mark Donskoi
• PESNJA O SOKOLE, 1895
• STARUKHA IZERGIL, 1985
• KONOVALOV, 1897 -
• DVADTSAT SHEST I ODNA, 1899 - Twenty-six Men and a Girl (short story)
• FOMA GORDEYEV, 1899 - Foma Gordeyev film 1957, dir. Mark Donskoi
• TROE,1900 - The Three
• PESNIA O BUREVESTNIKE, 1901
• MESHTSHANE, 1901 - The Petty Bourgeois / The Lower Middle Class
• NA DNE, 1902 - The Lower Depths film 1936: Les bas-fonds, dir. by Jean Renoir (1936); film 1957, dir. Akira Kurasawa
• DATSNIKI, 1904 - Summer Folk
• DETI SOLNTSA, 1905 - Children of the Sun
• VARVARY, 1906 - Barbarians
• MAT, 1906 - Mother film 1919, dir. by Aleksandr Razumnyi; film 1926, dir. by Vsevolod Pudovkin
• VRAGI, 1906 - Enemies
• VARVARY, 1906
• DETI SOLNTSA, 1906
• V AMERIKE, 1906
• ZHIZN NENUZHNOGO TSHELOVEKA, 1907 - The Life of a Useless Man
• POSLEDNIE, 1908
• ISPOVED', 1908 - The Confession
• VASSA ZELEZNOVA, 1910 - Vassa Zheleznova film 1982, dir. Gleb Panfilov
• VSTRECHA, 1910
• CHUDAKI, 1910 - Queer People
• GORODOK OKUROV, 1910
• ZHIZN' MATVEI KOZHEMIAKINA, 1911 - The Life of Matvei Kozhemyakin
• ZIKOVY, 1913 - The Zykovs
• DETSTVO, 1913 - My Childhood
• V LYUDYAKH, 1916 - My Apprenticeship
• NESVOEVREMENNYE MYSLI, 1917-1918 - Untimely Thoughs
• VOSPOMINANIIA O TOLSTOM, 1919 - Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chechov and Andreyev
• LEV TOLSTOY, 1919 - Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
• STARIK, 1921 - The Judge
• MOI UNIVERSITY, 1922 - My Universities film trilogy based on Gorky's autobiographical works 1938-40, dir. by Mark Donskoi
• ZAMETKI IZ DNEVNIKA, 1924 - Fragments from My Diary
• LEV TOLSTOY, 1919 - Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
• DELO ARTAMONOVYH, 1925 - The Artamonov Business film 1941, dir. by Grigori Roshal
• O PISATELYAKH, 1928 - About Writers
• ZHIZN KLIMA SAMGINA, 1929-36 - The Bystander / The Life of Kim Samgin
• JEGOR BULITSHEV I DRUGIJE, 1931 - Yegor Bulychov
• DOSTIGAEV I DRUGIE, 1934 - Dostigaev and Others
• Belomor. An Account of the Construction of the New Canal Between the White Sea and the Baltic Sea, 1935 (ed.)
• SOMOV I DRUGIE, 1941
• Seven Plays, 1945
• SOBRANIE SOCHINENII, 1949-55 (30 vols.)
• Letters of Gorky and Andreev, 1958
• LITERATURNYE PORTRETY, 1967 - Literary Portraits
• Plays, 1968
• POLNOE SOBRANIE SOCHINENII, 1968-76 (25 vols.)
• The City of the Yellow Devil, 1972
• Collected Works, 1978-83 (10 vols.)
• PEREPISKA M. GOR'KOGO, 1986 (2 vols.)
• Five Plays, 1988
• Correspondence: Romain Rolland, Maxime Gorki, 1991
• Selected Letters, 1997

Other film adaptations: La folie des vaillants, dir. by Germaine Dulac (1926); Matj, dir. by Mark Donskoi (1955); Sommargäste, dir. by Peter Stein (1975)