Little-known facts from the life of Gorky. Unknown facts from the life of Gorky

Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) - Russian writer and prose writer. Was born in Nizhny Novgorod, and is one of the most famous writers and thinkers (Wikipedia). And today we can’t help but tell Interesting Facts about such a wonderful writer.

1. Many people know that Maxim Gorky’s real name is Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov. According to the most popular version, he took such a pseudonym due to the fact that he could not sign Peshkov in literature, and Gorky was a clear hint at the difficult and bitter life of the author, who was orphaned early and his grandfather sent him “to the people.” Although there are many other versions. Which of them is true is still unknown.

2. Even as a child, at the age of 11, his grandfather sent him “to the people” and Maxim had to work as a boy in a store, as a cook on a ship, and as a baker. Then he even studied at an icon-painting workshop.

3. In December 1887, Gorky wanted to shoot himself with a revolver in the area of ​​his heart, but the bullet missed the organ by just a couple of millimeters. In general, throughout his life, Maxim Gorky tried to commit suicide more than once. He had suicidal tendencies. But every time he managed to avoid death.

Although perhaps he did not really want to commit suicide. According to one of his wife’s stories, one day, while doing housework, she heard a roar. Having run to the place, she saw her bloodied husband. Having asked him what happened, the writer replied that he deliberately hurt himself in order to feel the pain of the character he was writing about.

4. The writer was very resistant to all sorts of alcoholic drinks, and despite the amount he drank, he practically did not get drunk.

5. During his life he was nominated 5 times for Nobel Prize on literature.

6. In 1902, he became godfather and at the same time adoptive father of Zinovy ​​Sverdlov, who subsequently took the surname Peshkov. Without this, he would not have been able to live in Moscow.

7. Gorky was a frequent visitor to the police for his revolutionary spirit. He was even arrested because he was friends with the founder of a revolutionary circle.

8. Maxim was sick with tuberculosis since childhood, and despite all this, he smoked a lot.

9. Gorky was still a walker, despite the fact that throughout his life he had several wives, he also had plenty of mistresses. This cannot be taken away. He enjoyed success with women.

10. Gorky's granddaughters Daria and Marfa are still alive. By the way, Marfa communicated very closely with Stalin’s daughter Svetlana, and married Lavrentiy Beria’s son. Daria still plays at the Vakhtangov Theater, despite her advanced age.

11. They say that Gorky was the favorite writer of the Head of State. But nevertheless, according to one version, Stalin was involved in the death of Maxim Alekseevich.

Maxim Gorky is one of the most famous Soviet writers. His work is literally permeated with rebellion, unwillingness to come to terms with life's adversities and calls to fight. His works were received ambiguously by the authorities, but they provided him with worldwide fame.

1. The writer’s name was not actually Maxim or Gorky - at birth he received the name Alexey Peshkov.
2. Gorky could have become five times Nobel laureate, but never received the prestigious award.
3. Although Gorky lived abroad for 18 years, including 15 years in Italy, he never mastered a single foreign language.
4. The writer ardently supported the Bolsheviks, but was skeptical about the October Revolution. He used all his influence to save the enemies of the new regime who were arrested and sentenced to execution.
5. Gorky was the most published Soviet writer in his homeland - the total circulation of his books over almost 70 years exceeded 242.5 million copies. If we consider Russian writers in general, in terms of the number of published publications he is second only to Leo Tolstoy and Alexander Pushkin.
6. For more than half a century, Gorky’s native Nizhny Novgorod bore his name - the city’s old name was returned only in 1990 after the collapse of the USSR.
7. At three years old future writer fell ill with cholera. His father, carpenter Maxim Peshkov, took care of his son, but became infected and soon died himself.
8. When Alyosha Peshkov was 11 years old, his mother died of consumption, and the boy’s parents were replaced by his grandmother, whom he spoke warmly of for the rest of his life.
9. Left an orphan, Peshkov-Gorky was forced to start working - he managed to be a baker, an errand boy in a store and on a ship, at one time he even stole firewood and collected rags on the streets.
10. At school Peshkov was considered a difficult teenager, who, moreover, got involved with bad company. Due to complaints from classmates that he allegedly “smelled of garbage,” the offended young man dropped out of school and never received a secondary education. Without a certificate, the path to universities was also closed for him.
11. Although Peshkov, who by that time had already become Gorky, was an extremely erudite, well-read and versatile person, even by the age of 30 he continued to write with many errors. Fortunately, his wife Ekaterina was a proofreader by profession, so she carefully corrected all her husband’s works.
12. The future writer adored fire since childhood and could stare at the flames endlessly.
13. Until his old age, Gorky believed that he was born in 1869, until documents dating his birth to 1868 were found in the archives.
14. When Peshkov was 19 years old, he succumbed to depression and tried to commit suicide - while at that moment in Kazan, where he unsuccessfully tried to enter the university, the young man shot himself in the chest. The bullet lodged in his lung, and doctors managed to save him. In the hospital, the young man made another suicide attempt, grabbing a bottle of a poisonous substance and taking several sips. His stomach was washed out and he was saved from death a second time.
15. Since Gorky refused to repent after two suicide attempts, he was excommunicated from the church for 4 years. Medical luminaries who subsequently studied the writer’s life and work discovered several mental disorders in him.
16. Young Peshkov, inspired by the ideas of Leo Tolstoy, intended to organize a peasant community of the Tolstoy type and even went to Moscow to ask the writer for advice. He, however, did not accept him, and Peshkov returned to Novgorod in a cattle car.
17. Gorky's first wife was the daughter of a midwife who once helped the writer himself to be born.
18. In 1902, Gorky became an honorary academician, but the emperor was annoyed by this fact, and very soon his election was canceled by the authorities: it was indicated that the literary luminary had problems with the law. As a sign of protest, Chekhov and Korolenko left the academy together with Gorky.

Unknown facts from the life of Gorky. April 19th, 2009

There was a lot of mystery in Gorky. For example, he did not feel physical pain, but at the same time he experienced the pain of others so painfully that when he described the scene of how a woman was stabbed with a knife, a huge scar swelled on his body. He is with young suffered from tuberculosis and smoked 75 cigarettes a day. He tried to commit suicide several times, and each time he was saved by an unknown force, for example, in 1887, which deflected a bullet aimed at the heart a millimeter from the target. He could drink as much alcohol as he wanted and never got drunk. In 1936 he died twice, on June 9 and 18. On June 9, the now virtually deceased writer was miraculously revived by the arrival of Stalin, who came to Gorky’s dacha in Gorki near Moscow to say goodbye to the deceased.

On the same day, Gorky organized a strange vote among his family and friends, asking them: should he die or not? In fact, he controlled the process of his dying...
Gorky's life is an amazing carnival that ended tragically. The question still remains unresolved: did Gorky die a natural death or was he killed on the orders of Stalin. Gorky's last days and hours were filled with some kind of horror. Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov drank champagne near the bed of the dying Russian writer. Gorky’s Nizhny Novgorod friend and then political emigrant Ekaterina Kuskova wrote: “But even over the silent writer they stood with a candle day and night...”
Leo Tolstoy at first mistook Gorky for a peasant and spoke obscenities to him, but then he realized that he had made a big mistake. “I can’t treat Gorky sincerely, I don’t know why, but I can’t,” he complained to Chekhov. “Gorky” evil person. He has the soul of a spy, he came from somewhere in the land of Canaan that is foreign to him, he looks closely at everything, notices everything and reports everything to some god of his.”
Gorky paid the intelligentsia in the same coin. In letters to I. Repin and Tolstoy, he sang hymns to the glory of Man: “I don’t know anything better, more complicated, more interesting than a person..."; "I deeply believe that better than man there is nothing on earth..." And at the same time he wrote to his wife: "It would be better for me not to see all this bastard, all these pathetic little people..." (this is about those who in St. Petersburg raised their glasses in his honor (And who is his wife, an NKVD agent?)
He passed through Luka, the crafty wanderer,” wrote the poet Vladislav Khodasevich. This is as true as the fact that he was a wanderer always and everywhere, being connected and in correspondence with Lenin, Chekhov, Bryusov, Rozanov, Morozov, Gapon, Bunin, Artsybashev, Gippius, Mayakovsky, Panferov, realists, symbolists, priests, Bolsheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, monarchists, Zionists, anti-Semites, terrorists, academicians, collective farmers, GPE members and all the people on this sinful earth “Gorky did not live, but examined... "- noted Viktor Shklovsky.
Everyone saw him as “Gorky”, not a person, but a character that he himself invented while in Tiflis in 1892, when he signed his first story “Makar Chudra” with this pseudonym.
Contemporary of the writer, emigrant I.D. Surguchev seriously believed that Gorky once made an agreement with the devil - the same one that Christ refused in the desert. "And he, the average general writer, a success was given that neither Pushkin, nor Gogol, nor Leo Tolstoy, nor Dostoevsky knew during their lifetime. He had everything: fame, money, and a woman’s sly love.” Perhaps this is true. But this is not our business.
The learned men on his planet, having read the report on the business trip, nevertheless asked:
- Did you see the man?
- Saw!
- What is he like?
- Ooh... That sounds proud!
- Yes, what does it look like?
And he drew a strange figure in the air with his wing.

Gorky was married to Ekaterina Pavlovna Volzhina, in marriage - Peshkova (1876-1965; public figure, employee of the International Red Cross).
Son - Maxim Maksimovich Peshkov (1896-1934). His sudden death was explained, like Gorky's death, by poisoning.
Foster-son Gorky, whose godfather he was - Zinovy ​​Mikhailovich Peshkov - general of the French army, brother Ya. Sverdlova).
Among the women who enjoyed Gorky's special favor was Maria Ignatievna Budberg (1892-1974) - a baroness, née Countess Zakrevskaya, by her first marriage Benkendorf. Lev Nikulin writes about her in his memoirs; “When they ask us who “Klim Samgin” is dedicated to, who Maria Ignatyevna Zakrevskaya is, we think that her portrait is before his last days stood on Gorky’s table” (Moscow. 1966. No. 2). She was with him and last hours his life. A photograph has been preserved where Budberg, next to Stalin, walks behind Gorky’s coffin. It was she who, fulfilling the task of the GPU, brought Stalin Gorky’s Italian archive, which contained what Stalin was especially interested in - Gorky’s correspondence with Bukharin, Rykov and other Soviet figures who, having escaped from the USSR on a business trip, bombarded Gorky with letters about the atrocities of “himself.” wise and great" (about Budberg, see: Berberova N. The Iron Woman. New York, 1982).
http://belsoch.exe.by/bio2/04_16.shtml
Maria Andreeva was also M. Grky’s common-law wife.
YURKOVSKAYA MARIA FEDOROVNA (ANDREEVA, ZHELYABUZHSKAYA, PHENOMENON) 1868-1953 Born in St. Petersburg. Actress. On stage since 1886, in 1898-1905 at the Moscow Art Theater. Roles: Rautendelein ("The Sunken Bell" by G. Hauptmann, 1898), Natasha ("At the Lower Depths" by M. Gorky, 1902), etc. In 1904 she joined the Bolsheviks. Publisher of the Bolshevik newspaper " New life"(1905). In 1906 she married an official Zhelyabuzhsky, but later became the common-law wife of Maxim Gorky and emigrated with him. In 1913 she returned to Moscow after breaking off relations with Gorky. She resumed acting work in Ukraine. Participated together with M. Gorky and A. A. Blok in the creation of the Bolshoi drama theater(Petrograd, 1919), actress of this theater until 1926. Commissioner of Theaters and Entertainment of Petrograd (1919-1921), Director of the Moscow House of Scientists (1931-1948).
What did Gorky bring to our world?

In 1895, he almost simultaneously published in the Samara Gazeta romantic fairy tale“About the Little Fairy and the Young Shepherd”, the famous “Old Woman Izergil” and the realistic story “On the Salt”, dedicated to the description of the hard work of tramps in the salt fields. Patterned, colored bright colors textile artistic storytelling in the first two works does not harmonize in any way with the mundane everyday depiction of tramps, in one of which the author himself can be discerned. The text of the story "On Salt" is replete with rude cruel images, common speech, swearing, conveying feelings of pain and resentment, “senseless rage” of people brought to complete stupor in the salt penal servitude. The romantically colored landscape in “Old Woman Izergil” (“dark blue patches of sky, decorated with golden specks of stars”), the harmony of colors and sounds, the amazingly beautiful heroes of the legend about the little fairy (the shepherd resembles not a Wallachian shepherd, but a biblical prophet) create a sunny fairy tale about love and freedom. The story “On the Salt” also describes the sea, the sky, the shore of the estuary, but the flavor of the story is completely different: unbearably scorching heat, cracked gray earth, grass red-brown like blood, women and men swarming like worms in the greasy mud. Instead of a solemn symphony of sounds - the screeching of wheelbarrows, rude and angry swearing, groans and “sad protest”.
Larra is the son of a woman and an eagle. His mother brought him to people in the hope that he would live happily among his own kind. Larra was the same as everyone else, “only his eyes were cold and proud, like those of the king of birds.” The young man did not respect anyone, did not listen to anyone, and behaved arrogantly and proudly. He had both strength and beauty, but he pushed people away with his pride and coldness. Larra behaved among people as animals behave in a herd, where the strongest is allowed everything. He kills the “obstinate” girl right in front of the entire tribe, not knowing that by doing so he is signing his own sentence to be rejected for the rest of his life. The angry people decided that: “His punishment is in himself!” They released him and gave him freedom.
the theme of an ungrateful, capricious crowd, because people, having found themselves in the thickest darkness of the forest and swamp swamps, attacked Danko with reproaches and threats. They called him “an insignificant and harmful person” and decided to kill him. However, the young man forgave people for their anger and unfair reproaches. He tore out a heart from his chest, which burned with the bright fire of love for these same people, and illuminated their path: “It (the heart) burned as brightly as the sun, and brighter than the sun, and the whole forest fell silent, illuminated by this torch of great love for people..."
Danko and Larra are antipodes, they are both young, strong and beautiful. But Larra is a slave to his egoism, and because of this he is lonely and rejected by everyone. Danko lives for people, therefore he is truly immortal.
The falcon is a symbol of a fearless fighter: “We sing glory to the madness of the brave.” And the Already is a symbol of a cautious and sane man in the street. The images of cowardly loons, penguins and seagulls, which frantically rush about, trying to hide from reality and its changes, are allegorical.
Chudra says: “You have chosen a glorious destiny for yourself, falcon. That’s how it should be: go and look, you’ve seen enough, lie down and die - that’s all!”
Izergil lives among people, looking for human love, ready for her sake heroic deeds. Why does the writer so cruelly emphasize the ugliness of her old age? She is “almost a shadow” - this is associated with Larra’s shadow. Apparently because her path is life strong man, but lived for himself.
“...O brave Falcon! In a battle with your enemies, you bled to death... But there will be time - and drops of your hot blood, like sparks, will flare up in the darkness of life and many brave hearts will be ignited with an insane thirst for freedom, light!.. We sing a song to the madness of the brave!..”
A fact, an incident from reality, was always important to him. He was hostile to the human imagination and did not understand fairy tales.
Russian writers of the 19th century were mostly his personal enemies: He hated Dostoevsky, despised Gogol as a sick person, he laughed at Turgenev.
His personal enemies were the Kamenev family.
- Trotsky’s sister, Olga Kameneva (Bronstein) - the wife of Lev Kamenev (Rosenfeld Lev Borisovich), who headed the Moscow Council from 1918 to 1924, former member Politburo of the Central Committee. But the most interesting thing is that until December 1934 (before his arrest) Lev Kamenev was the director of the Institute of World Literature. M. Gorky (?!).
Olga Kameneva headed the theater department of the People's Commissariat for Education. In February 1920, she told Khodasevich: “I’m surprised how you can know Gorky. All he does is cover up scammers - and he himself is just as much a scammer. If it weren’t for Vladimir Ilyich, he would have been in prison a long time ago!” Gorky had a long-standing acquaintance with Lenin. But nevertheless, it was Lenin who advised Gorky to leave new Russia.

Having gone abroad in 1921, Gorky, in a letter to V. Khodasevich, sharply criticized N. Krupskaya’s circular on the removal from Soviet libraries for the mass reader of the works of Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer, V. Solovyov, L. Tolstoy and others.
One of the many pieces of evidence that Gorky was poisoned by Stalin, and perhaps the most convincing, albeit indirect, belongs to B. Gerland and was published in No. 6 of the Socialist Messenger in 1954. B. Gerland was a prisoner of the Gulag in Vorkuta and worked in the camp barracks together with Professor Pletnev, also exiled. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Gorky, later commuted to 25 years in prison. She recorded his story: “We treated Gorky for heart disease, but he suffered not so much physically as morally: he did not stop tormenting himself with self-reproaches. He no longer had anything to breathe in the USSR, he passionately strove to return to Italy. But the incredulous despot in The Kremlin was most feared open speech famous writer against his regime. And, as always, he is in right moment came up with an effective remedy. It turned out to be a bonbonniere, yes, a light pink bonbonniere, decorated with a bright silk ribbon. She stood on the night table by the bed of Gorky, who loved to treat his visitors. This time he generously gave sweets to the two orderlies who worked with him, and ate a few sweets himself. An hour later, all three began to experience excruciating stomach pains, and an hour later, death occurred. An autopsy was immediately performed. Result? It lived up to our worst fears. All three died from poison."

Long before Gorky's death, Stalin tried to make him his political ally. Those who knew Gorky's integrity could imagine how hopeless this task was. But Stalin never believed in human integrity. On the contrary, he often pointed out to NKVD employees that in their activities they should proceed from the fact that incorruptible people do not exist at all. Everyone just has their own price.
Under the influence of these calls, Gorky returned to Moscow. From that moment on, a program of appeasement, designed in the Stalinist style, began to take effect. A mansion in Moscow and two comfortable villas were placed at his disposal - one in the Moscow region, the other in Crimea. Supplying the writer and his family with everything necessary was entrusted to the same NKVD department, which was responsible for providing for Stalin and members of the Politburo. For trips to Crimea and abroad, Gorky was allocated a specially equipped railway carriage. At the direction of Stalin, Yagoda (Enoch Gershonovich Yehuda) sought to catch Gorky’s slightest desires on the fly and fulfill them. His favorite flowers, specially delivered from abroad, were planted around his villas. He smoked special cigarettes ordered for him in Egypt. At his first request, any book from any country was delivered to him. Gorky, a modest and moderate man by nature, tried to protest against the provocative luxury with which he was surrounded, but he was told that Maxim Gorky was alone in the country.
Along with caring for material well-being Gorky, Stalin entrusted Yagoda with his “re-education.” It was necessary to convince the old writer that Stalin was building real socialism and was doing everything in his power to raise the living standards of the working people.
He participated in the work of the so-called association of proletarian writers, headed by Averbakh, married to Yagoda’s niece.

The famous book “The Stalin Canal,” written by a group of writers led by Maxim Gorky who visited the White Sea Canal, tells, in particular, about a meeting of canal builders - security officers and prisoners - in August 1933. M. Gorky also spoke there. He said with excitement: “I’m happy, shocked. Since 1928, I have been looking closely at how the OGPU re-educates people. You have done a great job, a tremendous job!”
Completely isolated from the people, he moved along the conveyor belt organized for him by Yagoda, in the constant company of security officers and several young writers who collaborated with the NKVD. Everyone who surrounded Gorky was obliged to tell him about the miracles of socialist construction and sing the praises of Stalin. Even the gardener and cook assigned to the writer knew that from time to time they had to tell him that they had “just” received a letter from their village relatives who reported that life there was becoming more and more beautiful.
Stalin was impatient for the popular Russian writer to immortalize his name. He decided to shower Gorky with royal gifts and honors and thus influence the content and, so to speak, tone future book.
Sun. Vishnevsky was at Gorky’s banquet and says that it even mattered who was sitting further and who was closest to Gorky. He says that this sight was so disgusting that Pasternak could not stand it and ran away from the middle of the banquet.”

They boast that there was never slavery in Russia, that it immediately stepped into feudalism. For mercy's sake, Russia hasn't moved anywhere. All attempts to reform the social structure burned out in slave psychology, so convenient for a bureaucratic-feudal state...
Behind a short time Gorky received such honors that greatest writers they could not even dream of peace. Stalin ordered that a large industrial center, Nizhny Novgorod, be named after Gorky. Accordingly, all Nizhny Novgorod Region was renamed Gorkovskaya. Gorky's name was given to Moscow Art Theater, which, by the way, was founded and received worldwide fame thanks to Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, and not Gorky.
The Council of People's Commissars, with a special resolution, noted his great services to Russian literature. Several businesses were named after him. The Moscow City Council decided to rename the main street of Moscow, Tverskaya, into Gorky Street.
The famous French writer, Russian by birth, Victor Serge, who stayed in Russia until 1936, in his diary, published in 1949 in the Parisian magazine Le Tan Modern, talked about his recent meetings with Gorky:
“I once met him on the street,” writes Serge, “and was shocked by his appearance. He was unrecognizable - it was a skeleton. He wrote official articles, truly disgusting, justifying the Bolshevik trials. But in an intimate setting he grumbled. He spoke with bitterness and contempt about the present, and entered or almost entered into conflicts with Stalin.” Serge also said that Gorky cried at night.

In Russia, Gorky lost his son, perhaps skillfully removed by Yagoda, who liked Maxim’s wife. There is a suspicion that Kryuchkov killed Maxim on behalf of Yagoda. From Kryuchkov’s confession: “I asked what I needed to do. To this he answered me: “Eliminate Maxim.” Yagoda said that he should be given as much alcohol as possible and then he should have caught a cold. Kryuchkov, according to him, did just that When it turned out that Maxim had pneumonia, they did not listen to Professor Speransky, but listened to Doctors Levin and Vinogradov (not brought to trial), who gave Maxim champagne, then a laxative, which accelerated his death.
IN last years Gorky's life became a dangerous burden for the Soviet government. He was forbidden to leave Moscow, Gorki and Crimea when he traveled to the south.
As a sample " socialist realism", government critics usually point to Gorky's story "Mother", written by him in 1906. But Gorky himself in 1933 told his old friend and biographer V. A. Desnitsky that “Mother” was “long, boring and carelessly written.” And in a letter to Fyodor Gladkov, he wrote: “Mother” is a book, really only a bad one, written in a state of passion and irritation.”
“After Gorky’s death, NKVD officials found carefully hidden notes in his papers. When Yagoda finished reading these notes, he swore and said: “No matter how you feed the wolf, he keeps looking into the forest.”
« Untimely thoughts" is a series of articles by M. Gorky, published in 1917-1918 in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, where he, in particular, wrote: “Rumors are spreading more and more persistently that on October 20 there will be a “Bolshevik speech” - in other words: the disgusting scenes of July 3-5 may be repeated... An unorganized crowd will crawl out onto the street, poorly understanding what it wants, and, hiding behind it, adventurers, thieves, professional killers will begin to “create the history of the Russian revolution” (emphasis added - V.B.).

After October revolution Gorky wrote: “Lenin, Trotsky and those accompanying them have already been poisoned by the rotten poison of power... The working class must know that it will face hunger, complete disruption of industry, the destruction of transport, and prolonged bloody anarchy...”

“Imagining themselves to be the Napoleons of socialism, the Leninists tear and rush, completing the destruction of Russia - the Russian people will pay for this with lakes of blood.”

“To scare with terror and pogrom people who do not want to participate in Mr. Trotsky’s mad dance over the ruins of Russia is shameful and criminal.”

“People's Commissars treat Russia as material for experiment; the Russian people for them are the horse that bacteriological scientists inoculate with typhus so that the horse produces anti-typhoid serum in its blood. This is exactly the kind of cruel experiment doomed to failure that the commissars are carrying out on the Russian people, not thinking that an exhausted, half-starved horse might die.”
At Lubyanka, the investigator was called into the investigator’s office one at a time. Each signed a non-disclosure agreement. Each was warned that if he uttered even one word, even to his own wife, he would be immediately liquidated along with his entire family.
The notebook discovered in a mansion on Povarskaya Street was M. Gorky's diary. Full text This diary was read only by the most responsible employee of the NKVD, someone from the Politburo and, of course, Stalin.”
Stalin, puffing on his pipe, sorted through photographs of pages from Gorky's diary lying in front of him. He fixed his heavy gaze on one.

“An idle mechanic calculated that if an ordinary vile flea is magnified hundreds of times, then the result is the most scary beast on earth, with which no one would be able to cope. With modern great technology a giant flea can be seen in cinema. But history sometimes creates monstrous grimaces in real world such exaggerations... Stalin is such a flea that Bolshevik propaganda and the hypnosis of fear have increased to incredible proportions.”
On the same day, June 18, 1936, Genrikh Yagoda went to Gorki, where Maxim Gorky was being treated for the flu, accompanied by several of his assistants, including mysterious woman in black. The People's Commissar of the NKVD visited Alexei Maksimovich for a very short time, but the woman, according to eyewitnesses, spent more than forty minutes at the writer's bedside...
It was a day solar eclipse.
On the morning of June 19 Soviet newspapers a mourning message was posted: great proletarian writer Alexey Maksimovich Gorky died of pneumonia.
But here is other evidence. During last illness Gorky M.I. Budberg was on duty at Gorky’s deathbed and, together with other people close to him (P.P. Kryuchkov, nurse O.D. Chertkova, his last affection) was an eyewitness last moments his life. Particularly difficult for her were the night hours of duty, when Gorky often woke up and was tormented by attacks of suffocation. All these observations by M.I. Budberg are confirmed by the memoirs of E.P. Peshkova, P.P. Kryuchkov and M.I. Budberg herself, which were recorded by A.N. Tikhonov, Gorky’s friend and ally, immediately after the writer’s death.
Whether it really happened or not (there are many versions of why Gorky died, and the above is just one of them), we will probably never know.
MARIA Ignatievna Budberg, nee Zakrevskaya, Countess Benckendorff by her first marriage, a truly legendary woman, adventurer and double (or maybe triple, also German intelligence) agent of the GPU and British intelligence, mistress of Lockhart and Herbert Wells.
Being the mistress of the English envoy, Lockhart, she came to him for documents about the family's departure. But while she was in the capital, bandits attacked her estate in Estonia and killed her husband. But the security officers found Mura herself in bed with Lockhart and escorted her to the Lubyanka. The accusations were clearly not groundless, since the head of the English mission, Lockhart, rushed to help the countess. He failed to rescue his agent-mistress, and he himself ended up under arrest.
Most likely, not beauty (Maria Ignatievna was not a beauty in in every sense this word), and Zakrevskaya’s wayward character and independence captivated Gorky. But in general, her energy potential was enormous and immediately attracted men to her. At first he took her on as his literary secretary. But very soon, despite the big age difference (she was younger than the writer for 24 years), offered her his hand and heart. Maria did not want to officially marry the petrel of the revolution, and perhaps she did not receive the blessing of marriage from her “godparents” from the NKVD, however, be that as it may, for 16 years she remained Gorky’s common-law wife.
She is allegedly brought to the dying writer by NKVD agents, and specifically by the well-known Yagoda. Mura removes the nurse from the room, declaring that she will prepare the medicine herself (by the way, she has never studied medicine). The nurse sees Mura diluting some liquid in a glass and giving the writer a drink, and then quickly leaves, accompanied by Yagoda. The nurse, spying on her through the crack of the slightly open door, rushes to the patient and notices that the glass from which Gorky drank the medicine has disappeared from the writer’s table. This means that Mura took him with her. 20 minutes after her departure, Gorky dies. But this is most likely just another legend.
Although the NKVD really did have a huge secret laboratory involved in the production of poisons, and this project was supervised by Yagoda, a former pharmacist. In addition, it is necessary to remember one more episode: a few days before Gorky’s death, they sent him a box of chocolates, which the writer loved very much. Without eating them, Gorky treats the two orderlies caring for him. A few minutes later, the orderlies show signs of poisoning and die. Subsequently, the death of these orderlies would become one of the main points of indictment in the “doctors’ case,” when Stalin accused the doctors who treated the writer of his murder.
In Russia, they bury according to seven categories, Kipnis joked. - The seventh is when the deceased himself controls the horse taking him to the cemetery.
Leon Trotsky, who was well versed in the Stalinist climate that reigned in Moscow, wrote:
“Gorky was neither a conspirator nor a politician. He was a kind and sensitive old man, protecting the weak, a sensitive Protestant. During the famine and the first two five-year plans, when general indignation threatened power, repression exceeded all limits... Gorky, who enjoyed influence at home and abroad, could not have tolerated the liquidation of the Old Bolsheviks, which was being prepared by Stalin. Gorky would have immediately protested, his voice would have been heard, and the Stalinist trials of the so-called “conspirators” would have been unfulfilled. It would also be absurd to attempt to impose silence on Gorky. His arrest, deportation or outright liquidation were even more unthinkable. There was only one possibility left: to hasten his death with poison, without shedding blood. The Kremlin dictator saw no other way out.”
But Trotsky himself could have wanted to eliminate the writer who knew too much and was unpleasant to him for family reasons.
In his book “Vladimir Lenin,” published in Leningrad in 1924, on page 23, Gorky wrote about Lenin:
“I often heard his praises to his comrades. And even about those who, according to rumors, allegedly did not enjoy his personal sympathies. Surprised by his assessment of one of these comrades, I noticed that for many this assessment would seem unexpected. “Yes, yes, I know,” said Lenin. - They are lying about my relationship with him. They lie a lot, and even especially a lot about me and Trotsky.” Hitting the table with his hand, Lenin said: “But they would have pointed out another person who is capable of organizing an almost exemplary army in a year and even winning the respect of military specialists. We have such a person!”
These are all editors posthumous edition Gorky’s collected works were thrown out, and in its place they inserted the following gag: “But still, not ours! With us, not ours! Ambitious. And there is something bad in him, from Lassalle.” This was not in the book written by Gorky in 1924, shortly after Lenin’s death, and published the same year in Leningrad.
Gorky's book about Lenin ended (in 1924) with these words:
“In the end, what wins is what is honest and truthful, created by man, what wins is that without which there is no man.”
In the collected works of Gorky, these words of his were thrown out, and instead of them, the party editors wrote the following adjective: “Vladimir Lenin died. The heirs of his mind and will are alive. They are alive and working as successfully as no one has ever worked anywhere in the world.”

Nadya Vvedenskaya stands down the aisle with her father’s resident doctor, Dr. Sinichkin. Around are the nine brothers of the young bride... The first wedding night. As soon as the groom approached the bride, at the moment when they were left alone in the room, she... jumped out the window and ran away to Maxim Peshkov, her first love...

Nadya met the son of Maxim Gorky in the last grade of the gymnasium, when one day she and her friends came to the skating rink. Maxim immediately struck her with his boundless kindness and equally boundless irresponsibility. They did not get married right away.
After October and civil war Maxim Peshkov got ready to go to the Italian shores, to visit his father. And then Lenin gave Maxim Peshkov an important party assignment: to explain to his father the meaning of the “great proletarian revolution” - which the great proletarian writer mistook for an immoral massacre.

Together with Gorky’s son, Nadezhda Vvedenskaya went abroad in 1922. They got married in Berlin. The Peshkovs' daughters were born in Italy: Martha - in Sorrento, Daria two years later - in Naples. But family life things didn't work out for the young spouses. Writer Vladislav Khodasevich recalled: “Maxim was then about thirty years old, but by character it was difficult to give him more than thirteen.”

In Italy, Nadezhda Alekseevna discovered her husband’s strong addiction to strong drinks and women. However, here he followed in his father's footsteps...
Great writer There, in Italy, he did not hesitate to show all sorts of signs of attention to Varvara Sheykevich, the wife of Andrei Diederichs. She was an amazing woman. After breaking up with Gorky, Varvara alternately became the wife of the publisher A. Tikhonov and the artist Z. Grzhebin. Gorky courted V. Sheykevich in the presence of his second wife, actress Maria Andreeva. Of course, the wife cried. However, Alexey Maksimovich also cried. In general, he liked to cry. But in fact, Gorky’s wife at that time was the famous adventurer associated with the security officers, Maria Benkendorf, who, after the writer left for his homeland, married another writer, H.G. Wells.

Maria Andreeva was not going to lag behind her “cheating” husband. She made Pyotr Kryuchkov, Gorky’s assistant, who was 21 years younger than her, her lover. In 1938, P. Kryuchkov, who undoubtedly was an agent of the OGPU, was accused of the “villainous killing” of Gorky and executed.
Before Kryuchkov, Andreeva’s lover was a certain Yakov Lvovich Izrailevich. Having learned about his unexpected resignation, he found nothing better than to beat his opponent, driving him under the table. The situation that reigned in the family is also evidenced by the following fact: M. Andreeva’s mother committed suicide, having previously gouged out the eyes of her granddaughter Katya in a portrait.
Gerling-Grudzinsky in his article “The Seven Deaths of Maxim Gorky” draws attention to the fact that “there is no reason to believe the indictment of the 1938 trial, which stated that Yagoda decided - partly for political, partly for personal reasons (it was known about his love to Nadezhda) - send Maxim Peshkov to the next world.”
Nadezhda Alekseevna’s daughter, Marfa Maksimovna Peshkova, was a friend of I.V.’s daughter. Stalin Svetlana and became the wife of Sergo Lavrentievich Beria (son of Lavrenty Pavlovich).
Well, Gorky and Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov knew each other from Nizhny Novgorod. In 1902, the son of Yakov Sverdlov, Zinovy, converted to Orthodoxy, his godfather was Gorky, and Zinovy ​​Mikhailovich Sverdlov became Zinovy ​​Alekseevich Peshkov, the adopted son of Maxim Gorky.
Subsequently, Gorky wrote in a letter to Peshkova: “This handsome boy Lately behaved surprisingly rudely towards me, and my friendship with him is over. Very sad and difficult."
The fathers of Sverdlov and Yagoda were cousins
The berries are gone. But the security officers continued to influence Nadezhda Peshkova’s life. Just before the war she got ready to marry her longtime friend I.K. Lupol - one of the most educated people of his time, philosopher, historian, writer, director of the Institute of World Literature. Gorky - how her chosen one ended up in the dungeons of the NKVD and died in a camp in 1943. After the war, Nadezhda Alekseevna married the architect Miron Merzhanov. Six months later, in 1946, her husband was arrested. After Stalin’s death, in 1953, N.A. Peshkova agreed to become the wife of engineer V.F. Popov... The groom is arrested...
Nadezhda Alekseevna bore the cross of being an “untouchable” until the end of her days. As soon as a man who might have serious intentions was near her, he disappeared. Most often - forever. All the years in the USSR she lived under a magnifying glass, which the “organs” were constantly holding in her hands... The daughter-in-law of Maxim Gorky was supposed to go to the grave as his daughter-in-law.
Gorky's son Maxim Alekseevich Peshkov. The monument by sculptor Mukhina is so good, so similar to the original, that when Maxim’s mother saw it, she had an attack. “You extended my date with my son,” she said to Mukhina. I spent hours sitting near the monument. Now rests nearby.
Maxim Alekseevich's wife, Gorky's daughter-in-law - Nadezhda. There was a woman of dazzling beauty. She drew beautifully. Around Gorky, it was customary to give humorous nicknames: his second common-law wife actress of the Bolshoi Drama Theater in Petrograd Maria Fedorovna Andreeva had the nickname “Phenomenon”, Maxim’s son was called “Singing Worm”, the wife of Gorky’s secretary Kryuchkov was called “Tse-tse”... Gorky gave the wife of Maxim’s son Nadezhda the nickname “Timosha”. Why? For unruly curls sticking out in all directions. First there was a scythe that could break the spine of a teenage calf. Nadezhda secretly cut it off and in a hairdresser (this was in Italy) they laid out what was left after the haircut. The first half hour seemed to look good, but in the morning... Gorky, seeing his son’s wife, named her Timosha - in honor of the coachman Timofey, whose unkempt hair always caused everyone’s admiration. However, Nadezhda-Timosha was so good that Genrikh Yagoda fell in love with her. (For the country's chief security officer by occupation, it seems that falling in love meant betraying the Motherland. Assess Yagoda's risk - he openly gave Gorky's daughter-in-law orchids).
Maxim died early - at 37 years old. He died strangely. His daughter Marfa, sharing memories with the poetess Larisa Vasilyeva, suspects poisoning. Maxim loved to drink (they even quarreled with the patient but proud Timosha on this basis). But on that ill-fated day (early May 1934) I didn’t taste a drop. We were returning from Yagoda's dacha. I felt bad. Gorky's secretary Kryuchkov left Maxim on the bench - in only his shirt; there was still snow in Gorki.

Born on March 16 (28), 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod in a poor family of a carpenter. The real name of Maxim Gorky is Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov. His parents died early, and little Alexey stayed to live with my grandfather. His grandmother became a mentor in literature, who led her grandson into the world folk poetry. He wrote about her briefly, but with great tenderness: “In those years, I was filled with my grandmother’s poems, like a beehive with honey; It seems that I was thinking in the forms of her poems.”

Gorky's childhood was spent in harsh, difficult conditions. WITH early years the future writer was forced to do part-time work, earning a living whatever he could.

Training and beginning of literary activity

In Gorky's life, only two years were devoted to studying at the Nizhny Novgorod School. Then, due to poverty, he went to work, but was constantly engaged in self-education. 1887 was one of the most difficult years in Gorky's biography. Due to the troubles that beset him, he tried to commit suicide, but nevertheless survived.

Traveling around the country, Gorky propagated the revolution, for which he was taken under police surveillance and then arrested for the first time in 1888.

Gorky's first published story, "Makar Chudra", was published in 1892. Then, his essays in two volumes, “Essays and Stories,” published in 1898, brought fame to the writer.

In 1900-1901 he wrote the novel “Three”, met Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy.

In 1902 he was awarded the title of member Imperial Academy sciences, but by order of Nicholas II it was soon declared invalid.

TO famous works Gorky includes: the story “Old Woman Izergil” (1895), the plays “Philistines” (1901) and “At the Lower Depths” (1902), the stories “Childhood” (1913-1914) and “In People” (1915-1916), the novel “ The Life of Klim Samgin" (1925-1936), which the author never finished, as well as many cycles of stories.

Gorky also wrote fairy tales for children. Among them: “The Tale of Ivanushka the Fool”, “Sparrow”, “Samovar”, “Tales of Italy” and others. Recalling his difficult childhood, Gorky devoted Special attention children, organized holidays for children from poor families, published a children's magazine.

Emigration, return to homeland

In 1906, in the biography of Maxim Gorky, he moved to the USA, then to Italy, where he lived until 1913. Even there, Gorky’s work defended the revolution. Returning to Russia, he stops in St. Petersburg. Here Gorky works in publishing houses, deals with social activities. In 1921, due to worsening illness, at the insistence of Vladimir Lenin, and disagreements with the authorities, he again went abroad. The writer finally returned to the USSR in October 1932.

Last years and death

At home, he continues to actively write and publishes newspapers and magazines.

Maxim Gorky died on June 18, 1936 in the village of Gorki (Moscow region) at mysterious circumstances. There were rumors that the cause of his death was poisoning and many blamed Stalin for this. However, this version was never confirmed.

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Alexey Peshkov, more known to the world as Maxim Gorky, born in 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod. In his childhood and youth he had to endure so many severe trials that he took the pseudonym “Gorky” for himself. The writer Maxim Gorky vividly described interesting facts from his life in his own literary works. In his biography, the most interesting are the following facts.

Facts from Gorky's life

• The writer's father, Maxim Peshkov, stole his wife Varvara Vasilyevna Kashirina from her parents' home, and the young couple secretly got married in church. For this, Varvara’s father threatened to deprive her of her dowry and for a long time did not communicate with my daughter.
• When Alexey Peshkov was 3 years old, he fell ill with cholera. His father, who loved his son dearly, cared for the baby and eventually abandoned him, but paid for it own life: having contracted a dangerous disease, Maxim Savvateevich died. Alexei's mother, who subconsciously blamed the boy for her husband's death, after these tragic events moved away from the child.
• Gorky was orphaned early; his grandmother Akulina took care of his upbringing.
• The writer was beaten so often in childhood that, as an adult, he experienced almost no physical pain. But heartache for the people, for the injustice, life in Russia tormented the writer until his very last breath.
• Gorky's contemporaries claim that the writer made more than one attempt on his life. For one of his suicide attempts, he was excommunicated from the Church for 7 years.
• The writer had no higher education, he studied only at home and at the Nizhny Novgorod Kunavinsky School. His attempts to enter Kazan University were unsuccessful.
• Gorky's first wife, Ekaterina Volzhina, was a noblewoman by birth. The writer married her in 1896.
• Gorky's fame as a writer came after the publication of his first two-volume book, Essays and Stories. None of the Russian writers had such success during their lifetime.
• Gorky's great fame is largely the result the right choice themes of works. The reputation of a “tramp”, a native of the lower classes and a revolutionary made the writer interesting to a wide circle readers.
• In 1906, the writer, together with his common-law wife Andreeva, traveled around the United States. When it became known that the couple was not officially married, all hotels in the country refused to accept this strange Russian family. Gorky had to settle with private individuals, in which Lenin himself helped him.
• It was thanks to the activities of Maxim Gorky that the United States refused to give Russia money to suppress the revolution.
• The writer's biography is briefly described in many textbooks, but many interesting details You can learn about his life from the stories “Childhood”, “In People”, “My Universities”.
• In 1933, the Literary Institute was opened in the USSR, named after Alexei Maksimovich.
• The most interesting facts about Gorky include his mysterious death. The official cause of the writer’s death was tuberculosis, a disease from which he suffered all his life. But then they began to say that he had become a victim of the Trotskyists. A criminal case was opened against the doctors who treated Gorky. There were rumors that G. G. Yagoda, the head of the GPU, ordered his death. The writer died at the age of 68.

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