Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov (usually known as Maxim Gorky [Maksim Gor’kii], his pen name adopted in the Soviet period) was a highly acclaimed Russian Soviet writer whose life is inseparable from the formation of socialist realism and Soviet cultural politics of the 1920s and 1930s. Together with Anatolii Lunacharsky (1875-1933), Gorky is seen as one of the most influential political activists of his time. His novel of 1907,
Mat’[
Mother], is considered to be the canonical work that laid the grounds for the development of socialist realist literature in the Soviet Union. Gorky’s contribution to the creation of Soviet literature is immense: he was the founding editor of the newspaper
Novaia zhizn’[
New Life, 1917-18]; he established the publishing house “World Literature”…
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Citation: Smith, Alexandra. "Maxim Gorky". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 October 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1816, accessed 21 November 2024.]
