By Stephen Wilson
Every one ... lives in hope of something better. That's why we must respect each other and every human being! How do we know who he is, why he was born, and what he is capable of accomplishing? Perhaps his coming into the world will prove to be a good fortune... especially must we respect children! Children- need freedom! Don't interfere with their lives! Respect children!
The Lower Depths, Maxim Gorky
His sculptured downcrested, gaunt face with a drooping walrus mustache is engraved in the front of Russian state schools all over Russia. The most famous park in Russia bears his name not to mention countless squares, streets and avenues. And his best play, 'The Lower Depths' is still performed to great applause in Moscow and at festivals all over the World. His presence is inescapable! It is small wonder he won the title 'Father of Soviet Literature.' But as in earlier times, his legacy has become awkward and even embarrassing for the authorities. If the Tsarist authorities , Lenin and Stalin found him a constant pest , so does modern Russia. Many people would prefer to ignore the issues which the Russian writer Maxim Gorky raised in his short stories , plays and autobiographies such as homelessness, abandoned children, the ill treatment of orphans and the violent domestic abuse of women which still leaves hideous scars in Russia and around the World. Gorky himself was homeless and an abandoned orphan at nine. The harsh life he described in his works 'My Childhood', 'My apprenticeship' and 'My Universities' and in his play 'The Lower Depths', hasn't gone away. In fact the unpleasant parts of his life are being reenacted a century after the publication of his works. We continue to witness unwanted children being dumped in abusive orphanages, orphans in despair attempting to kill themselves and learning to beg, borrow and steal on the streets just to get by. Modern day Russia resembles a grotesque gramophone repeating the same dark song over and over again. Gorky is the ghost which continues to haunt the Russian education system which the establishment can't quite exorcise ! Conscientious school students who diligently study his works can't help but draw parallels between the Russia of Maxim Gorky's time and the present.
Of course you might try to exorcise Maxim Gorky by reinterpreting him. People might claim " Maxim Gorky was homeless but he wasn't like those 'bomzhi' we see in the streets. He was n't really homeless. He was simply wandering around the River Volga spilling his wild oats. He was on a kind of 'Savage pilgrimage' of self discovery. But don't say he was homeless. He didn't smell like the homeless! And he wasn't a criminal or thief. " Well those people have not really read Gorky's work 'My Childhood' where he freely confesses to being a thief and working among a gang of thieves. And Gorky may well have smelt badly and certainly went around in rags. In this respect it is worth quoting the following from his work 'My Childhood'-
'Things became difficult for me at school again and the boys laughed at me , calling me a rag-and-bone man, a tramp, and once, after a quarrel, they told the teacher I smelt of sewers and that it was impossible to sit next to me. I remember how deeply this hurt me and how hard it was to go to school after that. They invented the complaint just to spite me : every morning I used to wash myself thoroughly and never went to school in the clothes I wore for collecting rags.'
{page 228, My Childhood, Maxim Gorky} It is small wonder that given this potential reaction many modern homeless American school children keep their homelessness a secret. As in Gorky's time many people continue to be against homeless people on the grounds of how they smell. People seldom reflect on how difficult it would have been for Gorky to wash himself and his clothes and how difficult it is now to get access to washing facilities.
In his work 'My Childhood ' Gorky's grandfather, who constantly beat him up, told him after he had become an orphan when his mother died when he was nine that 'Alexi, you are not a medal, you are only hanging around my neck. There is no room for you here. You must go out into the World.'
And so I went out into the World.'{page 234 ,My Childhood}. As a result Gorky spent years of his childhood and youth wandering around the River Volga taking all kinds of jobs such as working in a bakery, factory and shoe maker. Like so many Homeless orphans, Gorky was driven to the depths of sheer despair. At 19 he attempted to shoot himself and only narrowly survived. A fellow Russian took pity on him and helped look after him. Tragically, orphans in both Ukraine and Russia, like Gorky, attempt and often succeed in killing themselves. As many as an estimated 10-15% of children who are discharged from orphanages commit suicide before the age of 18 and 60% of girls are lured into prostitution. As many as 70% of male orphans become hardened criminals. And the number of children who later become addicts is just staggering ! It is more often the case that those people become addicts to cope with the pain of some kind of trauma. Now some people claim that homelessness among orphans has been sorted out by the passage of a law where all orphans have to receive a free flat when they reach the age of 18. But the charity organization 'Warm Reception' who help the homeless, claim some local authorities are refusing to grant orphans their legal right to a home and orphans are having to go to court to confirm their right. A homeless orphan might have to reach the age of 40 to 50 before he or she is granted a flat. There is apparently a long waiting list. As many as 8.52% of the homeless in Russia were brought up in orphanages.
In his work, 'My Childhood', Gorky writes about how he saw homeless people being taunted , mocked and being stoned by children. This is also constantly happening in modern day Russia.
Maxim Gorky's play, 'The Lower Depths' , tells how homeless people are staying in a boarding house and treated with contempt for not having a passport as if it renders a person a subhuman. The landlord of the house chides a pilgrim as immoral because 'An honest person must have a passport....all honest people have passports, yes.'{page 46, The Lower Depths, Maxim Gorky}. Alas, in contemporary Russia the first request a policeman will demand from you when he stops you is 'Show me your passport.' And if a person tells another person he or she doesn't have a passport a look of horror can unfold from a person's face as if to say "What have you done?' Without a passport you don't have the right to legally work in Russia, obtain medical care and open a bank account.
The domestic violence against women which Gorky graphically describes in almost macabre detail {he describes how he witnessed both his mother and grandmother being beaten} has actually worsened rather than been outlawed in Russia. In fact ,there is now no longer any legal protection against a man beating a woman in Russia. When Maxim Gorky attempted to stop a group of peasants whipping a woman for adultery the peasants beat him unconscious. At present, many of the homeless women we encounter are fleeing from relentless domestic violence.
Seeing so many present parallels with Gorky's era might we conclude that Maxim Gorky's efforts to improve Russia through his outspoken journalism and works were largely in vain? On the contrary, it was because he became an accomplished writer and won fame that he was able to exert a positive influence on so many people. He intervened to save many people from the firing squad, played an important role in asking for foreign intervention to save millions of people from famine following the Civil war and he even found jobs and homes for writers. Without Maxim Gorky's intervention, many more people would have ended up on the streets, been executed , or faced starvation. But Maxim Gorky nevertheless remains a tragic figure. Although some people claim that towards the end of his life Gorky compromised and turned into an apologist for Stalin this seems to miss the mark. Gorky refused to write an eulogy of Stalin and even described him as a monstrous flea. His widow was convinced he was murdered by Stalin's agents!
In regard to assessing Gorky's works, I think it fair to say that his play 'The Lower Depths' deserves applause as a masterpiece. Chekhov greatly admired this play. But Gorky certainly excelled in writing unforgettable memoirs such as 'My Childhood', My apprenticeship' and 'My Universities'. May be his novels and many of his short stories don't always work well but he was brilliant at describing the character of people he met. For instance, when I read Gorky's description of his meetings with Anton Chekhov I was mesmerized. I have never read a better description which matches his portrait. After reading this you feel as if you have actually met Chekhov in person. I think very few writers can reach this excellent quality of writing.
Maxim Gorky was the pen name of Alexei Maximovich Peshkov. The name Gorky derives from the word 'Gorkii', meaning bitter. Given his hard childhood and youth, Gorky had a lot to be bitter about. The name reminded me of a beautiful custom I have often observed while attending Russian weddings. The guests of the wedding often shout out the word 'Gorka' meaning 'It is bitter'. They go on shouting this as a kind of plea for the newly married couple to kiss each other in an attempt to drive out the bitterness of life. The idea is that love can sweeten and lessen the harsh bitterness of life. We ourselves have to try drive away this bitterness by active love. Until then the bitterness felt by Maxim Gorky and so many people at the lack of justice will linger on and on. We have to seriously respond to the call of conscience proclaimed in the works of Maxim Gorky ! And this will take more than just a kiss !
Sources
Maxim Gorky, My Childhood, Penguin books, first published 1913, republished 1966, London and New York.
Maxim Gorky, The Lower Depths, published by Dover Thrift Editions, 2000, New York
Anton Chekhov, Selected works, {Anton Chekhov, by Maxim Gorky} Progress publishers, 1973, Moscow
Orando Figes, A People's Tragedy, The Russian Revolution, The Bodley head, London, 2014
Nochlezkha Annual Report, 2020, Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Great!