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ABSTRACT

in the discipline "Culturology"

“Untimely Thoughts” by A.M. Gorky

Introduction
1. “Untimely Thoughts” as the pinnacle of M. Gorky’s journalistic creativity
2. Problems of “untimely thoughts”
Conclusion
Literature
Introduction
This paper analyzes the series of essays by A. M. Gorky “Untimely Thoughts”. The interest in “Untimely Thoughts” is not accidental. As you know, this book was banned until “perestroika”. Meanwhile, without intermediaries, she represents the artist’s position on the eve and during October Revolution. These years were marked by a particularly dramatic relationship between the writer and the authorities, and the extreme severity of the literary struggle, in which Gorky played an important role. In the coverage of this period of Gorky’s life and work, not only is there no unanimity among researchers, moreover, extreme subjectivity in assessments prevails here. In literary criticism Soviet era Gorky appeared infallible and monumental. If you believe the latest publications about the writer, the cast body of the monument is completely empty, filled with myths and legends.
In this work the following tasks were set:
· reveal the essence of the differences between Gorky’s ideas about the revolution, culture, personality, people and the realities of Russian life in 1917-1918;
· justify the timeliness of “Untimely Thoughts” at the time of publication and their relevance in our time.
1. “Untimely thoughts” as the pinnacle of journalistic creativityrhonor of M. Gorky
According to Gorky himself, “from the autumn of 16 to the winter of 22” he “did not write a single line” works of art. All his thoughts were connected with the turbulent events that were shaking the country. All his energy was directed to direct participation in public life: he intervened in the political struggle, tried to rescue innocent people from the dungeons of the Cheka, sought rations for scientists and artists dying of hunger, started cheap publications of masterpieces of world literature... Journalism was for him one of the forms of direct social action.

Gorky returned from Italy on the eve of the First World War. He saw how Russia had changed during his absence, how “ordinary people” became “mind-blowingly interesting.” In difficult days for the country, the writer defended the “planetary significance of the foundations of Western European culture,” spoke out against national hatred, and criticized the murderous spirit of war.

Gorky was wary of rampant anarchy, the death of culture, and the victory of the Germans. And he began to create a series of journalistic articles, where he proved his point of view.

"Untimely Thoughts" is a series of 58 articles that were published in the newspaper " New life" - the organ of the group of Social Democrats. The newspaper existed for a little over a year - from April 1917 to July 1918, when it was closed by the authorities as an opposition press organ.

Gorky’s journalism contradicted V.I.’s “April Theses”. Lenin, so the book ended up in a closed literature fund and was not republished until 1988. Soviet literary criticism, starting from Lenin’s definition “Gorky is not a politician,” interpreted journalism as a deviation from the truth of Bolshevism.

The title of A. M. Gorky’s book sounds paradoxical, because thought always reveals something, explains something, follows from the activity of the individual himself, which is already timely. But our society has been accustomed to a clear division of thoughts into “timely” and “untimely”, referring the latter to the “general line” of ideology.

The policy of suppressing thought is known from the old Russian monarchy. Gorky’s discussions on the development of science and culture did not claim to be revolutionary, but in conditions of political confrontation they began to be perceived as being said “out of place.” Gorky himself understood this well.

Studying works of fiction and journalistic works written by A.M. Gorky in the years 1890-1910, one can first of all note the great hopes he pinned on the revolution. Gorky also speaks about them in “Untimely Thoughts”: the revolution will become the act thanks to which the people will take “conscious participation in the creation of their history”, gain a “sense of homeland”, the revolution should “revive spirituality” among the people. But soon after the October Revolution (in an article dated December 7, 1917), already anticipating a different course of the revolution than he expected, Gorky anxiously asked: “What new will the revolution bring, how will it change the brutal Russian way of life, how much light will it bring? into the darkness of people's life?

After the publication of “Song of the Petrel”, Gorky was called the “singer of the revolution.” However, having seen the revolution in the process of its evolution, faced with a fratricidal war, Gorky was horrified and no longer mentioned the words uttered on the eve of 1905: “Let the storm blow stronger.”

He realized how dangerous it is to call people to a destructive storm, to incite hatred towards “loons”, “stupid penguins” and so on. It became quite obvious that the growing struggle between parties was inflaming the base instincts of the crowd and creating a real threat to human life.

Gorky mastered the difficult path between the bourgeois and socialist revolutions on his own. Published in the pages of Novaya Zhizn, he tried to develop his position. “Untimely Thoughts” largely develops the writer’s previous thoughts. In a cycle, as in early works, the writer defends the ideals of “heroism of the spirit”, “a man passionately in love with his dream”, the proletariat, pouring “into life the great and blessed idea of a new culture, the idea of world brotherhood.” But there are also new intonations: the rampant anarchy is angrily condemned, the revolutionary authorities are denounced for banning freedom of speech, for their inability to “improve and organize” the spirituality of the proletariat.

In a polemical frenzy, the author also expresses a number of provisions that cause conflicting assessments. For example, the Russian people, unlike all other peoples of Europe, are painted only with black paints. Another position of Gorky is also questionable: “I consider class a powerful cultural force in our dark peasant country. Everything that the peasant produces, he consumes and consumes; his energy is completely absorbed by the earth, while the labor of the worker remains on the earth, decorating it.” Gorky suspects the peasantry of grave sins and opposes the working class to them, admonishing: “Don’t forget that you live in a country where 85% of the population are peasants, and that you are a small island among them in the ocean. You are alone, a long and stubborn struggle awaits you.” Gorky does not count on the peasantry, because they are “greedy for property, will receive the land and turn away, tearing Zhelyabov’s banner on their hands.... The Paris Commune was slaughtered by the peasants - that’s what the worker needs to remember.” This is one of Gorky's mistakes. Not knowing the Russian peasant well enough, he did not understand that land for the peasant is not a means of profit, but a form of existence.

Gorky had the opportunity to see the backwardness of Russia from European states, felt the separation of the Russian intelligentsia from the people and the distrust of the peasants towards the intelligentsia. In a series of essays, he tries to understand everything that is happening in Russia; he admits contradictions in his judgments.

2. Problems of “Untimely Thoughts”

Gorky puts forward a number of problems that he tries to comprehend and resolve. One of the most significant among them is historical fate Russian people.

Relying on all his previous experience and on his many deeds confirmed reputation as a defender of the enslaved and humiliated, Gorky declares: “I have the right to tell the offensive and bitter truth about the people, and I am convinced that it will be better for the people if I tell this truth about them.” first, and not those enemies of the people who are now silent and hoarding revenge and anger in order to... spit anger in the face of the people..."

The fundamental difference in views on the people between Gorky and the Bolsheviks. Gorky refuses to “half-adore the people,” he argues with those who, based on the best, democratic intentions, passionately believed “in the exceptional qualities of our Karatayevs.”

Beginning his book with the message that the revolution gave freedom of speech, Gorky announces to his people the “pure truth,” i.e. one that is above personal and group biases. He believes that he is highlighting the horrors and absurdities of the time so that people can see themselves from the outside and try to change in better side. In his opinion, the people themselves are to blame for their plight.

Gorky accuses the people of passively participating in the state development of the country. Everyone is to blame: in war people kill each other; fighting, they destroy what has been built; in battles, people become embittered and brutalized, lowering the level of culture: theft, lynching, and debauchery become more frequent. According to the writer, Russia is not threatened by class danger, but by the possibility of savagery and lack of culture. Everyone blames each other, Gorky bitterly states, instead of “confronting the storm of emotions with the power of reason.” Looking at his people, Gorky notes “that they are passive, but cruel when power falls into their hands, that the celebrated kindness of their soul is Karamazov’s sentimentalism, that they are terribly impervious to the suggestions of humanism and culture.”

Let's analyze an article dedicated to the “drama of the 4th of July” - the dispersal of demonstrations in Petrograd. In the center of the article, the picture of the demonstration itself and its dispersal is reproduced (precisely reproduced, not retold). And then follows the author’s reflection on what he saw with his own eyes, ending with a final generalization. The reliability of the report and the immediacy of the author's impressions serve as the basis for the emotional impact on the reader. Both what happened and the thoughts - everything happens as if in front of the reader’s eyes, which is why, obviously, the conclusions sound so convincing, as if born not only in the author’s brain, but also in our consciousness. We see participants in the July demonstration: armed and unarmed people, a “truck-car” closely packed with motley representatives of the “revolutionary army”, rushing “like a rabid pig”. (Further, the image of the truck evokes no less expressive associations: “a thundering monster”, “a ridiculous cart”.) But then the “panic of the crowd” begins, afraid of “itself”, although a minute before the first shot it “renounced the old world” and “ shook his ashes from her feet.” A “disgusting picture of madness” appears before the eyes of the observer: the crowd, at the sound of chaotic shots, behaved like a “herd of sheep” and turned into “heaps of meat, mad with fear.”

Gorky is looking for the cause of what happened. Unlike the absolute majority, who blamed everything on the “Leninists,” the Germans, or outright counter-revolutionaries, he calls the main reason for the misfortune that happened “serious Russian stupidity,” “lack of culture, lack of historical sense.”

A.M. Gorky writes: “Reproaching our people for their inclination towards anarchism, their dislike of work, for all their savagery and ignorance, I remember: they could not be otherwise. The conditions among which he lived could not instill in him either respect for the individual, or a consciousness of the rights of a citizen, or a sense of justice - these were conditions of complete lawlessness, oppression of man, the most shameless lies and brutal cruelty.”

Another issue that attracts Gorky's close attention is the proletariat as the creator of revolution and culture.

The writer, in his very first essays, warns the working class “that miracles do not really happen, that they will face hunger, complete disruption of industry, destruction of transport, prolonged bloody anarchy... for it is impossible to pike command to make 85% of the country’s peasant population socialist.”

Gorky invites the proletariat to thoughtfully check their attitude towards the government, to treat its activities with caution: “My opinion is this: the people’s commissars are destroying and ruining the working class of Russia, they are terribly and absurdly complicating the labor movement, creating irresistibly difficult conditions for the whole future work of the proletariat and for the entire progress of the country."

To his opponent’s objections that workers are included in the government, Gorky replies: “From the fact that the working class predominates in the Government, it does not follow that the working class understands everything that is done by the Government.” According to Gorky, “People's Commissars treat Russia as material for experiment; the Russian people for them are the horse that bacteriologists inoculate with typhus so that the horse produces anti-typhoid serum in its blood.” “Bolshevik demagoguery, heating up the egoistic instincts of the peasant, extinguishes the germs of his social conscience, therefore the Soviet government spends its energy on inciting anger, hatred and gloating.”

According to Gorky’s deep conviction, the proletariat must avoid contributing to the destructive mission of the Bolsheviks; its purpose is different: it must become “an aristocracy among democracy in our peasant country.”

“The best thing that the revolution has created,” Gorky believes, “is a conscious, revolutionary-minded worker. And if the Bolsheviks lure him into robbery, he will die, which will cause a long and dark reaction in Russia.”

The salvation of the proletariat, according to Gorky, lies in its unity with the “class of the working intelligentsia,” for “the working intelligentsia is one of the detachments of the great class of the modern proletariat, one of the members of the great working family.” Gorky appeals to the reason and conscience of the working intelligentsia, hoping that their union will contribute to the development of Russian culture.

“The proletariat is the creator of a new culture—these words contain a wonderful dream of the triumph of justice, reason, and beauty.” The task of the proletarian intelligentsia is to unite all the intellectual forces of the country on the basis of cultural work. “But for the success of this work, we must abandon party sectarianism,” the writer reflects, “politics alone cannot educate a “new man,” by turning methods into dogmas, we do not serve the truth, but increase the number of harmful misconceptions.”

The third problematic element of “Untimely Thoughts,” closely related to the first two, were articles on the relationship between revolution and culture. This is the core problem of Gorky's journalism of 1917-1918. It is no coincidence that when publishing his “Untimely Thoughts” as a separate book, the writer gave the subtitle “Notes on Revolution and Culture.”

Gorky is ready to endure the cruel days of 1917 for the sake of the wonderful results of the revolution: “We, Russians, are a people who have not yet worked freely, who have not had time to develop all our strengths, all our abilities, and when I think that the revolution will give us the opportunity to work freely, to create all-round creativity, - my heart is filled with great hope and joy even in these damned days, drenched in blood and wine.”

He welcomes the revolution because “it is better to burn in the fire of revolution than to slowly rot in the trash heap of the monarchy.” These days, according to Gorky, is born new Man, who will finally throw off the accumulated dirt of our life over centuries, kill our Slavic laziness, and enter into the universal work of building our planet as a brave, talented Worker. The publicist calls on everyone to bring into the revolution “all the best that is in our hearts,” or at least to reduce the cruelty and anger that intoxicate and defame the revolutionary worker.

These romantic motifs are interspersed in the cycle with biting truthful fragments: “Our revolution has given full scope to all bad and brutal instincts... we see that among the servants of Soviet power, bribe-takers, speculators, swindlers are constantly being caught, but honest people who know how to work so as not to die of hunger, sell newspapers on the streets.” “Half-starved beggars deceive and rob each other - this is what the current day is filled with.” Gorky warns the working class that the revolutionary working class will be responsible for all the outrages, dirt, meanness, blood: “The working class will have to pay for the mistakes and crimes of its leaders - with thousands of lives, streams of blood.”

According to Gorky, one of the most primary tasks of the social revolution is to cleanse human souls - to get rid of “the painful oppression of hatred”, to “mitigate cruelty”, “recreate morals”, “ennoble relationships”. To accomplish this task, there is only one way - the path of cultural education.

What is the main idea of “Untimely Thoughts”? Main idea Gorky is still very topical today: he is convinced that only by learning to work with love, only by understanding the paramount importance of labor for the development of culture, will the people be able to truly create their own history.

He calls for healing the swamps of ignorance, because it will not take root in rotten soil. new culture. Gorky offers, in his opinion, an effective way of transformation: “We treat work as if it were the curse of our life, because we do not understand the great meaning of work, we cannot love it. It is possible to ease working conditions, reduce the amount of work, make work easy and enjoyable only with the help of science... Only through the love of work will we achieve the great goal of life.”

Supreme manifestation historical creativity the writer sees in overcoming the elements of nature, in the ability to control nature with the help of science: “We will believe that a person will feel cultural significance labor and will love it. Work done with love becomes creativity.”

According to Gorky, science will help to make human labor easier and make him happy: “We Russians especially need to organize our higher mind - science. The broader and deeper the tasks of science, the more abundant the practical fruits of its research.”

He sees a way out of crisis situations in careful attitude To cultural heritage country and people, in uniting workers of science and culture in the development of industry, in the spiritual re-education of the masses.

These are the ideas that form a single book of Untimely Thoughts, a book current problems revolution and culture.

Conclusion

“Untimely Thoughts” evokes mixed feelings, probably like the Russian Revolution itself and the days that followed it. This is also a recognition of Gorky’s timeliness and talented expressiveness. He had great sincerity, insight and civic courage. M. Gorky’s unkind look at the history of the country helps our contemporaries to re-evaluate the works of writers of the 20-30s, the truth of their images, details, historical events, bitter forebodings.

The book “Untimely Thoughts” remains a monument to its time. She captured Gorky's judgments, which he expressed at the very beginning of the revolution and which turned out to be prophetic. And no matter how the views of their author subsequently changed, these thoughts turned out to be extremely timely for everyone who had to experience hopes and disappointments in the series of upheavals that befell Russia in the twentieth century.

Literature

1. Gorky M. Untimely thoughts. M.: 1991

2. Paramonov B. Gorky, white spot. // October. 1992 - No. 5.

3. Drunk M. Toward comprehension of the “Russian system of soul” in the revolutionary era. // Zvezda. 1991 - No. 7.

4. Reznikov L. About M. Gorky’s book “Untimely Thoughts.” // Neva. 1988 - No. 1.

5. Shklovsky V. Successes and defeats of M. Gorky. M.: 1926

I

The Russian people married Freedom. Let us believe that from this union in our country, exhausted both physically and spiritually, new strong people will be born.

The lists of “secret employees of the Security Department” published in newspapers are a shameful indictment against us, this is one of the signs of social disintegration and rotting of the country, a formidable sign.

It would be possible to point out some other threats to the new system, but it is premature to talk about this and, perhaps, obscene.

The generation that will be the first to accept the new system of life got freedom cheaply; This generation knows little about the terrible efforts of people who, over the course of a whole century, gradually destroyed the gloomy fortress of Russian monarchism. The average person did not know the hellish, mole-like work that was done for him - this hard labor is unknown not only to one average person in ten hundred Russian district towns.

Only one victory has been won - political power has been won; many more difficult victories remain to be won, and first of all we must defeat our own illusions.

Composition

I came into this world to disagree.
M. Gorky

A special place in Gorky’s legacy is occupied by articles published in the newspaper “New Life”, which was published in Petrograd from April 1917 to June 1918. After the victory of October, “New Life” castigated the costs of the revolution, its “shadow sides” (robberies, lynchings, executions). For this she was sharply criticized by the party press. In addition, the newspaper was suspended twice, and in June 1918 it was closed completely.

Gorky was the first to say that one should not think that the revolution itself “spiritually crippled or enriched Russia.” Only now is “the process of intellectual enrichment of the country beginning - an extremely slow process.” Therefore, the revolution must create conditions, institutions, organizations that would help the development of the intellectual forces of Russia. Gorky believed that the people who had lived in slavery for centuries needed to be instilled with culture, give the proletariat systematic knowledge, a clear understanding of their rights and responsibilities, and teach the rudiments of democracy.

During the period of the struggle against the Provisional Government and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, when blood was shed everywhere, Gorky advocated an awakening in the souls good feelings with the help of art: “For the proletariat, the gifts of art and science should have the highest value; for them, this is not idle fun, but a way to deepen into the mysteries of life. It’s strange for me to see that the proletariat, in the person of its thinking and acting body, the “Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies,” is so indifferent to the sending to the front, to the slaughter, of soldier musicians, artists, drama artists and other people needed by its soul. After all, by sending its talents to slaughter, the country exhausts its heart, the people tear the best pieces from their flesh.” If politics separates people into sharply warring groups, then art reveals the universal in man: “Nothing straightens a person’s soul as easily and quickly as the influence of art and science.”

Gorky remembered the irreconcilable interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. But with the victory of the proletariat, the development of Russia had to follow a democratic path! And for this it was necessary, first of all, to stop the predatory war (on this Gorky agreed with the Bolsheviks). The writer sees a threat to democracy not only in the activities of the Provisional Government, in the armed struggle, but also in the behavior of the peasant masses with their ancient “dark instincts.” These instincts resulted in pogroms in Minsk, Samara and other cities, in lynchings of thieves, when people were killed right on the streets: “During wine pogroms, people are shot like wolves, gradually accustomed to the calm extermination of their neighbors...”

In Untimely Thoughts, Gorky approached the revolution from a moral standpoint, fearing unjustified bloodshed. He understood that with a radical change in the social system, armed clashes could not be avoided, but at the same time he opposed senseless cruelty, against the triumph of the unbridled masses, which resembled an animal that smelled the smell of blood.

The main idea of “Untimely Thoughts” is the indissolubility of politics and morality. The proletariat must be generous both as a winner and as a bearer of the high ideals of socialism. Gorky protests against the arrests of students and various public figures (Countess Panina, book publisher Sytin, Prince Dolgorukov, etc.), against reprisals against cadets killed in prison by sailors: “There is no poison more vile than power over people, we must remember this so that the authorities did not poison us, turning us into cannibals even more vile than those against whom we fought all our lives.” Gorky’s articles did not go unanswered: the Bolsheviks conducted investigations and punished those responsible. Like everyone real writer, Gorky was in opposition to the authorities, on the side of those who at the moment it was bad. While polemicizing with the Bolsheviks, Gorky nevertheless called on cultural figures to collaborate with them, because only in this way could the intelligentsia fulfill their mission of educating the people: “I know that they are carrying out the cruelest scientific experience over the living body of Russia, I know how to hate, but I want to be fair.”

Gorky called his articles “untimely,” but his fight for true democracy began on time. Another thing is that new government very soon the presence of any opposition ceased to suit me. The newspaper was closed. The intelligentsia (including Gorky) were allowed to leave Russia. The people very soon fell into a new slavery, covered with socialist slogans and words about good ordinary people. Gorky was deprived of the right to speak openly for a long time. But what he managed to publish - the collection “Untimely Thoughts” - will remain an invaluable lesson in civic courage. They contain the writer’s sincere pain for his people, painful shame for everything that is happening in Russia, and faith in its future, despite the bloody horror of history and the “dark instincts” of the masses, and the eternal appeal: “Be more humane in these days of universal atrocities!

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..p.3

Chapter 1. History of writing and publication of “Untimely Thoughts”

Gorky………………………………………………………… p. 4-5

Chapter 2. “Untimely thoughts” - pain for Russia and the people.

2.1. Gorky’s general impression of the revolution…………………...p. 6-8

2.2. Gorky against the “monster of war” and manifestations

nationalism……………………………………………………… p. 9-11

2.3. Gorky’s assessment of some revolutionary events……….pp.12-13

2.4. Gorky about the “lead abominations of life”……………………..p. 14-15

Conclusion…………………………………………………………..p. 16

Introduction

You have to look straight into the eyes of the stern

truth - only knowledge of this truth can

restore our will to live... A

every truth must be told out loud

for our instruction.

M. Gorky

Gorky's entry into the literary field marked the beginning of a new era in world art. Being the legitimate successor of the great democratic traditions of Russian classical literature, the writer was at the same time a true innovator.

Gorky affirmed faith in a better future, in the victory of human reason and will. Love for people determined an irreconcilable hatred of war, of everything that stood and stands in the way of people to happiness. And truly significant in this regard is M. Gorky’s book “Untimely Thoughts,” which contains his “notes on revolution and culture” of 1917-1918. For all its dramatic contradictions, “Untimely Thoughts” is an unusually modern book, in many ways visionary. Its significance is in restoring the historical truth about the past, helping to understand the tragedy of the revolution, civil war, their role in the literary and life fate of Gorky himself cannot be overestimated.

Chapter 1. The history of writing and publishing “Untimely Thoughts” by Gorky.

A citizen writer, an active participant in the social and literary movements of the era, A. M. Gorky throughout his career actively worked in various genres, vividly responding to the fundamental problems of life, pressing issues of our time. His legacy in this area is enormous: it has not yet been fully collected.

The journalistic activity of A. M. Gorky was very intense during the First World War, during the period of the overthrow of the autocracy, the preparation and conduct of the October Revolution. Many articles, essays, feuilletons, open letters, the writer’s speeches then appeared in various periodicals.

A special place in the work of Gorky the publicist is occupied by his articles published in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn. The newspaper was published in Petrograd from April 1917 to July 1918 under the editorship of A. M. Gorky. The writer’s work in “New Life” lasted a little more than a year; he published about 80 articles here, 58 of them in the “Untimely Thoughts” series, the very name emphasizing their acute relevance and polemical orientation.

Most of these “Novozhiznensky” articles (with minor repetitions) made up two complementary books - “Revolution and Culture. Articles for 1917" and "Untimely thoughts. Notes on revolution and culture". The first was published in 1918 in Russian in Berlin, published by I. P. Ladyzhnikov. The second was published in the fall of 1918 in Petrograd. Here it is necessary to note the following important fact: in 1919 - 1920 or 1922 - 1923, A. M. Gorky intended to reissue “Untimely Thoughts,” for which he supplemented the book with sixteen articles from the collection “Revolution and Culture,” designating each article with a serial number. By combining both books and destroying the chronological sequence of Ladyzhnikov’s edition, he gave Untimely Thoughts a new composition and new composition– an even more fundamental, generalizing meaning. The publication was not carried out. The copy prepared by the author is stored in the A. M. Gorky Archive.

These books were not published in the USSR. Gorky's articles seemed to be random facts; no one ever tried to consider them in general connection with Gorky's ideological and artistic searches of the previous and subsequent decades.

Chapter 2. “Untimely thoughts” - pain for Russia and the people.

2.1. Gorky's general impression of the revolution.

In Untimely Thoughts, Gorky abandons the usual (for a journalistic collection of articles) chronological arrangement of material, grouping it mostly by topics and problems. At the same time, the realities and facts of pre- and post-October reality are combined and interspersed: an article published, for example, on May 23, 1918, goes next to an article dated October 31, 1917, or an article dated July 1, 1917 - in a row with an article dated June 2 1918, etc.

Thus, the author’s intention becomes obvious: the problems of revolution and culture are given universal, planetary significance. The uniqueness of the historical development of Russia and the Russian revolution with all its contradictions, tragedies and heroism only highlighted these problems more clearly.

On February 27, 1917, the fate of the Romanov dynasty was decided. The autocratic regime in the capital was overthrown. Gorky enthusiastically greeted the victory of the insurgent people, to which he also contributed as a writer and revolutionary. After the February Revolution, Gorky's literary, social and cultural activities gained even wider scope. The main thing for him at this time was to protect the gains of the revolution, take care of the rise of the country's economy, and fight for the development of culture, education, and science. For Gorky, these problems are closely interconnected, always modern and future-oriented. Cultural issues come first here. It is not for nothing that Academician D.S. Likhachev speaks with such concern that without culture, society cannot be moral. A people that loses its spiritual values also loses its historical perspective.

In the first issue of Novaya Zhizn (April 18, 1917), in the article “Revolution and Culture,” Gorky wrote:

“The old government was mediocre, but the instinct of self-preservation correctly told it that its most dangerous enemy was the human brain, and so, by all means available to it, it tried to hamper or distort the growth of the country’s intellectual forces.” The results of this ignorant and long-term “quenching of the spirit,” the writer notes, “were revealed with terrifying clarity by the war”: in the face of a strong and well-organized enemy, Russia found itself “weak and unarmed.” “In a country generously endowed with natural wealth and talents,” he writes, “as a consequence of its spiritual poverty, complete anarchy was discovered in all areas of culture. Industry and technology are in their infancy and without a strong connection with science; science is somewhere in the margins, in the dark and under the hostile supervision of an official; art, limited and distorted by censorship, has become disconnected from the public...”

However, one should not think, Gorky warns, that the revolution itself “spiritually healed or enriched Russia.” Only now, with the victory of the revolution, is the process of “intellectual enrichment of the country—an extremely slow process” just beginning.

We cannot deny the writer his civic patriotic pathos, and not see how acutely modern his call to action and work sounds at the conclusion of this same article: “We must together take on the work of the comprehensive development of culture... The world was created not by word, but by deed,” - this is beautifully said, and this is an undeniable truth.”

From the second issue of Novaya Zhizn (April 20), the first of Gorky’s articles appeared, published in the newspaper under the general title “Untimely Thoughts.” Here we find, although not a direct, but clear polemic with the line of the Bolsheviks, who considered the most important task to be the struggle against the Provisional Government: “not a parliamentary republic, but a republic of Soviets.” Gorky writes: “We live in a storm of political emotions, in the chaos of the struggle for power, this struggle arouses, along with good feelings, very dark instincts.” It is important to abandon the political struggle, because politics is precisely the soil on which “the thistle of poisonous enmity, evil suspicions, shameless lies, slander, painful ambitions, and disrespect for the individual grows quickly and abundantly.” All these feelings are hostile to people, because they sow enmity between them.

2.2. Gorky is against the “monster of war” and manifestations of nationalism.

Gorky resolutely opposed the “world massacre,” “cultural savagery,” and the propaganda of national and racial hatred. He continues his anti-war offensives on the pages of “New Life”, in “Untimely Thoughts”: “There is a lot of absurdity, more than grandiose. The robberies began. What will happen? Don't know. But I clearly see that the Cadets and Octobrists are making a military coup out of the revolution. Will they do it? It seems they've already done it.

We won’t go back, but we won’t go far forward... And, of course, a lot of blood will be shed, an unprecedented amount.”

Novozhiznensky publications are strong and valuable precisely because of their anti-militarist orientation and their revealing anti-war pathos. The writer castigates the “senseless massacre”, “the damned war started by the greed of the commanding classes”, and believes that the war will be stopped “by the power of the common sense of the soldiers”: “If this happens, it will be something unprecedented, great, almost miraculous, and it will give a person the right to be proud of himself - his will defeated the most disgusting and bloody monster - the monster of war.” He welcomes the fraternization of German soldiers with Russians at the front, and is indignant at the generals' calls for a merciless fight against the enemy. “There is no justification for this disgusting self-destruction,” the writer notes on the third anniversary of the start of the war. “No matter how much the hypocrites lie about the “great” goals of the war, their lies will not hide the terrible and shameful truth: the war was given birth to Barish, the only god whom “real politicians”, murderers trading in the lives of the people, believe and pray to.”

Gorky notes the tragedy of the senseless extermination of human lives (“How many healthy, beautifully thinking brains are splashed out on the dirty earth”), the material damage that this predatory war causes, devastating nature, destroying the hard work of peoples (“thousands of villages, dozens of cities are destroyed, centuries-old work is destroyed many generations"); war - an unforgettable crime against culture - causes enormous moral damage, killing the humanity in a person. “Tens of thousands of mutilated soldiers,” he writes, “will not forget about their enemies for a long time, until their death. In stories about the war, they will pass on their hatred to children brought up by the impressions of three years of daily horror. Over the years, a lot of hostility has been sown on the land, and this sowing is producing lush shoots!”

Gorky denounces the government, which operates using the methods of autocracy: “The bright wings of our young freedom are sprinkled with innocent blood,” he is indignant in connection with the shooting on April 21 of workers who demonstrated against the Provisional Government. Gorky hopes for the peaceful development of the revolution. He writes: “It is criminal and heinous to kill each other now, when we all have an excellent right to honestly argue, to honestly disagree with each other. Those who think differently are incapable of feeling and recognizing themselves as free people. Murder and violence are arguments of despotism, these are vile arguments - and powerless, because to rape someone else’s will, to kill a person does not mean, never means, to kill an idea, to prove the wrongness of a thought, the fallacy of an opinion.”

In “Untimely Thoughts,” as in dozens of articles written before and after the revolution, Gorky more than once refers to the “Jewish question,” exposing the anti-Semitic speculations of reactionaries. The slanderous fabrications with which the reactionary press is full, on the one hand, intimidate the average person, on the other, “fuel the dark instincts of chauvinists and Black Hundreds,” who sought to present all the troubles of Russia as the machinations of foreigners. Behind all this, besides everything, the writer points out, “disgusting anger” towards “workers - people of initiative, in love with work.” And instead of appreciating such people, “gentlemen anti-Semites” suffering from an inferiority complex “scream wildly”: “Beat them - because they are better than us.” And Gorky more than once angrily recalls how “they” were beaten. He writes about pogroms in Chisinau and Odessa, Samara and Minsk, Kyiv, Bialystok, Yuryev...

Thinking about the relationship between peoples Russian Empire, Gorky notes with pain every phenomenon of nationalism, national hatred as a destructive factor of culture, a violation of morality and ethics. He writes mournfully and angrily about the bloody events in the Caucasus, recalls the robberies in Tiflis, the Armenian-Tatar massacre in Baku, organized by the tsarist government in February 1905, the brutal German pogrom in Moscow in May 1915, provoked by the Okhotskaya Ryadtsy under the influence of the Russian defeat in Galicia and etc.

Discussing any manifestations of nationalism - chauvinism and anti-Semitism, Gorky, a convinced internationalist, warned that “nowhere is so much tact and moral sensitivity required as in the attitude of a Russian to a Jew,” to any representative of the numerous peoples of Russia and these peoples “to the phenomena of Russian life.” . He warned that “nowhere is required” so much common sense, humanity, tolerance, and loyalty. It is not for nothing that Gorky’s article and his entire book end with a passionate appeal: “We are the masters of the country, we won its freedom without hiding our faces, and we will not allow some shady people to control our minds, our will.”

Gorky believes in the intelligence of the Russian people, in their conscience, and the sincerity of their desire for freedom. And, addressing the press, which uses “free speech” so poorly, the writer reminds: “But precisely now, in these tragically confused days, it should remember how poorly developed the sense of personal responsibility is in the Russian people and how accustomed we are to punish for our sins of our neighbors... We use “free speech” only in a frantic debate about who is to blame for the devastation of Russia. And here there is no dispute, because everyone is to blame... and no one does anything to counter the storm of emotions with the power of reason, the power of good will.”

2.3. Gorky's assessment of some revolutionary events.

Characteristic is the assessment given to the bitter events of the July days of 1917 in Petrograd, when on July 4 the counter-revolutionary troops shot at a peaceful demonstration of soldiers, workers and Baltic sailors, their arrest and disarmament. In relation to the July uprisings of the masses, differences between the writer and the Bolsheviks in assessing the driving forces of the revolution and the prospects for its further development were clearly revealed.

At the conclusion of his article in “Untimely Thoughts” (dated July 14), Gorky emphasizes: “However, I consider the main causative agent of the drama not the “Leninists”, not the Germans, not provocateurs and dark counter-revolutionaries, but - a more evil, more powerful enemy - the grave Russian stupidity "

In a nightmare vision, the writer imagines how “an unorganized crowd crawls out onto the street, poorly understanding what it wants, and, hiding behind it, adventurers, thieves, and professional killers will begin to “make the history of the Russian revolution.” Fearing a repetition of the “disgusting scenes of July 3–5,” the “bloody, senseless massacre” of those days, “which we have already seen and which undermined the moral significance of the revolution throughout the country, shook its cultural meaning,” he considers it very likely “that this once events take on an even bloodier and more pogrom character.” “Who needs all this and for what?” - Gorky asks in despair.

As for the October Revolution, “Untimely Thoughts” and similar – under other titles – articles by Gorky in Novaya Zhizn indicate that his attitude towards it was not politically consistent and unambiguous. His emotional-sensual attitude to reality prevailed over his social-analytical one. As a writer, he approached October primarily from a moral standpoint, fearing the dark elements, the “zoological instincts” of the people, unjustified bloodshed, rampant anarchy, violence, the cruelty of terror and the death of culture. A few days after the October Revolution, Gorky published an article accusing the Bolsheviks of “dogmatism,” “Nechaevism,” justifying “despotism of power,” and “destructing Russia” - “the Russian people will pay for this with lakes of blood.” And again and again he talks about the “cruel experience” of the Russian people, “doomed in advance to failure,” about “a merciless experience that will destroy the best forces of the workers and will stop the normal development of the Russian revolution for a long time.” “Lakes of blood” are seen by Gorky as the result of violence against the historical development of Russia, as a consequence of an “immoral”, “ruthless attitude towards the life of the masses.”

2.4. Gorky about the “leaden abominations of life.”

So, “blood” and “morality”, violence and morality, “goal” and “means” - these are the fundamental questions of life and revolution that occupied the great minds of all times, painfully resolved by the classics of world and Russian literature and especially painfully by Gorky’s immediate predecessors - F . M. Dostoevsky and L. N. Tolstoy, which became even more aggravated in connection with revolutionary events, as we see, are not avoided by the author of “Untimely Thoughts.” They define the central problematics of the writer’s Novozhiznaya articles and run like a red thread through “Untimely Thoughts.” Refracted through a prism real events, life situations and conflicts, they recreate a characteristic, deeply dramatic, complex and unusually contradictory picture of the first stage of the development of our revolution. “Untimely Thoughts” captured precisely the pictures of revolutionary times - its atmosphere, and not a “chronicle” - even if it was “peculiar”, as they tried to present it. For all its journalistic open polemics, this is a book of reflections, a lyrical and political essay with painful and dramatic social and philosophical quests, based on the problems of revolution and culture.

Throughout his entire social and literary activity, Gorky invariably opposed the slavish obedience that he hated, the non-resistance that humiliates man, and for an active attitude towards life and its “leaden abominations.” “A person is created by his resistance to the environment,” the writer is convinced. And Gorky understood perfectly well that in the struggle for a radical social reconstruction of life, violence cannot be avoided. He never considered, in Blok’s words, “the revolution to be an idyll”; he was never mistaken about this. He understood, but it was very difficult for him to accept. It is impossible for a true humanist, as Gorky undoubtedly is, to come to terms with this inevitability.

The contradictions of the rapidly developing revolutionary reality determined the nature of the contradictions in Gorky’s journalism of that time, which were reflected primarily in “Untimely Thoughts.” The critical intensity of his journalism does not weaken. He remains convinced of the untimeliness of the socialist revolution. However, this idea seems to be relegated to the background, existing as a conclusion from his observations and critical speeches. The primary task becomes the protection and affirmation of universal human ideals on which it is based and which nourish it. Now all his thoughts are focused on realizing as fully as possible the humanistic potential of the revolution, the freedoms and rights won by the people.

This is not why Gorky writes so much about the rampant anarchy, the cruelty of the Bolsheviks, the inability of the authorities to understand, that his slogans “spiritually and physically exhausted people” translate into his own language: “thunder, plunder, destroy”; this is not why he pays so much attention to senseless pogroms and extrajudicial reprisals, which does not see, does not notice positive phenomena and achievements. Simply: “Dirt and trash are always more noticeable on a sunny day... the more feasible our aspirations for the triumph of freedom, justice, and beauty seem to us, the more disgusting all that bestial vileness that stands in the way of the victory of the humanly beautiful appears to us.”

An heir to the traditions of great literature, Gorky declares in “Untimely Thoughts”: “No matter in whose hands the power is, I retain my human right to be critical of it.” Coming from the lower classes of the people, flesh of his flesh, a patriot and citizen, filled with sincere filial love for his motherland, he asserts his “right to speak the offensive and bitter truth about the people.

Conclusion

Each article by Gorky in Novaya Zhizn is topical, written on a specific occasion, in connection with one or another real fact, life event or a social phenomenon, a newspaper publication or a letter just received, etc. And at the same time, these are not fleeting notes, reports and sketches - they are deeply “personal”, they capture the most dear, close or bitter and hated facts of the author and phenomena, feelings and experiences. Responding to the topic of the day, the writer strives to see and reveal a characteristic phenomenon of the time behind each specific fact, to put the real fact in context in the context of a rapidly developing reality, to extract from it general meaning as he understands it.

And if we try to briefly formulate the essence, direction and general pathos of “Untimely Thoughts”, then this is: upholding, defending the indissoluble unity of politics and morality. And this is the writer’s enormous merit to his contemporaries and an invaluable lesson to his descendants, the future generation.

Gorky’s appeal from “Untimely Thoughts” is addressed to us, the current generations:

“We must work, respectable citizens, we must work - only in this is our salvation and in nothing else...

Really, we shouldn’t particularly indulge in the work of mutual torture and extermination - we must remember that there are enough people who want and, perhaps, can exterminate us. Let us work for our salvation..."

Bibliographic list.

Weinberg, I. Gorky, familiar and unfamiliar // M. Gorky. Untimely thoughts - M., 1990

Gorky, M. Untimely Thoughts: Notes on Revolution and Culture. – M.: Soviet writer, 1990. – 400 p.

for the benefit of the people Russia. Many...fertile soil. References 1. Bitter M. " Untimely thoughts" and discussions about the revolution and...

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