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 " lead abominations life"…………………..s. 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. As the legitimate successor to the great democratic traditions of the 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 importance in restoration 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 creative path worked actively in various genres, vividly responding to the fundamental problems of life, current issues modernity. His legacy in this area is enormous: it has not yet been fully collected.
It was very intense journalistic activity A. M. Gorky 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 " New life" 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 “Novozhiznaya” 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 re-publish “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” - in a new composition and a 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 detail. general communication with Gorky’s ideological and artistic searches of 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. Originality historical development 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 acquired an 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 get down to work together comprehensive development culture... The world was created not by word, but by deed,” this is beautifully said, and this is an indisputable 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 refuse political struggle, for 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 slaughter,” “the damned war started by the greed of the commanding classes,” and believes that the war will be stopped “by force common sense soldier": "If this happens, it will be something unprecedented, great, almost miraculous, and this will give a person the right to be proud of himself - his will has 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 to whom “real politicians”, murderers trading in the lives of the people, believe and pray.”
Gorky notes the tragedy of the senseless extermination of human lives (“How many healthy, beautifully thinking brains are splashed out on the dirty land”), 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 labor 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 any dark people control our mind, 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.
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, is characteristic. 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 strong enemy– 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, even more aggravated in connection with revolutionary events, as we see, are not dispensed with 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 social and literary activities, Gorky invariably opposed the slavish obedience that he hated, the non-resistance that humiliated a person, 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 pushed into 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 everything that is bestially vile 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 social phenomenon, newspaper publication or 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 hateful facts and phenomena, feelings and experiences to the author. 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.
and discussions about the revolution and...
Social and cultural activities (2)Textbook >> Sociology M. " Lunacharsky" VT. Korolenko and " thoughts" M. Gorky were dictated by anxiety behind fate Russian culture , Russian... According to the encyclopedia “ Peoples Russia" (1994), on the territory Russian Federation lives 150 more peoples
- and nationalities...
Test >> Culture and art This time. Russia were dictated by anxiety survived 20th century two... wise leader, "father peoples" lives. Persecution of political opponents, ... in the partisan detachments there were M. " Untimely 150 cameramen. For...became widely known" M., "M. Damned days
"I. Bunina...
M. Montaigne ExperimentsAbstract >> Pedagogy Tongue. The army sent to Russia
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"
