Alexei Maximovich Gorky (real surname - Peshkov) (1868-1936) - one of the most significant and renowned Russian writers in the world, a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, author of the trilogy "Childhood. In the People. My Universities," the poem "Song of the Stormy Petrel," plays "At the Bottom," "The Lower Classes," "Vassa Zheleznova," "Children of the Sun," novels "The Life of Klim Samgin," "The Case of the Artemonovs," "Mother," and many stories.
The future writer was born in Nizhny Novgorod, in the family of a carpenter, and from the age of three lived with his grandparents - his father died early. Alyosha's childhood was hard: at the age of 11 he "went out into the world" and became many things: an apprentice icon painter, dyer, fisherman in a cooperative, loader, baker, burlak, builder, weighmaster, oilman, journalist, and more. He traveled a lot, and later these impressions provided material for his works. Peshkov did not even finish primary church school, but continuously read Nietzsche, Hartmann, Schopenhauer, Byron, and began to write at the age of 18, repeating until the end of his days that he did not "write," but only "learned to write."
"Makar Chudra" - a poetically expressed Gypsy drama - is Gorky's very first published story at the age of 24, under which he took such a telling pseudonym.
Similar in mood, "Old Woman Izergil" was written two years later. In addition to the story of Izergil's life, it includes legends: about the arrogant son of the eagle Larr and the selfless Danko, offering three points of view: "to live outside of people and for oneself" - "to live with people, but for oneself" - "to live with people and for people."
"Chekash," created in just two days, is fundamentally different from these lyrical narratives: it is a tough realistic story about one day in the life of a vagabond-smuggler, an ex-peasant, based on the events from the life of a real vagabond who was Gorky's neighbor in the hospital bed when he was hospitalized. Published in the magazine "Russian Wealth," the story brought young writer his first literary fame.
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