At the Bottom

More than a hundred years have passed since Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) created the play "At the Bottom", and its characters have not disappeared and remain recognizable: homeless, thieves, prostitutes — the outcast people of the "bottom" — seem to have traveled through time, not losing their problems, from Gorky's den to the streets of a modern metropolis. The question of the necessity of choosing one's position remains just as relevant: "Man is a proud sound!" or "A man needs to be pitied"? What to choose — lies for salvation or bitter truth? The book also includes the plays "The Philistines" and "Vassa Zheleznova", the stories "Makar Chudra", "The Old Woman Izergil", "Chelkash", prose poems "The Song of the Falcon" and "The Song of the Storm Petrel". The works are preceded by an article by Vladislav Khodasevich about Gorky.