M. Gorky working on “The Life of Klim Samgin”: The events of 9th of January 1905 as the basis for the novelistic episode

UDC 821.161.1-3
DOI 10.20339/PhS.4-26.092

Gavrish Tatyana R.,

Candidate of Philology, Senior Researcher

Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences

e-mail: berenica25@yandex.ru

M. Gorky’s novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” reflected forty years of Russian life from the 1880s to 1918. Its author was a participant in many of the events described and analyzed by him in his last, confessional work. Such an event, one of the most tragic in Russian history, was Bloody Sunday, January 9, 1905. The writer witnessed the shooting of a peaceful march of workers at the Troitsky, Pevchesky, Police bridges and on Palace Square. On the afternoon of January 9, driven by genuine emotional turmoil and fervent revolutionary enthusiasm, he wrote an “Appeal to All Russian Citizens and the Public Opinion of European States”, in which he called on the Russian people to fight against autocracy on behalf of Russian society. In a letter written at the same time to Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, Gorky remarked that ‘history is only recolored by blood’, but over time, the revolutionary’s fervor gave way to a deeper understanding of the events. In the play “Children of the Sun” (1905), written in the wake of the events of Bloody Sunday in the Peter and Paul Fortress on February 5–12, 1905, Gorky reflects on the terrible impression made on him by the events of January 9, which he would revisit throughout his career. In his novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” the events of Bloody Sunday are not only depicted with vivid expressiveness and almost documentary accuracy, but also reflected upon through the lens of profound humanism.

Keywords: January 9, 1905, Maxim Gorky, “The Life of Klim Samgin”, people, government, intelligentsia

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