Mother

Maxim Gorky (Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov, 1868-1936) was the most published Soviet writer. And the novel "Mother" was the most published and most studied by the work of Gorky. It is amazing how Soviet literary criticism, with such attention to the novel, managed to cloud its meaning for decades. As a “wide canvas of the proletariat for its rights” a new gospel was blocked, in which Paul’s religion is not traditional historical Christianity, but "New Christianity" - socialism "(Pavel Basinsky) The apostle of the new faith, not at all by chance called Paul, should not preach to humility before the authorities, before the grandeur of the world, but the active remake of this world, the beginning of the new history of mankind. At the same time, Gorky widely used biblical images, called the Pervomaisian demonstration the “procession”, the author compared the main character with Christ, for which he even received a criminal case with an accusation of blasphemy. And, of course, he wrote a tragic novel. “But in this defeat there is such greatness, such emotional power that when we read "Mother", we seem to join the great, we join the real tragedy "(Dmitry Bykov).

The accompanying article by Pavel Basinsky

Pavel Valerievich Basinsky (b. 1961) - Russian writer, literary critic and critic. A graduate of the Literary Institute, candidate of philological sciences. Currently, he works as a columnist for the "Rossiy newspaper". It is included in the permanent jury of the award of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Laureate of the Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of culture for the book "Saint against Leo. John of Kronstadt and Leo Tolstoy: the story of one enmity "and many literary awards, including the" Big Book "for the Documentary Roman" Leo Tolstoy: Fleet from Paradise "