IMAGINING M. GORKY: TOUCHES TO THE SOVIET MYTH OF THE «STORMY PETREL OF the REVOLUTION»


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Abstract

At the time of the appearance in the press of «The Song of the Stormy Petrel», M. Gorky was addressed to wide democratic circles. However, the Bolsheviks, using Gorky’s proximity to his party, monopolized the multi-valued images of this work, securing the writer the title of «Stormy petrel of the proletarian revolution». It was most fully represented in the essay-book of the famous journalist M. Koltsov «The Stormy Petrel. Life and death of Maxim Gorky» (1938). Describing the life of Gorky, Koltsov combined in it the socialist realistic canon of «a native of the people» and a «fighter of the proletariat» with the modernity of the enlightener and the encyclopedic, the man who «made himself». Although the influence of the cult of the leader and political repression on the ideological and substantive concept of the book was strong, it offered the correct version of Gorky’s death, and Koltsov in his journalistic practice himself contributed to the formation of the Gorky myth, thanks to his close personal friendship with Gorky. He touched upon aspects of creative collaboration and his literary talent, especially those that stirred the writer in his search for a new person – the antipode of the tradesman.
Gorky appears as a cultural hero of the era in the apotheosis of youth, energy, movement. At the same time, Koltsov integrated into the essay important for the social practice of his time questions of searching for the past, meeting the needs of socialist construction, and ways of narrating about it. The essay reflected the nomination for the first in politics of the national-patriotic version of the past and the transition to the second plan for its revolutionary version.

About the authors

I. E. Koznova

Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: morenov@ssau.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7045-4310

Doctor of Historical Sciences, Leading Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy of Culture, Institute of Philosophy

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