Maxim Gorky 1868-1936

Philistines - A play (1901, publ. 1902)

Bessemenov Vasily Vasilyevich, 58 years old, foreman of the painting shop, who is aiming for a deputy to the city duma from the shop class, lives in a prosperous house; Akulina Ivanovna, his wife; son Peter, a former student expelled for participating in unauthorized student meetings; daughter Tatyana, a school teacher who has been sitting too long in brides; Bessemenov's pupil Nil, a machinist in a railway depot; the church chorister Teterev and the student Shishkin are freeloaders;

Elena Nikolaevna Krivtsova is a young widow of a prison warden who rents rooms in the house, and Stepanida is a cook who does all the menial work in the house with the help of the girl Poli, a seamstress, daughter of a distant relative of Bessemenov Perchikhin, a songbird merchant and a drunkard. In addition to them, Tsvetaeva, a young teacher, a friend of Tatyana, often visits the house.

The action of the play takes place in an atmosphere of constantly flaring up and fading scandals between Bessemenov and his children. The father is dissatisfied with the irreverence of the children towards him, as well as the fact that both have not yet found their place in life. In his opinion, both of them have become too "educated" and therefore proud. It prevents them from living. Tatyana just has to get married, and Peter - it is profitable to marry and work to increase his father's wealth. As the action develops, it becomes clear that the children not so much do not want to live "like a father", but simply cannot because of their weakened will, loss of interest in life, etc. Education really did not benefit them; it only confused them, deprived them of the will to live and their strong philistine roots.

This is the main tragedy of the Bessemenov family. In the case of Peter, according to Teterev, who plays a kind of reasoner role in the play, this tragedy should be decided in favor of his father: Peter will leave Krivtsova, whom he is still in love with against the will of his parents, will inevitably follow the path of his father and also become an exemplary tradesman. In the case of Tatyana, who is hopelessly in love with Nil, who is already bound by mutual love with Fields, the question is open: most likely, Tatyana will remain the unfortunate victim of the contradiction between her bourgeois roots and the new trends of the times.

These trends are most clearly expressed by Nil, the most "progressive" hero and, obviously, the future socialist-revolutionary, to which Bessemenov alludes. Nil reflects the aesthetics of struggle and labor close to Gorky, inextricably linked. For example, he loves to forge, but not because he loves work in general, but because he likes to sort of fight with metal, suppressing its resistance. At the same time, Neil's will and purposefulness have a downside: he is ruthless to Tatyana, who is in love with him, and to Bessemenov, who raised him.

Along the way, marginal plots unfold in the play: Teterev's love for Field, in which he sees his last salvation from drunkenness and boredom of life; the fate of Perchikhin, a man not of this world, living only with love for birds and the forest; the tragedy of Krivtsova, who is in love with life, but has lost her place in it. The most interesting of the secondary characters is Grouse. This man is too huge (both physically and spiritually) for that wretched life, the owners of which are Bessemenov and others like him so far. But he is unlikely to find a place in that life, the owners of which will be people like Neil. His image is the image of the eternal exile of life.

The play ends on a tragic note. After a failed attempt to commit suicide, Tatyana realizes her doom and uselessness among people. In the last scene, she falls on the keys of the piano, and a discordant loud sound is heard ...

At the bottom. Paintings - Play (1902, publ. 1903)

The play contains, as it were, two parallel actions. The first is social and everyday and the second is philosophical. Both actions develop in parallel, not intertwined. There are, as it were, two planes in the play: external and internal.

External plan. In the doss house, owned by Mikhail Ivanovich Kostylev (51 years old) and his wife Vasilisa Karlovna (26 years old), live, according to the author's definition, "former people", that is, people without a solid social status, as well as working, but poor people. These are: Satin and Actor (both under 40 years old), Vaska Pepel, a thief (28 years old), Andrey Mitrich Kleshch, a locksmith (40 years old), his wife Anna (30 years old), Nastya, a prostitute (24 years old), Bubnov (45 years old), Baron (33 years old), Alyoshka (20 years old), Tatarin and Crooked Goiter, hookers (age not named). Kvashnya, a dumpling vendor (under 40 years old) and Medvedev, Vasilisa's uncle, a policeman (50 years old), appear in the house. There is a very difficult relationship between them, scandals are often tied up. Vasilisa is in love with Vaska and persuades him to kill her elderly husband in order to be the sole mistress (in the second half of the play, Vaska beats Kostylev and accidentally kills him; Vaska is arrested). Vaska is in love with Natalya, Vasilisa's sister (20 years old); Vasilisa mercilessly beats her sister out of jealousy. Satin and the Actor (a former actor of provincial theaters by the name of Sverchkov-Zavolzhsky) are completely degraded people, drunkards, gamblers, Satin is also a sharpie. The baron is a former nobleman who squandered his entire fortune and is now one of the most miserable people in the rooming house. The tick tries to earn money with his metalwork tool; his wife Anna falls ill and needs medicine; at the end of the play, Anna dies, and the Tick finally sinks "to the bottom."

In the midst of drunkenness and scandals, the wanderer Luka appears in the rooming house, pitying people. He promises many an unrealizable bright future. He predicts happiness for Anna after death. The actor talks about a free hospital for alcoholics. Vaska and Natasha are advised to leave home, etc. But at the most tense moment, Luka actually runs away, leaving hopeful people. The actor is driven to suicide. In the finale, the bunkhouses sing a song, and when Satin hears about the death of the Actor, he says annoyed and bitterly: "Eh ... He ruined the song ... fool!"

Internal plan. In the play, two philosophical “truths” collide: Luke and Satine. The nochlezhka is a kind of symbol of humanity that finds itself in a dead end, which by the beginning of the 20th century. has lost faith in God, but has not yet gained faith in itself. Hence the general feeling of hopelessness, lack of perspective, which, in particular, is expressed by Actor and Bubnov (a pessimistic reasoner) in the words: “What next” and “And the threads are rotten...” The world has become dilapidated, weakened, and is coming to an end . Satin prefers to accept this bitter truth and not lie to himself or people. He suggests to Mite that he stop working. If everyone stops working, what will happen? “They’ll die of hunger...” answers Kleshch, but in doing so he only reveals the meaningless essence of labor, which is aimed only at maintaining life, and not at bringing any meaning into it. Satin is a kind of radical existentialist, a person who accepts the absurdity of the universe, in which “God died” (Nietzsche) and the Emptiness, Nothingness, was exposed. Luke adheres to a different view of the world. He believes that it is the terrible meaninglessness of life that should evoke special pity for man ". If a person needs a lie to continue living, he needs to lie to him, to console him. Otherwise, the person will not stand the “truth" and will die. So Luke tells a parable about a seeker of a righteous land and a scientist who showed him on a map that there is no righteous land . The offended man left and hanged himself (a parallel with the future death of the Actor). Luke is not just an ordinary wanderer, a comforter, but also a philosopher. In his opinion, a person is obliged to live despite the meaninglessness of life, because he does not know his future, he is only a wanderer in the universe, and even our earth is a wanderer in space. Luke and Satin argue. But Satin somehow accepts Luke’s “truth.” In any case, it is the appearance of Luke that provokes Satin into his monologue about Man, which he pronounces, imitating the voice of his opponent (an important stage directions in the play). Satin does not want to pity and console a person, but, by telling him the whole truth about the meaninglessness of life, to encourage him to self-respect and rebellion against the universe. A person, having realized the tragedy of his existence, should not despair, but, on the contrary, feel his worth. The whole meaning of the universe is in it alone. There is no other meaning (for example, Christian). "Man - that sounds proud!" "Everything is in man, everything is for man."

Mother - Roman (1906)

The novel is set in Russia in the early 1900s. Factory workers with their families live in the working settlement, and the whole life of these people is inextricably linked with the factory: in the morning, with the factory whistle, the workers rush to the factory, in the evening it throws them out of its stone bowels; on holidays, meeting each other, they only talk about the factory, drink a lot, get drunk - they fight. However, the young worker Pavel Vlasov, unexpectedly for his mother Pelageya Nilovna, the widow of a locksmith, suddenly begins to live a different life: on holidays he goes to the city, brings books, reads a lot. To his mother's bewildered question, Pavel replies: "I want to know the truth and therefore I read forbidden books; if they find them in my possession, they will put me in prison."

After some time, Pavel's comrades begin to gather in the Vlasovs' house on Saturday evenings: Andrey Nakhodka - "a crest from Kanev", as he introduces himself to his mother, who recently arrived in the suburb and entered the factory; several factory guys from the suburbs, whom Nilovna had known before; people from the city come: a young girl Natasha, a teacher who left Moscow from rich parents; Nikolai Ivanovich, who sometimes comes instead of Natasha to deal with the workers; thin and pale young lady Sashenka, also, like Natasha, who left the family: her father is a landowner, a zemstvo chief. Pavel and Sashenka love each other, but they cannot get married: they both believe that married revolutionaries are lost for business - they need to earn a living, an apartment, raise children. Gathering in the house of the Vlasovs, the members of the circle read books on history, talk about the hard lot of the workers of the whole earth, about the solidarity of all working people, and often sing songs. At these meetings, the mother hears the word "socialists" for the first time.

Mother really likes Nakhodka, and he also fell in love with her, affectionately calls her "nenko", says that she looks like his late foster mother, but he does not remember his own mother. After some time, Pavel and his mother offer Andrei to move into their house, and the Little Russian gladly agrees.

Leaflets appear at the factory, which speak of workers' strikes in St. Petersburg, of the injustice of the factory's order; leaflets call on the workers to unite and fight for their interests. The mother understands that the appearance of these sheets is connected with the work of her son, she is both proud of him and fears for his fate. After some time, the gendarmes come to the Vlasovs' house with a search. The mother is scared, but she tries to suppress her fear. Those who came did not find anything: having been warned in advance about the search, Pavel and Andrey took away forbidden books from the house; nevertheless Andrey is arrested.

An announcement appears at the factory stating that the directorate will deduct a penny from each ruble earned by the workers - to drain the swamps surrounding the factory. The workers are dissatisfied with this decision of the management, several elderly workers come to Pavel for advice. Pavel asks his mother to go to the city to take his note to the newspaper so that the story with the "swamp penny" gets into the nearest issue, and he goes to the factory, where, having led a spontaneous rally, in the presence of the director, he sets out the workers' demands for the abolition of the new tax. However, the director orders the workers to resume work, and everyone disperses to their places. Pavel is upset, he believes that the people did not believe him, did not follow his truth, because he is young and weak - he did not manage to tell this truth. At night, the gendarmes again appear and this time they take Pavel away.

A few days later, Yegor Ivanovich comes to Nilovna - one of those who went to meetings with Pavel before his arrest. He tells his mother that, in addition to Pavel, 48 more factory workers were arrested, and it would be good to continue delivering leaflets to the factory. The mother volunteers to carry leaflets, for which she asks a friend who sells lunches for workers at the factory to take her to be her assistant. Everyone entering the factory is searched, but the mother successfully smuggles the leaflets and passes them to the workers.

Finally Andrei and Pavel are released from prison and begin to prepare for the celebration of the First of May. Pavel is going to carry the banner ahead of the column of demonstrators, although he knows that for this he will be sent to prison again. On the morning of May XNUMX, Pavel and Andrei do not go to work, but go to the square, where the people have already gathered. Pavel, standing under the red banner, declares that today they, members of the Social Democratic Labor Party, are openly raising the banner of reason, truth, and freedom. "Long live the working people of all countries!" - with this slogan of Paul, the column headed by him moved along the streets of the settlement. However, a chain of soldiers came out to meet the demonstration, the column was crushed, Pavel and Andrei, who was walking next to him, were arrested. Automatically picking up a fragment of a pole with a fragment of a banner torn by the gendarmes from the hands of her son, Nilovna goes home, and in her chest there is a desire to tell everyone that the children are following the truth, they want a different, better life, the truth for everyone.

A few days later, the mother moves to the city to Nikolai Ivanovich - he promised Pavel and Andrey, if they were arrested, to immediately take her to him. In the city, Nilovna, running the simple household of the lonely Nikolai Ivanovich, begins active underground work: alone or together with Nikolai’s sister Sophia, disguised as either a nun, or a pilgrim pilgrim, or a lace merchant, she travels around the cities and villages of the province, delivering forbidden books, newspapers, proclamation. She loves this job, she loves talking to people, listening to their stories about life. She sees that the people live half-starved among the enormous riches of the earth. Returning from trips to the city, the mother goes on dates with her son in prison. On one of these dates, she manages to give him a note inviting his comrades to arrange an escape for him and his friends. However, Pavel refuses to escape; Sashenka, who was the initiator of the escape, is most upset by this.

Finally, the day of judgment arrives. Only the relatives of the defendants were allowed into the hall. Mother was waiting for something terrible, waiting for a dispute, finding out the truth, but everything goes quietly: the judges speak indifferently, indistinctly, reluctantly; witnesses - hastily and colorless. The speeches of the prosecutor and lawyers also do not touch the mother's heart. But then Paul begins to speak. He does not defend himself - he explains why they are not rebels, although they are judged as rebels. They are socialists, their slogans are - down with private property, all means of production - to the people, all power - to the people, labor is obligatory for all. They are revolutionaries and will remain so until all their ideas win. Everything that the son says is known to the mother, but only here, at the trial, does she feel the strange, captivating power of his faith. But now the judge reads the verdict: send all the defendants to the settlement. Sasha is also waiting for the verdict and is going to declare that he wants to be settled in the same area as Pavel. The mother promises her to come to them when their children are born, to nurse her grandchildren.

When the mother returns home, Nikolai informs her that it was decided to publish Pavel's speech at the trial. The mother volunteers to take her son's speech for distribution to another city. At the station, she suddenly sees a young man whose face and attentive gaze seem strangely familiar to her; she remembers that she had met him earlier both in court and near the prison, and she understands that she has been caught. The young man calls the watchman and, pointing at her with his eyes, says something to him. The watchman approaches the mother and reproachfully says: "The thief! The old one is already there, but there too!" "I'm not a thief!" - choking with resentment and indignation, the mother screams and, snatching bundles of proclamations from her suitcase, holds them out to the people around her: "This is the speech of my son, yesterday he was judged by political politicians, he was among them." The gendarmes push people aside as they approach their mother; one of them grabs her by the throat, preventing her from speaking; she wheezes. There are sobs in the crowd.

Authors of the retelling: Slava Yanko, Alexandra Vladimirova

<< Back: Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev 1871-1919 (The Life of Vasily of Fivey - A Story (1903). The Story of the Seven Hanged Men - (1906). Judas Iscariot - A Story (1907))

>> Forward: Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin 1870-1938 (Duel - Tale (1905). Garnet bracelet - Tale (1911))

We recommend interesting articles Section Lecture notes, cheat sheets:

▪ Methods of teaching psychology. Lecture notes

▪ Theory of accounting. Crib

▪ Eye diseases. Crib

See other articles Section Lecture notes, cheat sheets.

Read and write useful comments on this article.

<< Back

Latest news of science and technology, new electronics:

The existence of an entropy rule for quantum entanglement has been proven 09.05.2024

Quantum mechanics continues to amaze us with its mysterious phenomena and unexpected discoveries. Recently, Bartosz Regula from the RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing and Ludovico Lamy from the University of Amsterdam presented a new discovery that concerns quantum entanglement and its relation to entropy. Quantum entanglement plays an important role in modern quantum information science and technology. However, the complexity of its structure makes understanding and managing it challenging. Regulus and Lamy's discovery shows that quantum entanglement follows an entropy rule similar to that for classical systems. This discovery opens new perspectives in the field of quantum information science and technology, deepening our understanding of quantum entanglement and its connection to thermodynamics. The results of the study indicate the possibility of reversibility of entanglement transformations, which could greatly simplify their use in various quantum technologies. Opening a new rule ... >>

Mini air conditioner Sony Reon Pocket 5 09.05.2024

Summer is a time for relaxation and travel, but often the heat can turn this time into an unbearable torment. Meet a new product from Sony - the Reon Pocket 5 mini-air conditioner, which promises to make summer more comfortable for its users. Sony has introduced a unique device - the Reon Pocket 5 mini-conditioner, which provides body cooling on hot days. With it, users can enjoy coolness anytime, anywhere by simply wearing it around their neck. This mini air conditioner is equipped with automatic adjustment of operating modes, as well as temperature and humidity sensors. Thanks to innovative technologies, Reon Pocket 5 adjusts its operation depending on the user's activity and environmental conditions. Users can easily adjust the temperature using a dedicated mobile app connected via Bluetooth. Additionally, specially designed T-shirts and shorts are available for convenience, to which a mini air conditioner can be attached. The device can oh ... >>

Energy from space for Starship 08.05.2024

Producing solar energy in space is becoming more feasible with the advent of new technologies and the development of space programs. The head of the startup Virtus Solis shared his vision of using SpaceX's Starship to create orbital power plants capable of powering the Earth. Startup Virtus Solis has unveiled an ambitious project to create orbital power plants using SpaceX's Starship. This idea could significantly change the field of solar energy production, making it more accessible and cheaper. The core of the startup's plan is to reduce the cost of launching satellites into space using Starship. This technological breakthrough is expected to make solar energy production in space more competitive with traditional energy sources. Virtual Solis plans to build large photovoltaic panels in orbit, using Starship to deliver the necessary equipment. However, one of the key challenges ... >>

Random news from the Archive It's time to fly on hydrogen 15.07.2007 Scientists from the EU received a grant of 2,9 million euros to develop a hydrogen aircraft. Fuel cells are already well developed, and it's time to find new applications for them. To make a fuel cell aircraft, you need to completely redo its entire propulsion part: instead of a conventional engine, put an electric one, which will rotate the motors of a fully electric aircraft. The main advantages of this type of transport are the absence of harmful exhaust and low noise levels. The latter is especially important for local European airlines: a low-noise aircraft will be able to take off and land near any settlements both day and night. This is no longer possible because EU countries have strict noise regulations, especially at night. True, flying on an airplane with a tank of hydrogen on board is not a pleasure for the faint of heart, because this gas seeps even through metal and explodes, reaching the concentration of an explosive mixture. Therefore, as participants in the flight on a domestic hydrogen aircraft say, the thought is constantly present in the head: will the sensors that should detect the leakage of hydrogen from the tank work?

Other interesting news:

▪ Change memories

▪ Finland to launch wooden satellite into space

▪ Phone glove

▪ Asus ROG Swift PG278Q Monitor with Nvidia G-Sync

▪ Simulation of human behavior in a crowd

News feed of science and technology, new electronics

Interesting materials of the Free Technical Library:

▪ section of the site Children's scientific laboratory. Article selection

▪ DNA article. History and essence of scientific discovery

▪ article Who is the eponym of the Bloody Mary cocktail? Detailed answer

▪ article Princess ordinary. Legends, cultivation, methods of application

▪ article Filter for the modem. Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering

▪ article Surge protection device. Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering

Leave your comment on this article:

All languages ​​of this page

Arabic	Hebrew	Polish
Bengali	Hindi	Portuguese
Chinese	Italian	Spanish
English	Japanese	Turkish
French	Korean	Ukrainian
German	Malay	Vietnamese

Home page | Library | Articles | Website map | Site Reviews

www.diagram.com.ua
2000-2024