Edition of M. Gorky’s letters: history and methodology

Abstract

The article describes the history and methodology of publishing Gorky’s rich heritage at the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. We present the overview of approaches to the publication of Gorky’s letters in periodicals, memoir prose, and research series “Archive of A.M. Gorky”, “Literary Heritage”, “M. Gorky. Materials and Research”, etc. The problem of choosing the main source of the text is highlighted. We also analyze the methodology of preparing of a scholarly textual, real-historical, bibliographic commentary on the letters of M. Gorky, which is published as part of the Complete Works of the writer at the IWL RAS. Some complex textual cases encountered by the editors of the publication are presented in the article. It is important to begin a scholarly understanding of the history and methodology of this work, which combines the best textual traditions of the IWL RAS and modern approaches, because the 3rd series of the collection – “Literary-critical and journalistic articles of M. Gorky” is under planning now.