From Social to Anthropological Discourse in Gorky: Hypotheses and Rebuttals

Abstract

The authors of this article propose and defend the hypothesis that the provincial-born Maxim Gorky, when illustrating his worldview in his polemical and artistic works, served as the bearer of mental characteristics and complexes inherent only and exclusively to the Russian people. The hypothesis in question serves as the basis for a rebuttal to the traditional understanding of Gorky’s social engagement as a writer, including his work as a playwright. Gorky’s anthropology, as a set of sociopsychological and moral personality traits, gender and mental characteristics, as well as a corpus of many dozens of human characters, represents a powerful stratum of national traditions and cultural experience. However, in their cultural–anthropological detailing, these properties are familiar and understood around the world: fear of the lack of love, the need for understanding, acute female–male conflicts. The writer’s lively voice rectifies otherwise banal and oversimplified concepts about man.