‘WAS THERE ANY BOY AT ALL?’ ON THE MEANING OF GORKY’S REFRAIN

Abstract

The article considers all contexts for the famous phrase, ‘Was there any boy at all?’ found in the novel The Life of Klim Samgin [Zhizn’ Klima Samgina] and indicative of its universality, and attempts to reveal its possible literary sources (lines from the letters by A. Blok and M. Prishvin, and N. Berberova’s poems). The meaning of the recurrent phrase is examined through the author’s philosophical influences (Protagoras, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche), with a particular stress on the connection between Gorky and Schopenhauer, to this day largely neglected by Gorky scholars. The author believes that the leitmotif, ‘Was there any boy at all?’ extends beyond a rhetorical device into a highly generalized philosophical formula of the ‘new’ Gorky, a key to the numerous mysteries in his last work. The use of the allegory brings up those aspects of Gorky’s worldview that explain his tendency towards auctorial narration; enrich our understanding of the emphasis he put on the key principle of ‘the will’, where the Nietzschean interpretation correlates and clashes with the Schopenhauerian one. They also introduce the concept of chaos as a major characteristic of the world in Gorky’s view, which accounts for the grotesque (reminiscent of Bosch) and avant-garde features of his poetics.