№ 2333. 150th birth anniversary of A.M. Gorky (1868–1936), a writer

Maxim Gorky (Alexey Maximovich Gorky, born Alexey Maximovich Peshkov) (1868–1936) was an outstanding Russian and Soviet writer, novelist and theorist

He was born on 16 (28) March 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod. When he became an orphan, his grandfather took him to his family. He taught the boy reading and writing through church books, his grandmother promoted love for fairytales and folk songs. At the end of 1889 – beginning of 1890 he met Vladimir Korolenko, a short story writer, in Nizhny Novgorod. Gorky came to him for a reference for his first poem – The Song of the Old Oak. In 1893 the aspiring writer published several article in Nizhny Novgorod newspapers: The Volgar and The Volzhsky Vestnik. His pen name, Maxim Gorky, first appeared in 1892 in The Kavkaz newspaper under his first short story Makar Chudra in Tiflis. Old Izergil and The Song of a Falcon were written in 1895. Many thousands of his books were successfully sold out, his popularity was expanding beyond Russia. His most famous works were Foma Gordeyev, The Mother, The Artamonov Business, Enemies, The Philistines, The Lower Depths, Summerfolk, Vassa Zheleznova, Life of Klim Samgin, etc.

In 1918 Gorky established the Vsemirnaya Literatura (World Literature) Publishing House which many writers of the time got the opportunity to submit their works to. Maxim Gorky spent over eighteen years outside Russia, including fifteen years in Italy. He finally returned to the USSR in 1932 where in his declining years he was officially recognised as the founder of the socialist realism. Maxim Gorky was elected Head of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1934. He was the most-published novelist in the USSR.

The postage stamp depicts a portrait of Alexey Gorky (1940) by Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky stored at A.M. Gorky Institute of the World Literature of the Russian Academy of Science.