M. Gorky is included in Russian literature of the 90s of the 19th century. His entry was very striking; he immediately aroused great interest among readers. Contemporaries wrote with amazement that the people of Russia, who did not know Dostoevsky, know little of Pushkin and Gogol, do not know Lermontov, know Maxim Gorky more than others, but only know Tolstoy in bits and pieces. True, there was also a certain touch of sensationalism in this interest. People from the lower classes were attracted by the very idea that a writer from their midst had come to literature, who had first-hand knowledge of life from the darkest and darkest times.
Its scary sides. Writers and readers who belonged to the elite circle were attracted by Gorky’s personality, in addition to his talent, by his exoticism: the man saw such depths of the “bottom of life” that no writer before him knew from the inside, from personal experience. This rich one personal experience gave M. Gorky abundant material for his early works. On these same early years Main ideas and themes are developed that later accompanied the writer throughout his work. This is, first of all, the idea of an active personality. M. Gorky develops a new type of relationship between man and the environment. Instead of the formula “the environment is stuck”, which was largely defining for the literature of previous years, the writer sounds the idea that a person is created by resistance environment. From the very beginning, M. Gorky's works fall into two types: early romantic texts and realistic stories. The ideas expressed by the author in them are in many ways close.
The early romantic works of M. Gorky are diverse in genre: these are stories, legends, fairy tales, poems. The most famous of his early stories are “Makar Chudra”, “Old Woman Izergil”. In the first of them, the writer, according to all the laws of the romantic direction, draws images of beautiful, brave and strong people. Based on the tradition of Russian literature, M. Gorky turns to the images of gypsies, who have become a symbol of will and unbridled passions. In the story “Makar Chudra” the author’s intention to destroy traditional ideas about the world order, good and evil is obvious. The completely realistic picture created at the beginning of the story gradually transforms into antipodean realities. Makar Chudra turns from an “old gypsy” into a kind of pagan god who knows other truths. It is no coincidence that the form of the inserted story about Loiko and Rada resembles a parable - the most popular genre in the Bible. The image of the narrator plays an important role in revealing the author’s position: under the impression of what he heard from Makar Chudra, he perceives the world differently, hears the roar from the sea - a hymn to strong and beautiful people who are able to live freely, not obeying anyone’s will. In the work, a romantic conflict arises between the feeling of love and the desire for freedom.
It is resolved by the death of the heroes, but this death is not perceived as a tragedy, but rather as a triumph of life and will. In the story “Old Woman Izergil” the narrative is also built according to romantic canons. Already at the very beginning, the motif of dual worlds characteristic of romanticism arises: the hero-narrator is the bearer of social consciousness. He is told: “...you Russians will be born old men. Everyone is gloomy, like demons.” He is opposed by the world of romantic heroes - beautiful, strong, brave people: “They walked, sang and laughed.” The story poses the problem of the ethical orientation of a romantic personality. The relationship between the romantic hero and the people around him. In other words, the traditional question is posed: man and environment.
As expected romantic heroes, Gorky's characters confront their environment. This obviously manifested itself in the image of the strong, handsome, free Larra, who openly violated the law human life, opposed himself to people and was punished with eternal loneliness. He is opposed by the hero Danko. The story about him is structured as an allegory: the path of people to a better, fair life is from darkness to light. In Danko, M. Gorky embodied the image of the leader of the masses. And this image is written according to the canons of the romantic tradition. Danko, just like Larra, is opposed to the environment and is hostile to it. Faced with the difficulties of the path, people grumble at their leader, blaming him for their troubles, while the masses, as befits a romantic work, are endowed with negative characteristics. “Danko looked at those for whom he had labored and saw that they were like animals. Many people stood around him, but there was no nobility on their faces.”
Danko is a lone hero, he convinces people with the power of his personal sacrifice. M. Gorky realizes and makes literal a metaphor widespread in language: the fire of the heart. The hero's feat regenerates people and carries them along. But from this he himself does not cease to be a loner; the people who are carried forward by him remain not only a feeling of indifference, but also hostility towards him: “People, joyful and full of hope, did not notice his death and did not see that almost his brave heart burns next to Danko’s corpse. Only one cautious person noticed this and, fearing something, stepped on the proud heart with his foot.” Gorky's legend about Danko was actively used as material for revolutionary propaganda, the image of the hero was cited as an example to follow, later it was widely used by official ideology, and was intensively introduced into consciousness younger generation(there were even candies with the name “Danko” and with a picture of a burning heart on the wrapper). However, with Gorky everything is not as simple and unambiguous as involuntary commentators tried to make it out to be. The young writer managed to sense in the image of a lone hero a dramatic note of incomprehensibility and hostility to him from the environment, the masses. In the story “Old Woman Izergil” the pathos of teaching inherent in M. Gorky is clearly felt. It is even more clear in a special genre - songs (“Song of the Falcon”; “Song of the Petrel”).
Today they are perceived rather as a funny page in the history of literature and have more than once provided material for parodic interpretation (for example, during the period of M. Gorky’s emigration an article appeared with the title “Former Glavsokol, now Tsentrouzh”). But I would like to draw attention to one important problem for the writer in the early period of his work, formulated in “The Song of the Falcon”: the problem of the collision of the heroic personality with the world of everyday life, the philistine consciousness. This problem was developed by M. Gorky in his realistic stories of the early period. One of the writer’s artistic discoveries was the theme of the “bottom” man, a degraded, often drunken tramp - in those years it was customary to call them tramps. M. Gorky knew this environment well, showed great interest in it and widely reflected it in his works, earning the title “singer of tramping.” This topic itself was not completely new; many writers of the 19th century turned to it. The novelty was in the author's position. If earlier such heroes evoked compassion primarily as victims of life, then with M. Gorky everything is different. His tramps are not so much unfortunate victims of life as rebels who themselves do not accept this life. They are not so much outcasts as rejecters.
An example of this can be seen in the story “Konovalov”. Already at the very beginning of the work, the writer emphasizes that his hero had a profession, he is “an excellent baker, a craftsman,” the owner of the bakery values him. Konovalov is a person gifted with a lively mind. This is a person who thinks about life and does not accept everyday existence in it: “It’s melancholy, it’s a rigmarole: you don’t live, you rot!” Konovalov dreams of a heroic situation in which his rich nature could manifest itself. He says about himself: “I haven’t found a place for myself!” He is fascinated by the images of Stenka Razin and Taras Bulba. In everyday life, Konovalov feels unnecessary and eventually leaves her, dying tragically. Another hero of Gorky from the story “The Orlov Spouses” is also akin to him. Grigory Orlov is one of the most striking and controversial characters in the early works of M. Gorky. This is a man of strong passions, hot and impetuous. He is intensely searching for the meaning of life. At times it seems to him that he has found it - for example, when he works as an orderly in a cholera barracks. But then Gregory sees the illusory nature of this meaning and returns to his natural state of rebellion, opposition to the environment. He is capable of doing a lot for people, even sacrificing his life for them, but this sacrifice must be instant and bright, heroic, like Danko’s feat. No wonder he says about himself: “And my heart burns with a great fire.”
M. Gorky treats people like Konovalov, Orlov and the like with understanding. However, if you think about it, you can see that the writer already at an early stage noticed a phenomenon that became one of the problems of Russian life of the twentieth century: a person’s desire for a heroic deed, for feat, self-sacrifice, impulse and inability for everyday work, for everyday life, for her everyday life, devoid of a heroic aura. People of this type, as the writer foresaw, can turn out to be great in extreme situations, in days of disasters, wars, revolutions, but they are most often unviable in the normal course of human life.
Today, the problems posed by the writer M. Gorky in his early work are perceived as relevant and pressing for solving the issues of our time.
M. Gorky entered Russian literature in the 90s of the 19th century and immediately aroused great interest among readers. Rich personal experience of traveling around Rus' gave the writer abundant material for his works. Already in his early years, the main ideas and themes were developed that accompanied his work throughout. This is, first of all, the idea of an active personality, because Gorky was always interested in life in its fermentation. The works develop a new type of relationship between man and the environment. Instead of the formula “the environment is stuck,” which was largely decisive for the literature of previous years, the writer voices the idea that a person is created by resistance to the environment. Both romantic and realistic works of the initial period are devoted to this topic.
Gorky's early romantic works are diverse in genre: these are stories, legends, fairy tales, poems. The most famous stories are “Makar Chudra” and “Old Woman Izergil”. In the first of them, the writer, according to all the laws of the romantic movement, draws images of beautiful, brave and strong people. Based on the tradition of Russian literature, Gorky turns to the images of gypsies, who have become a symbol of will and unbridled passions. In the work, a romantic conflict arises between the feeling of love and the desire for freedom. It is resolved by the death of the heroes, but this death is not perceived as a tragedy, but rather as a triumph of life and will.
In the story “Old Woman Izergil” the narrative is also built according to romantic canons. Already at the very beginning, a characteristic motif of dual worlds arises. The hero-narrator is the bearer of social consciousness of the real world. He is opposed by the world of romantic heroes - again, beautiful, brave, strong people: “They walked, sang and laughed.” The work poses the problem of the ethical orientation of a romantic personality. The romantic hero and other people - how do their relationships develop? In other words, the traditional question is posed: man and environment. As befits romantic heroes, Gorky's characters oppose their environment. This was obviously manifested in the image of Larra, who openly violated the law of human life and was punished by eternal loneliness. He is opposed to Danko. The story about him is constructed as an allegory of people’s path to a better, fair life, from darkness to light. In Danko, Gorky embodied the image of the leader of the masses. Danko, just like Larra, is opposed to the environment and is hostile to it. Faced with the difficulties of the path, people grumble at their leader, blaming him for their troubles, while the masses, as befits a romantic work, are endowed with negative characteristics. “Danko looked at those for whom he had labored and saw that they were like animals. Many people stood around him, but there was no nobility on their faces.” Danko is a lone hero, he convinces people with the power of his personal sacrifice. Here the writer realizes and makes literal a metaphor widespread in language: the fire of the heart. The hero's feat regenerates people and carries them along. But this does not stop him from being a loner: the people who are carried forward by him remain towards him not only with a feeling of indifference, but also with hostility. “People, joyful and full of hope, did not notice his death and did not see that his brave heart was still burning next to Danko’s corpse. Only one cautious person noticed this and, fearing something, stepped on the proud heart with his foot.”
The legend of Danko was actively used as material for revolutionary propaganda, the image of the hero was cited as an example to follow, and was widely attracted by official ideology. However, with Gorky everything is not as simple and unambiguous as involuntary commentators tried to make it out to be. The young writer was able to sense in the image of a single hero a dramatic note of incomprehensibility and hostility to him from the environment, the masses.
In the story “Old Woman Izergil” the pathos of teaching inherent in Gorky is clearly felt. It is even more clear in a special genre - songs (“Song of the Falcon”, “Song of the Petrel”). I would like to draw attention to one important problem for the writer in the early period of his work, formulated in “Song of the Falcon”. This is the problem of the collision of a heroic personality with the world of everyday life, with philistine consciousness, which was largely developed in realistic stories of the early period.
One of the writer’s artistic discoveries was the theme of the “bottom” man, a degraded, often drunken tramp - in those years it was customary to call them tramps. M. Gorky knew this environment well, showed great interest in it and widely reflected it in his works, earning the title “singer of tramping.” This topic itself was not completely new; many writers of the 19th century turned to it. The novelty was in the author's position. If earlier people evoked compassion primarily as victims of life, then with Gorky everything is different. His tramps are not so much unfortunate victims of life as rebels who themselves do not accept this life. They are not so much outcasts as rejecters. And those who reject precisely the world of philistine everyday life and vulgarity. An example of this can be seen in the story “Konovalov”. Already at the beginning, the writer emphasizes that his hero has a profession, he is an excellent baker, and the owner of the bakery values him. But Konovalov is gifted with a lively mind and a restless heart; just a well-fed existence is not enough for him. This is a person who thinks about life and does not accept the ordinary in it: “You don’t live, you rot!” Konovalov dreams of a heroic situation in which his rich nature could manifest itself. He is fascinated by the images of Stenka Razin and Taras Bulba. In everyday life, the hero feels unnecessary and leaves her, ultimately dying tragically.
Another Gorky hero from the story “The Orlov Spouses” is also akin to him. Gregory is one of the brightest and most controversial characters in the early work of the writer. This is a man of strong passions, hot and impetuous. He is intensely searching for the meaning of life. At times it seems to him that he has found it - for example, when he works as an orderly in a cholera barracks. But then Gregory sees the illusory nature of this meaning and returns to his natural state of rebellion, opposition to the environment. He is capable of doing a lot for people, even sacrificing his life for them, but this sacrifice must be instant and bright, heroic, like Danko’s feat. No wonder he says about himself: “And my heart burns with a great fire.”
Gorky treats people like Konovalov, Orlov and the like with understanding. However, if you think about it, you can see that the writer, already at an early stage of his work, noticed a phenomenon that became one of the problems of post-revolutionary Russian life: a person’s desire for a heroic act, for feat, self-sacrifice, impulse and inability for everyday work, for everyday life, for her everyday life, devoid of a heroic aura. People of this type can turn out to be great in extreme situations, in days of disasters, wars, revolutions, but they are most often not viable in the normal course of human life. So the fates and characters of the heroes of young Gorky are relevant to this day.
Gorky's early romantic works are diverse in genre: these are stories, legends, fairy tales, poems. The most famous stories are “Makar Chudra” and “Old Woman Izergil”. In the first of them, the writer, according to all the laws of the romantic movement, draws images of beautiful, brave and strong people. Based on the tradition of Russian literature, Gorky turns to the images of gypsies, who have become a symbol of will and unbridled passions. In the work, a romantic conflict arises between the feeling of love and the desire for freedom. It is resolved by the death of the heroes, but this death is not perceived as a tragedy, but rather as a triumph of life and will.
In the story “Old Woman Izergil” the narrative is also built according to romantic canons. Already at the very beginning, a characteristic motif of dual worlds arises. The hero-narrator is the bearer of social consciousness of the real world. He is opposed by the world of romantic heroes - again, beautiful, brave, strong people: “They walked, sang and laughed.” The work poses the problem of the ethical orientation of a romantic personality. The romantic hero and other people - how do their relationships develop? In other words, the traditional question is posed: man and environment. As befits romantic heroes, Gorky's characters oppose their environment. This was obviously manifested in the image of Larra, who openly violated the law of human life and was punished by eternal loneliness. He is opposed to Danko. The story about him is constructed as an allegory of people’s path to a better, fair life, from darkness to light. In Danko, Gorky embodied the image of the leader of the masses. Danko, just like Larra, is opposed to the environment and is hostile to it. Faced with the difficulties of the path, people grumble at their leader, blaming him for their troubles, while the masses, as befits a romantic work, are endowed with negative characteristics. “Danko looked at those for whom he had labored and saw that they were like animals. Many people stood around him, but there was no nobility on their faces.” Danko is a lone hero, he convinces people with the power of his personal sacrifice. Here the writer realizes and makes literal a metaphor widespread in language: the fire of the heart. The hero's feat regenerates people and carries them along. But this does not stop him from being a loner: the people who are carried forward by him remain not only indifferent to him, but also hostile. “People, joyful and full of hope, did not notice his death and did not see that his brave heart was still burning next to Danko’s corpse. Only one cautious person noticed this and, fearing something, stepped on the proud heart with his foot.”
The legend of Danko was actively used as material for revolutionary propaganda, the image of the hero was cited as an example to follow, and was widely attracted by official ideology. However, with Gorky everything is not as simple and unambiguous as involuntary commentators tried to make it out to be. The young writer was able to sense in the image of a single hero a dramatic note of incomprehensibility and hostility to him from the environment, the masses.
In the story “Old Woman Izergil” the pathos of teaching inherent in Gorky is clearly felt. It is even more clear in a special genre - songs (“Song of the Falcon”, “Song of the Petrel”). I would like to draw attention to one important problem for the writer in the early period of his work, formulated in “Song of the Falcon”. This is the problem of the collision of a heroic personality with the world of everyday life, with philistine consciousness, which was largely developed in realistic stories of the early period.
One of the writer’s artistic discoveries was the theme of the “bottom” man, a degraded, often drunken tramp - in those years it was customary to call them tramps. M. Gorky knew this environment well, showed great interest in it and widely reflected it in his works, earning the title “singer of tramping.” This topic itself was not completely new; many writers of the 19th century turned to it. The novelty was in the author's position. If earlier people evoked compassion primarily as victims of life, then with Gorky everything is different. His tramps are not so much unfortunate victims of life as rebels who themselves do not accept this life. They are not so much outcasts as rejecters. And those who reject precisely the world of philistine everyday life and vulgarity. An example of this can be seen in the story “Konovalov”. Already at the beginning, the writer emphasizes that his hero has a profession, he is an excellent baker, and the owner of the bakery values him. But Konovalov is gifted with a lively mind and a restless heart; just a well-fed existence is not enough for him. This is a person who thinks about life and does not accept the ordinary in it: “You don’t live, you rot!” Konovalov dreams of a heroic situation in which his rich nature could manifest itself. He is fascinated by the images of Stenka Razin and Taras Bulba. In everyday life, the hero feels unnecessary and leaves her, ultimately dying tragically.
Another Gorky hero from the story “The Orlov Spouses” is also akin to him. Gregory is one of the brightest and most controversial characters in the early work of the writer. This is a man of strong passions, hot and impetuous. He is intensely searching for the meaning of life. At times it seems to him that he has found it - for example, when he works as an orderly in a cholera barracks. But then Gregory sees the illusory nature of this meaning and returns to his natural state of rebellion, opposition to the environment. He is capable of doing a lot for people, even sacrificing his life for them, but this sacrifice must be instant and bright, heroic, like Danko’s feat. No wonder he says about himself: “And my heart burns with a great fire.”
Gorky treats people like Konovalov, Orlov and the like with understanding. However, if you think about it, you can see that the writer, already at an early stage of his work, noticed a phenomenon that became one of the problems of post-revolutionary Russian life: a person’s desire for a heroic act, for feat, self-sacrifice, impulse and inability for everyday work, for everyday life, for her everyday life, devoid of a heroic aura. People of this type can turn out to be great in extreme situations, in days of disasters, wars, revolutions, but they are most often not viable in the normal course of human life. So the fates and characters of the heroes of young Gorky are relevant to this day.
Critics and literary scholars have written a lot and often about the work of Maxim Gorky. Already in 1898, critic Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovsky wrote an article “About M. Gorky and his heroes,” in which he analyzed Gorky’s early stories, written by him in 1892-1898. He writes that the writer reveals in his work the world of tramps and shows two pillars of tramp life: love of freedom and depravity. According to the researcher, Gorky's heroes philosophize too much. I find it difficult to agree with this statement. Early prose of Maxim Gorky
Permeated with the spirit of romanticism, all woven from the deepest emotional experiences, high human aspirations. In his story “Makar Chudra,” Gorky retold a legend he heard while traveling through central and southern Russia. This legend is correlated with Makar’s thoughts about human life. The main thing in life for the old gypsy is freedom. In confirmation of this, Makar tells the legend about the proud beauty Radda and the beautiful young man Loiko Zobar. Radda's beauty defies description in simple words. “Perhaps its beauty could be played on the violin, and even then to the one who knows this violin as well as his own soul?” Loiko Zobar’s “eyes are like clear stars, and his smile is like the whole sun. He stands covered in blood, in the fire of a fire, and his teeth sparkle, laughing!” The heroes loved each other dearly, but more important than this love for both was their own freedom. “If an eagle entered the raven’s nest of her own free will, what would she become?” - says Radda. When Radda demands that Loiko bow at her feet, he refuses and kills her, and she, dying, thanks him for not obeying her and remaining worthy of her love. The author expresses the idea that freedom and happiness are incompatible if one person must submit to another. The heroes are not shown as fighters for the freedom of other people. The story is based on a different idea: before fighting for others, a person must gain inner freedom. At the same time, Loiko Zobar had the makings of a folk hero, ready for self-sacrifice in the name of another person: “You need his heart, he himself would tear it out of his chest and give it to you, if only it would make you feel good.” Gorky brings together two elements - love and freedom. Love is a union of equals, the essence of love is freedom. But life often proves the opposite - in love, one person submits to another. After kissing Radda's hand, Loiko kills her. And the author, realizing that Zobar simply had no other choice, at the same time does not justify this murder, punishing Loiko with the hand of Radda’s father. It’s not in vain that Radda dies with the words: “I knew you would do this!” She, too, could not live with Zobar, who humiliated himself before her, who lost himself. Radda dies happy - her lover did not disappoint her. Gorky's romantic stories are characterized by people who have strong characters. | The writer distinguished between a force acting in the name of good and a force that brings evil. In 1894, he wrote his famous story “Old Woman Izergil,” which included two wonderful legends: the legend of Larra and the legend of Danko. The legends in the story oppose each other. They highlight two different views of life. The legend of Larra is the first one told by the old woman Izergil. Larra, the son of an eagle and an earthly woman, considers himself superior to those around him. He is proud and arrogant. Larra kills a girl - the daughter of an elder who rejected him. When asked why he did this, the young man replies: “Do you only use yours? I see that every person has only speech, arms, legs, but he owns animals, women, land and much more.” For the crime he committed, the tribe condemned Larra to eternal loneliness. Life outside society gives rise to young man a feeling of inexpressible melancholy. “In his eyes,” says Izergil, “there was so much melancholy that one could poison all the people of the world with it.” Larra was doomed to loneliness, and considered only death to be happiness. But his human essence did not allow him to live alone, freely, like an eagle. “His father was not a man, but this one was a man.” And it’s not for nothing that “for a long time he, alone, hovered around people.” That is why disunity with people ruined him. Larra did not want to become a man, but he could not become a free bird, an eagle. That is why “he was left alone, free, awaiting death.” The inability to die became the most terrible punishment for Larra. “He has already become like a shadow and will remain so forever.” “This is how a man was struck for his pride!” In the work, the image of Larra and the legend about him, as already mentioned, are contrasted with the image of Danko. The main spiritual qualities are philanthropy, kindness, willingness to sacrifice oneself for the happiness of one’s people. The beginning of the legend is very similar to a fairy tale: “In the old days, there lived only people; impenetrable forests surrounded the camps of these people on three sides, and on the fourth there was the steppe.” Gorky creates the image of a dense forest, full of dangers: “... the stone trees stood silent and motionless during the day in the gray twilight and moved even more densely around people in the evenings, when the fires were lit. And it was even more terrible when the wind beat on the tops of the trees and the whole forest hummed dully, as if it was threatening and singing a funeral song to those people.” All the more desirable against this background is the appearance of Danko, seized by the idea of leading people out of the swamps and dead forest. But ungrateful people attack Danko with reproaches and threats, calling him “an insignificant and harmful person,” with a desire to kill him. However, Danko forgives them. He rips out of his chest a heart burning with the bright fire of love for these same people, and illuminates their path. Danko’s act, in Gorky’s understanding, is a feat, the highest degree of freedom from self-love. The hero dies, but the sparks of his generous heart still illuminate the path to truth and goodness. Gorky stated the need to search for new paths in literature: “The task of literature is to capture in chamfers, in words, in sounds, in forms, what is best, beautiful, honest, noble in a person. In particular, my task is to awaken a person’s pride in himself, to tell him that he is the best, the most sacred in life.” In my opinion, Alexey Maksimovich Gorky fulfilled this task in his early works.
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Composition
According to the bright and precise words of L. Leonov, the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. crossed by the “troika” of great Russian writers: L. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov and A. M. Gorky. In this trio, the “roots” was L. Tolstoy, but it was Gorky, the youngest of them, who was destined to throw, like a bridge, the idea of literary ministry from the 19th to the 20th centuries. He became a living classic both for those who respectfully acknowledged it and for those who vehemently denied it.
The words of young Gorky sounded new, bright and bold. He contrasted pessimism, social cynicism, and weariness with life with the idea of freedom and heroic deeds: “We need heroic deeds, heroic deeds! We need words that would sound like an alarm bell, disturb everything and, shaking, push us forward.”
“The time has come for the need for the heroic” - this is how the writer defined the social need, to which he responded by creating romantic images strong, proud and passionate heroes, contrasted with “boring people” (stories “Makar Chudra”, “Old Woman Izergil”).
When creating images of such heroes, Gorky was not afraid to “embellish” life, using artistic techniques found by his romantic predecessors. This is a description of an exceptional person in exceptional circumstances, an exotic landscape and portrait that emphasizes this exclusivity, antithesis as the basis of the composition of the work, the proximity of the prose word to the poetic word, rhythm, richness of paths, symbolism.
Starting from the very first works, Gorky’s works raise the question “how to live?” He becomes one of the main ones in the story “Old Woman Izergil” (1895). Each hero of the work - Larra, Danko, Izergil - is a bright personality, rising above the ordinary. But it turns out that the presence of qualities strong personality still not enough for a positive attitude towards her. Much more important is what goals this power is aimed at.
In the contrast and comparison of the heroes of the work, the idea of feat in the name of common happiness is affirmed. The hero of one of the legends - Larra, the son of a woman and an eagle - is punished for his pride with a terrible punishment: he is doomed to eternal life alone. On behalf of ancient people he is judged by the elders, personifying the wisdom of the eternal laws of unity, respect, humanity.
Selfless service to people is the meaning of Danko’s life, confirming Izergil’s conclusion that “there is always a place for exploits in life.” The hardships of the journey, the murmur and misunderstanding of people, their fear and horror - Danko had to overcome everything, lighting the path with his burning heart. Love for people and pity for them give strength to the hero.
The atmosphere of testing is enhanced by the landscape, the details of which are symbolic. A stinking swamp, an impenetrable forest, a thunderstorm personify that “terrible, dark and cold” that is in life and in the very consciousness of man, and the expanse of the steppe, the radiance of the sun - the “free land”, the light of the soul, to which man always strives. Thus, the landscape in the story not only creates an atmosphere of “fabulousness” and unusualness, but also serves as a way of expressing the generalized philosophical meaning of the work.
The same problem - the problem of the meaning of life - is at the center of "Song of the Falcon" (1895). These two works have a lot in common. Their composition is based on the antithesis: Larra - Danko, Uzh - Falcon. Two worldviews, two different attitudes to life are contrasted. Naturally, therefore, the landscape that accompanies the heroes and the attitude towards them are contrasting. Both works use the form of fairy tales, legends, and everything depicted is filled with deep philosophical overtones.
The storytellers - the old woman Izergil and the shepherd Rahim - become the embodiment of the memory and wisdom of the people. There are many similarities in the style of the works. The image of the heroes, according to Gorky, is “increased in tone and color,” which is achieved by the abundant use of epithets, comparisons, and various repetitions (“...near Akkerman, in Bessarabia, on the seashore,” “they walked, sang and laughed,” “high Already crawled into the mountains... the sun was shining high in the sky,” “the rocks trembled from their blows, the sky trembled from the menacing song”).
The clearly expressed rhythm of prosaic speech gives special emotionality to the narration: “We sing glory to the madness of the brave! The madness of the brave is the wisdom of life!” (iamb). The precision of the phrase, its aphorism is another distinctive feature of M. Gorky’s works.
Romantically colored, exaggeratedly enthusiastic glorification of the “hero of feat” only intensified the writer’s craving for depiction real life real person". In it he saw the “mosquito life of ordinary people,” which he hated, and “the great work of the little people unnoticed.” Gorky found among the “little people” extraordinary heroes, with a special noble structure of soul, with a sense of inner freedom. They turned out to be tramps , thrown to the sidelines of life, to its very bottom, but, despite the circumstances, retaining “pearls of moral qualities.”
One of the first examples of such a hero is given in the early story “Chelkash” (1895). The picture of the port that opens the work is realistically drawn. And at the same time, a generalized image of a world appears before us, hostile to man, enslaving and depersonalizing people.
In the portrait of the main character, after whom the story is named, romantic features (the resemblance to a wild and strong predator is emphasized) are combined with realistic detail: “a straw was sticking out in... his brown mustache, another straw was tangled in the stubble of his left shaved cheek...” Conflict has a vital basis two heroes, but it was resolved with romantic devices.
The overarching idea of Gorky’s entire work is about the “variegation” of human characters, that some are “boring people”, “born old men”, unable to understand the true beauty of life, while others, free and courageous, personify this beauty, or, in any case, , bring a “fermentative beginning” into life, sounds in this work.
The themes and images of M. Gorky's early works responded to the demands of the mass democratic consciousness of the reader who appeared in Russia in late XIX V. and expected art to reflect all his aspirations. The heroes of early Gorky not only met these requirements, but also resolved the idea of overcoming centuries-old oppression and were the embodiment of personal freedom.