"Untimely Thoughts": Gorky's reflections on the duality of the Russian soul

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The end of the 20th century is a turning point in history and human thought. We realized that the whole long period of the last 75 years had a specific meaning. And this meaning was best expressed by the theoreticians of socialism. The “petrel” of that time, Maxim Gorky, was able to truly convey the stormy, restless atmosphere of the beginning of the century in his notes en titled “Untimely Thoughts.”

It is not for nothing that this work is called a living document of the revolution. The book, without intermediaries and cuts, expresses the author's position in relation to the October Revolution, its prerequisites, consequences and the advent of the new power of the Bolsheviks. "Untimely Thoughts" was a forbidden work until the very perestroika. The articles were first published by Novaya Zhizn, which was then also closed under the pretext of the oppositional nature of the press.

His "Untimely Thoughts" Gorky associated with the revolution, as the embodiment of all the high hopes of the people. He considered it a harbinger of the revival of spirituality, the cause of the return of a long-lost sense of the homeland, and also an act by whichthe people will finally be able to independently take part in their own history.

So it was in the first articles of the series (there are 58 in total). But already after the beginning of the October events, Gorky realized that the revolution was not going at all the way he had expected. He addresses the proletariat, which has won the victory, with the question of whether this victory will bring changes to the "bestial Russian life", whether it will light up the light in the darkness of the life of the people. In other words, here already the ideals with which the writer loudly called for revolution are beginning to be opposed to the reality of the revolutionary days, which no one, even Maxim Gorky, could have predicted.

"Untimely Thoughts" especially vividly expresses the expressionism of the writer, their stylistic qualities give the right to call the notes one of his best works. There are many rhetorical questions, clear decisive conclusions, emotional appeals. The final idea of most of the articles is the fundamental divergence of Gorky's views from the Bolshevik slogans. And the main reason for this is the opposite points of view on the people and a fundamentally different attitude towards them. Gorky notes the passivity and at the same time the cruelty of the people, with unlimited power falling into their hands. The writer justifies this by the conditions of many years of life in which there was nothing bright: no respect for the individual, no equality, no freedom.

However, as Untimely Thoughts tells us, a revolution was still needed. Another thing is the combination of its emancipatory ideas withbloody orgy that invariably accompanies all coups d'état. Here "Thoughts" carry out an interesting experiment of national self-criticism. Gorky showed us the dual nature of the personality of a Russian person. This person is incapable of daily manifestations of generally accepted norms of morality, but, nevertheless, can accomplish a feat and even self-sacrifice.

As a result, the reason for the failure, according to Gorky, is not at all what the vast majority sees it. It is not "sloths" or counter-revolutionaries who are to blame for the misfortune - but ordinary Russian stupidity, lack of culture and sensitivity to historical changes. According to the author, the people, with long hard work, must win back the awareness of their own personality, be cleansed of the slavery that has sprouted in it, with the bright fire of culture.