biography
| name: |
Gorky, Maxim
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pseudonym of Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1868–1936)
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| biography:
| Novelist and playwright, born in Nizhni Novgorod, W Russia. He held a variety of menial posts before becoming a writer, producing several Romantic short stories, then social novels and plays, notably the drama Na dne (1902, The Lower Depths). At first he modelled his plays on Chekhov. An autobiographical trilogy (1915–23) contains his best writing. Involved in strikes and imprisoned in 1905, he was an exile in Italy until 1914, then engaged in revolutionary propaganda for the new regime. He was the first president of the Soviet Writers' Union, and a supporter of Stalinism. He died in mysterious circumstances, and may have been the victim of an anti-Soviet plot. His birthplace was renamed Gorky in his honour (1929–91). |
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