Maxim Gorky
Russian and Soviet writer (1868–1936)
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (Russian: Алексей Максимович Пешков; 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868 – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; Максим Горький), was a Russian and Soviet writer, journalist, and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an author, he travelled widely across the Russian Empire, changing jobs frequently; these experiences would later influence his writing. He associated with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, both mentioned by Gorky in his memoirs.
Gorky was active in the emerging Marxist socialist movement and later supported the Bolsheviks. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. During World War I, Gorky supported pacifism and internationalism and anti-war protests. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia and later the Soviet Union, being critical both of Tsarism and of the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War and the 1920s, condemning the latter for political repressions. In 1928 he returned to the USSR on Joseph Stalin's personal invitation and lived there from 1932 until his death in June 1936. After his return he was officially declared the "founder of Socialist Realism".
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Maxim Gorky” as russian and Soviet writer (1868–1936). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as russian and Soviet writer (1868–1936). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12706. VIAF identifies the subject as 96998392. The Library of Congress control number is n80126152. 6 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1868, 1936, 1928 and 1932.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maxim Gorky” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.