Maxim Gorky

Maxim Gorky
Portrait of Gorky, c. 1906
Born	Alexei Maximovich Peshkov 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868 Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire
Died	18 June 1936(1936-06-18) (aged 68) Gorki-10, Moscow Oblast, Soviet Union
Pen name	Maxim Gorky
Occupation	Writer, dramatist, politician
Nationality	Russian, Soviet
Period	Modernism
Genre	Novel, drama
Literary movement	Socialist realism
Signature

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (Russian: Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в or Пе́шков; 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868 – 18 June 1936), primarily known as Maxim (Maksim) Gorky (/ˈɡɔːrki/;Russian: Макси́м Го́рький), was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. He was also a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Around fifteen years before success as a writer, he frequently changed jobs and roamed across the Russian Empire; these experiences would later influence his writing. Gorky's most famous works were The Lower Depths (1902), Twenty-six Men and a Girl, The Song of the Stormy Petrel, The Mother, Summerfolk and Children of the Sun. He had an association with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov; Gorky would later mention them in his memoirs.

Gorky was active with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime, and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the party. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia and later the Soviet Union. In 1932, he returned to Russia on Joseph Stalin's personal invitation and died there in June 1936.