пиеси

With the plays "Guilds" and "At the Bottom" a new stage in the work of Maxim Gorky begins, connected with the growing revolutionary upsurge in Russia with the first rumblings and the approach of the 1905 revolution. During this period, the author of the romantic hymns about the madness of the heroes" and about the flaming heart of Danko, the realist writer, revealed the tragic fate and spontaneous protest of the barefoot people against the corrupting influence of the guild, proprietary morality - he becomes more and more closely associated with the revolutionary movement, intervenes in political struggles against the Russian autocracy and gradually connects with the Leninist wing of Russian Social Democracy. He becomes a stormtrooper, the herald of the revolution, the first proletarian writer of world significance in whose work the principles of socialist realism are formed. It was at this time that he fully realized his long-standing dream - to create art that arouses heroic emotions, reaching the widest circles, calls for the reorganization of the social order. In the play "Guilds" Gorky for the first time in world literature created the image of a proletarian fighter - the train driver Nile with his optimistic life-affirming philosophy, which acts like thunder over the troubled guild swamp. In Nile's words "The owner is the one who works", "Rights are not given - rights are won", "There is no such train schedule that cannot be changed" speaks of a new proletarian class, which has gathered strength for decisive political battles. Gorky takes stock of his early work and in the play "The Bottom". He frees himself from any romanticization of the free and protesting barefoot people; now they are already unfortunate victims, having lost everything that can be lost, but remaining sensitive to the call for human dignity, for the greatness of man. The famous words "Man - this is magnificent! Man - this sounds proud!" spread with incredible speed all over the world and shake the packed theaters in European capitals. They are spoken by some pitiful fragments of the human race, sunk in rags, from the darkness of their pit - this temporarily emphasizes the active humanism of the play even more strongly. At the same time, as an outlet, Gorky rejects passive compassion, the comforting lie of heavy suffering, exposes the philosophy of powerlessness, which seeks reconciliation with reality as a means that helps the masters of power to plunder their victims even more cruelly.

Here the curtain is lifted and the reality, which is supposedly so familiar to us, is revealed in some unseen, unsuspected light. The reason, of course, is at least in the modern, unfamiliar, often a little bizarre artistic means, although they are sometimes necessary. The reason is in the unusually fresh, wise, communist contemporary view of the author, in his new discovery of the world. The bearer of "innovative power" in the play, of that dreamed thing that the viewer seems to want to take with him after the performance, is the dramatic image. Through it, the playwright achieves his ultimate goal: to influence the viewer. Without a dramatic image, the most fulfilling idea, the most complexly conceived conflict, and the most original dramatic composition hang in the air. Only the dramatic image-discovery can give them flesh and blood, revive the author's innermost thoughts, excite the viewer with his fate, make him think, believe in the improbable.

The strong emphasis on the moral moment, revealing the revolutionary essence of the spiritual atmosphere of our time and days, inevitably led to a certain didacticism in dramaturgy. The socialist ideal, expressed in the concrete idea of ​​the work, as the norm of life, i.e. as its driving and determining force and the reverse process - the revelation of life, from which the idea is logically derived, determined part of our newest dramaturgy.