Maxim Gorky's creative legacy and its significance in the history of world literature were discussed at the video lecture in the Presidential Library

March 28, 2018 the Presidential Library hosted a video lecture from the series "Knowledge of Russia" on the theme "Maxim Gorky: personality, fate, legacy", dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the writer's birth.

Nikolai Guskov, Candidate of Philological Sciences., associate professor of the Department of the History of Russian Literature of the St. Petersburg State University, introduced the audience to the biography of Maxim Gorky, described the stages of his work and the writer's contribution to the history of world literature.

To the 150th anniversary of the writer, the Presidential Library presented on its portal an electronic collection "Maxim Gorky (1868-1936)", which included digital copies of books, periodicals and archival documents devoted to his life and work, as well as texts of his own works of art, articles, memoirs. In addition, postcards, photographs and other materials with images of the writer and monuments to him are presented.

The visitor of the portal of the Presidential Library can also get familiar with the little-known publishing projects of Maxim Gorky. A literary-critical magazine "Literary Studies", which was founded by the writer in 1930, is among them. In opening the first issue of the article Gorky writes: "Our task is to teach literacy our novice writers, the writer's craft, business techniques, word work on the word. This is not an easy task". The titles of the articles speak for themselves: "How Pushkin wrote", "What the language is", "On the language responsibility of the writer", "Conversation in literary consultation", "Methods of creative work of Stendhal" and so on.

Memories of Maxim Gorky deserve special attention. They paint living portraits of many of his famous contemporaries, among them are A.P. Chekhov, L. N. Andreev, V. I. Lenin. For example, the writer remembered Leo Tolstoy: "He has amazing hands ... full of special expressiveness and creative power. Probably, Leonardo da Vinci had such hands. With these hands you can do everything. Sometimes, when talking, he moves his fingers, gradually squeezes them into a fist, then suddenly opens it and simultaneously pronounces a good, full word".

The video lecture was attended by students of the Philological Faculty of the Pushkin Leningrad State University, the Faculty of Culture of the St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions, the Faculty of Arts of the St. Petersburg State University. The guests and employees of the V. Y. Shishkov Altai Regional Universal Scientific Library (Barnaul), the Pushkin Tambov Regional Universal Scientific Library joined the event through the video-conferencing mode.