Горький и ложь

In: Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, Band 29, Heft 1, S. 5-12

Abstract

Michel Heller, Gor'kii and the lies.
The essential quality of a Russian writer occupying the throne of "master of thought", since Belinskii, was the "edinobozhie" , that is a fanatical dedication to an idea. M. Gor'kii often changed ideas and "gods", but always remained within the framework of an unvarying outline : a researcher of truth (god), bearer of collective energy, entrusted with the expression of mass desires as opposed to the mass, to the crowd that does not understand its own interests. The strong and the weak, the strong leading the weak. Since the weak do not want to go anywhere, they must be drawn into motion, given a "golden dream", a beautiful lie. The truth, within Gor'kii's conception is a force hostile to humanity, an obstacle to progress. For the first time, Gor'kii explained this conception in a "poetical tale" "About the canary that was lying and the woodpecker who loved truth", published in 1893. The article describes the evolution of this conception in Gor'kii's work, till the end of his life, till his articles glorifying Stalinist terror and the concentration camps.