Maxim Gorky Critical Essay | Critical Essay by George J. Gutsche

Critical Essay by George J. Gutsche

"Gor'kii's 'Twenty-six and One'," in Moral Apostasy in Russian Literature, Northern Illinois University Press, 1986, pp. 99-116.

In the following essay, Gutsche undertakes a psychological, thematic, and symbolic analysis of Gorky's story generally translated as "Twenty-six Men and a Girl."

It seemed to us that we were playing some kind of game with the Devil, and our stakes were Tania.

When Maksim Gor'kii heard that the octogenarian Tolstoi had abandoned home and family to make what was to be a final pilgrimage, this is how he responded:

Well, now he is probably taking his final leap in order to give his ideas the highest possible significance. Like Vasilii Buslaev, he loved to jump, but always in the direction of strengthening his own holiness and seeking a halo. This is inquisitional, though his teaching is justified by the ancient history of Russia, and by his own sufferings...
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