The article attempts to systematize all the publications of the critic Yu.I. Aikhenwald concerning the literary work of M. Gorky. The features of the reception of the writer’s work in Aikhenwald’s literary criticism are analyzed, key claims to his style are marked, such as artificial fiction that replaces reality, unnatural images and plots, “incoherent combination of artist and reasoned”, tendentiousness. The main attention is paid to the reviews and articles of Aikhenwald during the period of emigration: the critic’s responses to such works as “Childhood”, “The Artamonov Business”, “From the Diary” are touched upon. It is noted that the following factors had a certain influence on the polemical direction of his reviews: Gorky’s participation in the revolutionary movement, friendly ties with the main Bolsheviks, as well as the principled anti-Bolshevism of the critic himself. The fundamentally anti-Gorky position of the Rul’ newspaper, of which he was a member of the editorial board, also had a certain influence on Aikhenwald’s attitude towards the writer. The article also examines Aikhenwald’s responses to Gorky’s essay “Vladimir Lenin” and the publication of his letter to Yakov Ganetsky about the death of Felix Dzerzhinsky.
M. Gorky; Yu.I. Aikhenwald; Russian emigration; literary criticism; newspaper Rul; bibliography.
Kochergina, I.V. “The History of Literary Relations Between M. Gorky and Yu.I. Aikhenwald: To Posing the Problem”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 3(61), 2023, pp. 143–159. (In Russ.) DOI: 10.31249/litzhur/2023.61.09