11 h 16 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
On Russia’s roads, hunger and cruelty live beside shared bread, strange stories and sudden dignity.
In Through Russia, Maxim Gorky draws on his years as a wanderer across the Russian empire. These short sketches bring you into villages, riverside towns, inns and shelters, among peasants, workers, vagrants, pilgrims and dreamers. There is no single plot to follow. Instead, each encounter brings another ordinary life into close, sometimes uncomfortable view.
Hardship presses on these people. Hunger, drink, quarrels and casual violence shape their days, but they do not tell the whole story. A stranger shares bread; a wanderer tells a moving tale; a poor man shows unexpected dignity. Against a background of war and mounting unrest before 1917, Gorky explores cruelty, patience and flashes of warmth without offering a political programme.
What you’ll discover
- Russia seen on foot Follow portraits drawn from Gorky’s own wandering, close to the people he meets.
- Lives under pressure Face hunger and everyday violence without a tidy picture to soften their force.
- Bread shared with strangers Find moments of kindness that make these rough places more than scenes of suffering.
- Voices along the road Meet workers, pilgrims and dreamers whose stories give the collection its varied human shape.
- A country before upheaval Explore ordinary lives in a Russia marked by war, unrest and the approach of change.
Who will love it
For readers who love short, human portraits of a place and time, and anyone curious about Russia before 1917, with its peasants, vagrants, pilgrims and dreamers.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A writer who learned Russia on foot
- Poverty and cruelty are everyday facts
- Kindness and wonder appear in rough places
- A nation on the edge of change
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À travers la Russie
by Maxime Gorki
On the roads of the Russian empire, Gorky meets cruelty, kindness and a hunger for meaning.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Through Russia is a collection of short sketches by Maksim Gorky, drawn from his years as a wanderer on the roads of the Russian empire. Gorky was born Alexei Peshkov, and he took a pen name that means bitter.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A writer who learned Russia on foot
Gorky did not study Russia from a desk. Orphaned young, he worked as a dishwasher, baker's helper and labourer, and in his twenties he travelled widely across the empire, often on foot. That life gave him a store of faces and voices, and these sketches draw on it.
The collection takes its shape from the road itself. One scene follows another, with a new person at each turn. The reader moves with the writer from place to place, much as a traveller does.
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What is Through Russia about?
It is a collection of short sketches by Maksim Gorky portraying ordinary Russians he met on his travels: peasants, vagrants, workers and dreamers, shown in their hardship, cruelty and moments of kindness.
Who wrote Through Russia and when?
Maksim Gorky wrote it. The sketches were composed in the years before the 1917 revolutions and draw on his earlier wanderings across the Russian empire as a young man.
Is Through Russia a true story?
It is a work of literature, not a strict memoir. The sketches are rooted in what Gorky saw and heard during his travels, but they are shaped as stories and portraits.
The author
Maxim Gorky
1868–1936 · Russian and Soviet novelist
Maksim Gorky (1868–1936) was a Russian and Soviet writer born in Nizhny Novgorod. His real name was Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov. He wrote novels, stories and plays, including The Lower Depths (1902) and Mother (1906). He lived in Russia and Italy and died near Moscow.
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