11 h 16 minAudiobook6 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
You will enjoy this if you love vivid short stories, wanderers and roadside conversations, and portraits of ordinary people drawn with warmth and a sharp eye for odd detail.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A stranger delivers a baby by the sea
- Ossip keeps the carpenters talking
- Gubin, the truth teller who wants to expose sins
- A holy fool is made useful to a poor suburb
- Lieutenant Khorvat wants tombstones to tell the truth
- Strangers on a steamer judge a troubled young man
- Tatiana searches for a home among vagabonds
- Three watchmen in a pass drift toward trouble
- Kalinin and the dead man, two roadside lessons
Who’s who
- The narratorA young wanderer who works odd jobs across southern Russia, listening to strangers and sometimes stepping into their troubles.
- OssipA silver-bearded foreman and storyteller who hates work yet leads his carpenters when the river ice begins to move.
- GubinA ruined, stammering man who lives in a ravine shanty and insists on telling everyone the truth.
- Antipa VologonovA rheumatic pawnbroker who speaks in church phrases and waits for a Strange Man to proclaim a Word.
- Lieutenant KhorvatA retired officer with a fierce mustache who wants every grave to record what its occupant did.
- TatianaA woman from Riazan who sews well and dreams of a farm and village near New Athos.
- KalininA former footman turned pilgrim who tells devil tales and dislikes serving other people.
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- Audiobook
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Read and hear Through Russia in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Through Russia
by Maxim Gorky
A young wanderer delivers a stranger's baby on a Caucasus roadside, then walks on through a Russia of drifters.
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In short
A young man sits on the rocks above a Caucasian river, eating honey, when a woman in a yellow scarf cries out in the bushes. It gives you tramps, carpenters, pilgrims and failures, met in towns and along the road.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A stranger delivers a baby by the sea
The first story, The Birth of a Man, is set in the famine year of 1892 on the Kodor River near the Black Sea. The narrator is a young wanderer gathering wild honey. He hears groaning in the bushes and finds a pregnant woman from Orlov province who has slipped away from her companions to give birth in private.
He has little idea what to do, yet he stays. He lays her down, runs to the sea, and helps the baby into the world, while both of them curse and weep. He bites the cord because his knife was stolen, and ties it with a ribbon. The mother crosses herself and her baby.
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What is Through Russia about?
It is a collection of ten stories by Maksim Gorky, each following a young wanderer who meets tramps, pilgrims, carpenters and failures across southern Russia and the Caucasus, and listens to their stories.
Which stories are in Through Russia?
The collection contains The Birth of a Man, The Icebreaker, Gubin, Nilushka, The Cemetery, On a River Steamer, A Woman, In a Mountain Pass, Kalinin and The Dead Man.
Is Through Russia based on real events?
The narrator recalls work, travel and conversations with strangers. The stories present these encounters as personal memories, but do not establish how closely each event follows Gorky's life.
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.
More by Maxim Gorky
All 7 booksMore like this
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