Mother (novel)

Background

Gorky wrote the novel during a trip to the United States in 1906, with a clear political agenda. Following the defeat of Russia's first revolution in 1905, he aimed to raise the spirit of the proletarian movement and counter defeatist moods among revolutionaries. The story is based on real events: a May Day demonstration in Sormovo in 1902, involving Anna Zalomova and her son Pyotr Zalomov. Gorky, a distant relative of Anna Zalomova, had a personal connection to the family. The novel was first published by Appleton's Magazine in the US and later by Ivan Ladyzhnikov Publishers in Germany; in Russia, Tsarist censorship prevented legal publication until after the February Revolution.

Plot

The novel centers on Pelageya Nilovna Vlasova, a factory worker enduring poverty, hunger, and abuse from her drunkard husband. After her husband dies, her son Pavel Vlasov initially follows his father's habits but then becomes involved in revolutionary activities, bringing books and friends home. Though illiterate and politically uninterested, Nilovna is moved by maternal feelings and gradually overcomes her ignorance to join the revolutionary cause. Pavel is the main revolutionary character, alongside friends like the anarchist peasant Rybin and the Ukrainian Andrey Nakhodka, who advocates Socialist internationalism. Nilovna, however, is considered the true protagonist.

Popular and critical reception

Mother is Gorky's only major novel on the Russian revolutionary movement, yet it is possibly the least successful of his novels. Nonetheless, it remains his best-known work among his novels. Modern critics regard it as his most important pre-revolutionary novel, as it is his only long work devoted to the Russian revolutionary movement and vividly expresses his 'God-Builder' ideas. Richard Freeborn notes its importance as Gorky's only work written specifically about the proletariat during the proletarian revolution, and that it moves toward pure fictional invention, unlike his more autobiographical works.

After Gorky's return to the Soviet Union, authorities declared it 'the first work of Socialist realism' and Gorky its 'founder'. Gorky himself was highly critical, calling it 'unsuccessful', 'long, boring and carelessly written', and 'insufficiently democratic'. Critics including Korney Chukovsky, Andrei Sinyavsky, Ilya Serman, and Marylin Minto have described numerous artistic flaws. Minto notes Nilovna's portrayal is successful but other characters are one-dimensional; Freeborn adds they are little more than 'eloquent mouthpieces', though Gorky mitigates this by projecting them through Nilovna's perception.

Adaptations

The novel was adapted into a silent film in 1926 directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin, and into a play by Bertolt Brecht in 1932 titled Die Mutter. Later film adaptations include Mark Donskoy's Mother (1955) and Gleb Panfilov's Mother (1990). The 2011 Indian Tamil-language period action film Ilaignan, directed by Suresh Krishna, is also based on the novel.