Maxim Gorky

Profession: Playwright & Author

Nationality:

Biography: Maxim Gorky was a Russian writer, nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. His most famous works are his short stories, written early in his career, including Chelkash (1894) and Twenty-Six Men and a Girl (1899).

Gorky also wrote plays, such as The Lower Depths (1902) and Children of the Sun (1905), and poems, for instance, The Song of the Stormy Petrel (1901).

He was associated with both Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, two fellow Russian writers, and was an active opponent of the Tsarist regime and proponent of the Bolshevik movement. Gorky was also closely associated with Lenin for a time.

Despite this early agreement between Gorky and the coming Soviet regime, he was exiled from the Soviet Union for a period and only returned in 1932 after being invited back personally by Joseph Stalin.

Born: March 28, 1868
Birthplace: Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Star Sign: Aries

Died: June 18, 1936 (aged 68)