Italian Palimpsest of M. Gorky’s Writings in Capri

Abstract

The author of the article actualises the Italian genotext of A.M. Gorky’s creativity of the Capri period. Neither before nor after the work of “the Stormy Petrel of the Revolution” was characterised by such a joyful and “spiritually uplifting” worldview as it was on the island of Capri. Despite the fact that Gorky wrote about Russian life, his works of this period reveal an “Italian palimpsest”, which became the subject of analysis. Gorky’s works Confession (1907-1908), Summer (1909), Gorodok Okurov (1909-1910), The Life of Matvei Kozhemyakin (1910-1911) have not been analysed by researchers from the point of view of the Italian presence. The Italian palimpsest of Gorky’s Capri oeuvre was first brought to the attention of one of the first chroniclers of “Russian Capri”, the writer Alexei Zolotarev, who pointed out the main peculiarity of this period of the writer’s work, which still raises many questions for literary historians.