One Autumn Night
| "One Autumn Night" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Maxim Gorky | |
| Original title | Однажды осенью |
| Country | Russia |
| Language | Russian |
| Genre(s) | short story |
| Publication | |
| Published in | Samara Newspaper |
| Publication date | 1895 |
One Autumn Night (Russian: Однажды осенью, romanized: Odnazhdy osen'yu) is a short story by Maxim Gorky, written in 1894. First published in the Samara Newspaper in 1895 with the subtitle "Story of an experienced man"; the subtitle was published until 1903. In 1899, the story was included in the third volume of the collection Sketches and Stories.[1]
Plot
[edit]The story presents an unusual event that happened to seventeen-year-old Gorky on a cold autumn evening at the end of October. The author writes that he found himself in an unpleasant situation: without money and acquaintances in a new city. He had nowhere to go, and he wandered into a place where there were steamboat piers. The author reasoned that "in the current state of culture, the hunger of the soul can be satisfied faster than the hunger of the body".[2] He was cold and hungry. He wandered along the chests in a vain search for something edible, when he saw a hunched female figure on the sand: a girl was blowing up one of the chests to find food, and asked him to help her.
The girl was very pretty and young, and her face was spoiled by three bruises. After an unsuccessful undermining, the girl offered to knock down the flimsy lock. The author did so. And in the chest they found a wet loaf of bread, which they happily shared. But they had to leave, and our heroes decided to hide for the night in an overturned boat. Having become better acquainted with the girl Natasha, it becomes clear that she is a prostitute.[2]
Criticism
[edit]Soviet literary scholar Anatoly A. Volkov noted:
"One Autumn Night" and other stories about people of the lower class gave bourgeois critics a reason to call Gorky a bard of tramps. With this definition, critics tried to belittle the social significance of Gorky's exposure. They saw the danger of Gorky's works for the bourgeoisie, but did not understand their deep meaning... Gorky was not interested in the "picturesque" life of the outcasts. There was no passive compassion or hypocritical tears in them. Gorky emphasized in his tramps everything that elevated them above the bourgeois environment. The main thing for Gorky was their desire to free themselves from the truce of bourgeois society, the essence of which was to protect the owner and everything he had stolen.[3]
Pavel Basinsky, in turn, wrote that Gorky in this early story “tried to find a bright beginning in the ‘lost creatures’, appealed for sympathy from himself and his heroes, and spoke out against attempts to humiliate and insult the little man”.[4]
Film adaptation
[edit]- Once in Autumn (2026). Russia. Directed by Nikita Sorokin.[5]
Literature
[edit]- Tatyana Ledneva. Maxim Gorky's story "One Autumn Night": the relationship between artistic method and subject organization // Gorky Readings 1997 (N. I. Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod)[6][7]
References
[edit]- ^ Александр Казанцев (23 October 2023). "Литературная композиция. Максим Горький – «Однажды осенью», рассказ (1894)". Библиотека-читальня имени И. С. Тургенева. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
- ^ a b Текст книги «Однажды осенью» на gorkiy-lit.ru
- ^ "Анатолий Волков. «Русская литература XX века. Дооктябрьский период» (1964)". Archived from the original on 2021-05-13. Retrieved 2021-05-15.
- ^ "Каины и Артёмы" (in Russian).
- ^ "Завершены съёмки фильма «Однажды осенью»". Кинобизнес сегодня. Retrieved 2025-07-16.
- ^ "Другой Горький". CyberLeninka. 2007.
- ^ "Сказочная традиция в русской литературе XIX века". Человек и наука. 2003.
External links
[edit]- Однажды осенью, the original Russian text
- One Autumn Night, the English text