We invite you to familiarize yourself with the autobiographical work created in 1923, read its summary. "My Universities" was written by Maxim Gorky (pictured below). The plot of the work is as follows.

Alyosha goes to Kazan. He wants to study, dreams of entering the university. However, life did not turn out as planned. You will learn about the further fate of Alexei Peshkov by reading the summary. "My Universities" is a work in which the author describes his youth. This is part of an autobiographical trilogy, which also includes "Childhood" and "In People". The trilogy ends with the story "My Universities". A brief summary of the chapters of the first two parts of it is not presented in this article.

Life at the Jewish

Alexey realized, having arrived in Kazan, that he would not have to prepare for the university. The Evreinovs lived very poorly, they could not feed him. In order not to dine with them, he left home in the morning, looking for a job. And in bad weather, the protagonist of the work "My Universities" sat in the basement, located not far from their apartment. The summary, like the story itself, is devoted to the period of Gorky's life from 1884 to 1888.

Acquaintance with Gury Pletnev

Often in the wasteland, young students gathered to play towns. Here Alyosha became friends with Gury Pletnev, a typographical employee. Having learned how difficult life was for Alyosha, he offered to move in with him and start preparing for the work of a village teacher. However, nothing came of this venture. Alyosha found refuge in a dilapidated house inhabited by the urban poor and hungry students. Pletnev worked at night and earned 11 kopecks a night. Alyosha slept on his bunk when he went to work.

The narrator, Alexei Peshkov, ran in the morning for boiling water to a nearby tavern. Pletnev read funny poems during tea, told news from newspapers. Then he went to bed, and Alyosha went to the Volga pier to work. He carried loads, sawed firewood. So Alyosha lived from winter to the end of summer.

Derenkov and his shop

We will describe further events that make up a brief summary. "My Universities" continues with the fact that in 1884, in the autumn, one of the students, with whom the narrator was familiar, brought him to Andrey Stepanovich Derenkov. It was the owner of a grocery store. Even the gendarmes had no idea that revolutionary-minded youth were gathering in Andrey Stepanovich's apartment, forbidden books were stored in his closet.

Alyosha quickly became friends with the owner of the shop. He read a lot, helped him in his work. In the evenings, high school students and students often met. Their congregation was noisy. These people were very different from those with whom Alexei lived in Nizhny. They, like him, hated the well-fed stupid life of the townspeople, they wanted to change the existing order. Among them were revolutionaries who remained to live in Kazan after returning from Siberian exile.

Visiting revolutionary circles

New acquaintances lived in anxiety and worries about the future of Russia. They were worried about the fate of the Russian people. It sometimes seemed to Peshkov that his own thoughts sounded in their speeches. He participated in the meetings of the circles that they held. However, these mugs seemed "boring" to the narrator. He sometimes thought he knew life better than most of his teachers. He had already read about much of what they talked about, experienced a lot himself.

Work in Semenov's pretzel establishment

Alyosha Peshkov, shortly after his acquaintance with Derenkov, went to work in a pretzel establishment run by Semyonov. He began to work here as an assistant baker. The establishment was in the basement. Alyosha had never worked in such unbearable conditions before. I had to work 14 hours a day in mud and stupefying heat. Semyonov's workers were called "prisoners" by their neighbors. Aleksey Peshkov could not accept the fact that they endure the bullying of the tyrant owner so meekly. He read forbidden books to the workers secretly from him. I wanted to give hope to these people that a completely different life is possible, Alexey Peshkov (M. Gorky). "My Universities", a summary of which in the format of one article can only be given in general terms, continues with a description of the secret room.

Secret room in the bakery

Alyosha from Semenov's bakery soon left to work for Derenkov, who opened a bakery. The income from it was supposed to be used for revolutionary purposes. Here Aleksey Peshkov puts bread in the oven, kneads the dough, and early in the morning, having stuffed a basket with rolls, he delivers pastries to apartments, takes the rolls to the student canteen. All this is described by Maxim Gorky ("My Universities"). The summary that we have compiled should make it clear to the reader that already in his youth Gorky had an interest in revolutionary activities. Therefore, we note that under the rolls he had leaflets, brochures, books, which he handed out imperceptibly along with pastries to those who should.

The secret room was located in the bakery. People came here for whom the purchase of bread was only an excuse. This bakery soon began to arouse suspicion among the police. The policeman Nikiforovich began to "circle like a kite" around Alyosha. He asked him about the visitors of the bakery, as well as about the books that Alexey reads, invited him to his place.

Mikhail Romas

In the bakery, among many other people, was Mikhail Antonovich Romas, nicknamed Khokhol. He was a large, broad-chested man with a bushy beard and a Tatar-style shaven head. He used to sit in a corner and silently smoke his pipe. Mikhail Antonovich, together with the writer Korolenko Vladimir Galaktionovich, recently returned from the Yakut exile. He settled in Krasnovidovo, a village on the Volga, not far from Kazan. Here Romas opened a shop in which he sold cheap goods. He also organized an artel of fishermen. Mikhail Antonovich needed this in order to more inconspicuously and more conveniently conduct revolutionary propaganda among the peasants, as noted by Maxim Gorky ("My Universities"). The summary takes the reader to Krasnovidovo, where Peshkov decided to go.

Alyosha goes to Krasnovidovo

In 1888, in June, on one of his visits to Kazan, Romas invited Alyosha to go to his village in order to help in trade. Mikhail Antonovich also promised to help Peshkov study. Naturally, Maksimych, as Alexei was now often called, agreed to this. He did not give up his dreams of learning. In addition, he liked Romas - his quiet persistence, calmness, silence. Alexei was curious to know what this hero was silent about.

Maksimych was already in Krasnovidovo a few days later. He had a long talk with Romas on the first evening after his arrival. Alexei enjoyed the interview very much. Then other evenings followed, when, having closed the shutters tightly, a lamp was lit in the room. Mikhail Antonovich spoke, and the peasants listened to him attentively. Alyosha settled down in the attic, studied diligently, read a lot, walked around the village, and talked with the local peasants.

Fire

Continues to describe the events of his life in the autobiographical story "My Universities" Gorky. The summary of the work introduces readers to the main ones.

The local rich and the headman treated Romas with hostility and suspicion. At night, they lay in wait for him, they tried to blow up the stove in his hut, and then, by the end of the summer, they burned Romas' shop with all his goods. Alyosha, when it caught fire, was in the attic and, first of all, rushed to save the box in which the books were. He almost burned himself, but guessed to jump out of the window, wrapped in a sheepskin coat.

Parting word from Romas

Romas soon after this fire decided to leave the village. Saying goodbye to Alyosha on the eve of his departure, he ordered him to look calmly at everything, remembering that everything passes, everything changes for the better. At that time, Alexei Maksimovich was 20 years old. He was a strong, big, clumsy young man with blue eyes. He grew long hair, and they no longer stick out in different directions with whirlwinds. His high cheekbones, rough face could not be called handsome. But it changed when Alexei smiled.

Childhood: life with the Kashirins

When Peshkov, the hero of the work "My Universities" (Gorky), the summary of which interests us, was a little boy, a cheerful young worker of the Kashirins, Tsyganok (grandmother's adoptive father), once told him that Alyosha was "small, but angry." And it was true. Peshkov was angry with his grandfather when he offended his grandmother, with his comrades if they mistreated those who were weaker, with their masters for greed, for their gray, boring life. He was always ready for a fight and an argument, he protested against what humiliated human dignity, interfered with life.

Gradually, Alexei began to realize that his grandmother's wisdom was not always correct. This woman said that you need to remember the good and forget the bad. However, Alyosha felt that he must not be forgotten, that he must be fought if something bad destroys a person, spoils his life. Gradually, attention to the person, love for him, respect for work grew in his soul. He searched everywhere for good people and became strongly attached to them when he found them. So, Alyosha was attached to his grandmother, to the cheerful and intelligent Gypsy, to Smury, to Vyakhir. I met good people even when I worked at the fair, and with Romas, and with Derenkov, and with Semenov, Gorky ("My Universities"). A summary of the chapters introduces only the main characters, so we have not described all of them. Alyosha made a solemn promise to serve these people.

As always, books helped him understand many things in life, they explained, and Alexei began to treat literature more and more seriously, more demandingly. For the rest of his life, from childhood, he carried in his soul the joy of the first acquaintance with the work of Lermontov, Pushkin, with special tenderness he always remembered grandmother's songs, fairy tales ...

Reading books, Alexey Peshkov dreamed of becoming like their heroes, he wanted to meet such a “simple, wise person” in his life, so that he would lead him to a clear, wide path, on which there would be truth, straight and hard as a sword.

"Universities" Gorky

Thoughts about a higher educational institution were left far behind. So Alyosha did not manage to enter there. "My Universities" (a summary will not replace the work itself) ends with a description of how he "wandered through life" instead of studying at the university, getting to know people, gaining knowledge in circles of revolutionary-minded youth, thinking a lot and believing more and more that a person beautiful and great. Life itself became his university. This is exactly what he told in his third autobiographical book, which we introduced the reader to by describing its brief content - "My Universities". You can read the original work in about 4 hours. Recall that the autobiographical trilogy consists of the following stories: "Childhood", "In People", "My Universities". The summary of the last work describes 4 years of the life of Alexei Peshkov.

Alyosha left for Kazan. The young man wanted to go to university, dreamed of studying. However, things turned out differently.

Upon arrival in the city, the hero began to understand that he would not be able to enter the university. The Evreinov family lived modestly, they could not feed one more person. Alexei

I understood this and tried to leave the house every time.

Soon Alyosha became friends with Gury Pletnev, a printing worker. After hearing the story about Lesha's life, Pletnev offered to stay with him and study. The young man agreed and began to live in a huge house among students and the urban poor.

Alexei's morning began with a hike for hot water, and during tea drinking Gury shared interesting newspaper news. Pletnev worked at night and slept during the day. When Gury was in the apartment, Alexey worked at the Volga - he helped with sawing firewood, worked as a loader. Thus passed winter, spring and summer.

In the middle of autumn, Alexey

Peshkov met Andrei Stepanovich Derenkov, who was the owner of a small grocery store. No one would have guessed that young people with revolutionary moods often gather at Derenkov’s, and in the closet there is a whole library of forbidden literature.

Peshkov became a friend of Derenkov, assisted in the work, read various books. In the evenings, high school students and students gathered in Andrey Stepanovich's apartment. These young people were completely different than those that Lesha was used to. The youth treated with hatred the rich life of the philistines, dreamed of changing something in their usual way. There were also revolutionaries who returned from exile.

New friends of Alexei were worried about Russia, for the fate of their native people. It seemed to Peshkov that they voiced his thoughts. Sometimes he was sure that he had seen a lot and knew more about life than the rest..

After some time, Peshkov got a job working for Semenov, the owner of the bakery. Working conditions were terrible: basement, dirt, crazy heat - and so fourteen hours a day! Aleksey was surprised how the workers endure all this and, secretly from the owner, read them forbidden publications.

Derenkov opened a new bakery and invited Lesha to work there. All the money from this earnings was used for revolutionary needs. At night, Peshkov prepares bread, and in the early morning delivers it to the students in the dining room. Leaflets, books and brochures were hidden under flour products, intended for distribution to the “necessary” people.

There was a special room in the bakery where like-minded people gathered. But soon the police and the policeman became suspicious, and Alyosha was constantly interrogated.

A frequent visitor to the “secret room” was Mikhail Antonovich Romas, who was often called “Khokhlom”. He went through the Yakut stages and arrived in Krasnovidovo with the writer Korolenko. In the village of Khokhol, he began to fish and opened a small shop - all this served as a “cover”. In fact, active revolutionary propaganda was carried out among the local population.

One summer, Romas offered Peshkov to move to the village. Alexey was supposed to assist in the sale of goods, and Mikhail Antonovich would help him with his studies. Alyosha happily agreed. In the master's house, he spent a lot of time reading, talking with the owner, and participating in general meetings with local peasants.

The townspeople and the village headman treated Mikhail extremely badly. Once they set fire to a shop with all the acquired good. Peshkov was in the attic at that time and first of all tried to save literature, but then he jumped out of the window.

After this incident, Mikhail Antonovich decided to move to another city. When he said goodbye to Alexei, he advised him to take all events calmly, because everything that is not done is certainly for the better.

Then Peshkov was twenty. A strong, robust young man with blue eyes. Alexei's face was rough, with powerful cheekbones, but when a smile appeared on it, the person noticeably changed.

From childhood, Alyoshka got very angry when someone was offended. He never liked the greedy people he had to live with. The young man was always ready to argue and rebel against injustice. Grandmother always taught her grandson to remember only good, and forget evil. Alexei could not live like that, he thought that “evil” had to be fought. Peshkov became very attached to good people, whom he met almost everywhere. For himself, he firmly decided that he would be honest and do good deeds for the benefit of others.

Reading literature was only beneficial, Alexei seriously and carefully chose books. From an early age, he loved grandmother's songs and fairy tales, with special trepidation he recalled the poems of Lermontov and Pushkin ...

The guy wanted to be something like the heroes of the works, to be wise and faithful to his good deed. Dreams of university studies collapsed, life itself was a kind of “university” for him. And he shared this a little later in his third autobiographical book, My Universities.

Essays on topics:

1. The case of the Artamonovs Ilya Artamonov, a handsome, stately man, arrived in the city of Dremov, told the residents that he wanted to build ...

This story tells about the young man Alexei, who went to study in Kazan at the university. Arriving, he stops at a familiar Evreinov family. The family is very poor and they barely have enough for food, then Alyosha decides to get a job.

In the story, Gorky describes that the guy never entered the university. The main teacher for him is the hard life of ordinary workers. At first, he gets a job as a loader and sees how ordinary men drink themselves from despair and no one wants to change anything in their lives. Then Alyosha undertakes to get away from such a society. He gets acquainted with Pletnev, and they share a roof over their heads. As Aleksey notes, the guy Pletnev is a very talented guy, but he ruins himself among the lifestyle of thieves and prostitutes. It is here that Alyosha is imbued with revolutionary ideas and secretly begins to distribute leaflets.

Soon Alyosha meets a new character Andrei Derenkov, they promote the ideas of the revolution. At first, Alyosha even liked it, he met many people, but soon he decides to leave Derenkov. Having found a job in Semyonov's bakery, communication with Derenkov is gradually fading away. Here Alyosha has to work hard, and he believes that this is the most difficult segment of his life. During his wanderings from work to work, Alyosha learns about the death of his grandmother, whom he loved very much. It was the grandmother who brought up in Alyosha a love for the world and those around him, which sometimes even contradicted what he read in books. People sometimes behaved unworthily, and this upset Alexei. He wondered how greedy people could be and go against each other. Faced with such injustice, Alyosha even tries to shoot himself, but he does not succeed and he only pierces his lung. After the hospital, he again returns to his work.

In the spring, he offers Khokhol to Alexei Peshkov in his shop and, without hesitation, he leaves with him for the village of Krasnovidovo. There, Peshkov begins to get used to rural life and even rebuffs the local guys. Khokhol interfered with local merchants, because he had the cheapest goods and soon they burned down his house and trading shop. At one time, Khokhol introduced Peshkov to Barinov, with whom Alyosha went in search of work far to the Caspian Sea. It took them a very long time to get there on the messenger, and when they got there, they asked to work with local fishermen.

Alyosha realized in his life that it was not necessary to study at the university, because in the end, he was taught everything by a hard life. Peshkov repeatedly faced the anger of people and their greed, but did not lose his human appearance.

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Maksim Gorky

"My Universities"

My housemate N. Evreinov, a high school student, persuaded me to enter Kazan University. He often saw me with a book in my hands and was convinced that I was created by nature to serve science. My grandmother accompanied me to Kazan. Lately I've drifted away from her, but then I felt like I was seeing her for the last time.

In the "semi-Tatar city" of Kazan, I settled in the cramped apartment of the Evreinovs. They lived very poorly, "and every piece of bread that fell on my share lay like a stone on my soul." The high school student Evreinov, the eldest son in the family, due to youthful egoism and frivolity, did not notice how hard it was for his mother to feed three healthy guys on a meager pension. “Even less did his brother, a heavy, silent high school student, feel it.” Evreinov liked to teach me, but he had no time to seriously engage in my education.

The harder my life was, the more clearly I understood that "man is created by his resistance to the environment." The marinas on the Volga helped me to feed myself, where you could always find a cheap job. Dozens of boulevard novels I read and what I myself experienced drew me into an environment of loaders, tramps and crooks. There I met a professional thief, Bashkin, a very intelligent man who loves women to the point of trembling. Another acquaintance of mine is the “dark man” Trusov, who traded in stolen goods. Sometimes they crossed the Kazanka to the meadows, drank and talked "about the complexity of life, about the strange confusion of human relations" and about women. I lived with them for several such nights. I was doomed to walk the same path as them. It was the books I read that got in the way, which aroused in me the desire for something more significant.

Soon I met a student Gury Pletnev. This swarthy, black-haired young man was full of all sorts of talents that he did not bother to develop. Gury was poor and lived in the cheerful slum "Marusovka", a dilapidated hut on Rybnoryadskaya Street, full of thieves, prostitutes and impoverished students. I also moved to Marusovka. Pletnev worked as a night proofreader in a printing house, and we slept on the same bed - Gury during the day, and I at night. We huddled in the far corner of the corridor, which was rented from the fat-faced matchmaker Galkina. Pletnev paid off with her "funny jokes, playing the harmonica, touching songs." In the evenings, I wandered the corridors of the slum "looking closely at how people new to me live" and asking myself the insoluble question: "Why all this?"

Guriy for these "future and former people" played the role of a kind wizard who could cheer, console, and give good advice. Pletnev was respected even by Nikiforych, the senior city man of the quarter, a dry, tall and very cunning old man, hung with medals. He kept a vigilant eye on our slum. During the winter, a group was arrested in Marusovka, trying to organize an underground printing house. It was then that “my first participation in secret affairs” took place - I fulfilled the mysterious assignment of Guria. However, he refused to bring me up to date, citing my youth.

In the meantime, Evreinov introduced me to a "mysterious man" - a student of the teacher's institute Milovsky. A circle of several people gathered at his home to read a book by John Stuart Mill with notes by Chernyshevsky. My youth and ignorance prevented me from understanding Mill's book, and I was not carried away by the reading. I was drawn to the Volga, "to the music of working life." I understood the "heroic poetry of labor" on the day when a heavily laden barge stumbled upon a stone. I entered the gang of loaders who were unloading goods from a barge. “We worked with that drunken joy that only the embrace of a woman is sweeter.”

Soon I met Andrei Derenkov, the owner of a small grocery store and owner of the best library of forbidden books in Kazan. Derenkov was a "populist", and the funds from the shop went to help those in need. In his house I first met Derenkov's sister Maria, who was recovering from some kind of nervous illness. Her blue eyes made an indelible impression on me - "I could not, I could not speak with such a girl." In addition to Marya, the dry-handed and meek Derenkov had three brothers, and their household was run by the “cohabitant of the eunuch householder.” Every evening, students gathered at Andrey's, living "in the mood of concern for the Russian people, in continuous anxiety about the future of Russia."

I understood the problems that these people were trying to solve and at first I was enthusiastic about them. They treated me patronizingly, considered me a nugget and looked like a piece of wood that needed processing. In addition to the Narodnaya Volya students, Derenkov often had a “big, broad-chested man, with a thick broad beard and a Tatar-style shaved head,” very calm and silent, nicknamed Khokhol. He recently returned from a ten year exile.

In the fall, I again had to look for work. She was found in Vasily Semyonov's pretzel bakery. It was one of the most difficult periods of my life. Due to hard and abundant work, I could not study, read and visit Derenkov. I was supported by the consciousness that I was working among the people and educating them, but my colleagues treated me like a jester who told interesting tales. Every month they all visited the brothel, but I did not use the services of prostitutes, although I was terribly interested in the relationship of the sexes. The "girls" often complained to my comrades about the "clean public", and they considered themselves better than the "educated". I was sad to hear this.

In these difficult days, I met a completely new, albeit hostile, idea. I heard it from a half-frozen man, whom I picked up on the street at night, returning from Derenkov. His name was Georges. He was a tutor to the son of a certain landowner, fell in love with her and took her away from her husband. Georges considered labor and progress useless and even harmful. All that a person needs for happiness is a warm corner, a piece of bread and a beloved woman nearby. Trying to comprehend this, I wandered around the city until morning.

The income from Derenkov's shop was not enough for all the suffering, and he decided to open a bakery. I started working there as a baker's assistant, and at the same time I made sure that he didn't steal. The last one didn't work for me. The baker Lutonin loved to tell his dreams and touch the short-legged girl who visited him every day. He gave her everything stolen from the bakery. The girl was the goddaughter of the senior policeman Nikiforych. Maria Derenkova lived at the bakery. I served her and was afraid to look at her.

The grandmother died soon after. I learned about this seven weeks after her death from a letter from a cousin. It turned out that my two brothers and sister with children sat on the neck of my grandmother and ate the alms collected by her.

In the meantime, Nikiforovich became interested in both me and the bakery. He invited me to tea and asked about Pletnev and other students, and his young wife made eyes at me. From Nikiforych, I heard a theory about an invisible thread that comes from the emperor and connects all the people in the empire. The emperor, like a spider, feels the slightest vibrations of this thread. The theory impressed me a lot.

I worked very hard, and my existence became more and more meaningless. At that time I knew the old weaver Nikita Rubtsov, a restless and intelligent man with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. With people he was unkind and vicious, but he treated me like a father. His friend, the consumptive locksmith Yakov Shaposhnikov, an expert on the Bible, was a fierce atheist. I could not see them often, the work took up all my time, in addition, I was told not to stick my head out: our baker was friends with the gendarmes, whose control was across the fence from us. My work also lost its meaning: people did not take into account the needs of the bakery and took all the money from the cash register.

I learned from Nikiforitch that Gury Pletnev had been arrested and taken to Petersburg. Discord arose in my soul. The books I read were saturated with humanism, but I did not find it in the life around me. The people that my fellow students cared about, the embodiment of “wisdom, spiritual beauty and good-heartedness”, did not really exist, because I knew another people - always drunk, thievish and greedy. Unable to withstand these contradictions, I decided to shoot myself with a pistol bought at the market, but I didn’t hit the heart, it only pierced my lung, and a month later, utterly embarrassed, I again worked in a bakery.

At the end of March, Khokhol looked into the bakery and offered me a job in his shop. Without thinking twice, I packed up and moved to the village of Krasnovidovo. It turned out that Khokhl's real name was Mikhail Antonych Romas. He rented a room for a shop and housing from a rich peasant Pankov. The rural rich did not like Romas: he interrupted their trade, giving the peasants goods at a low price. The artel of gardeners created by Khokhl especially interfered with the “world-eaters”.

In Krasnovidovo I met Izot, an intelligent and very handsome man who was loved by all the women of the village. Romus taught him to read, now this duty has passed to me. Mikhail Antonych was convinced that the peasant should not be pitied, as the Narodnaya Volya do, but should be taught how to live correctly. This idea reconciled me with myself, and long conversations with Romus "straightened" me.

In Krasnovidovo I met two interesting personalities - Matvey Barinov and Kukushkin. Barinov was an incorrigible inventor. In his fantastic stories, good always won, and evil was corrected. Kukushkin, a skilled and versatile worker, was also a great dreamer. In the village, he was considered a hollow man, an empty man, and was not loved because of the cats that Kukushkin bred in his bathhouse in order to bring out a hunting and guard breed - cats strangled other people's chickens and chickens. Our host Pankov, the son of a local rich man, separated from his father and married "for love." He treated me with hostility, and Pankov was unpleasant to me.

At first I did not like the village, but I did not understand the peasants. Previously, it seemed to me that life on earth is cleaner than urban life, but it turned out that peasant labor is very difficult, and the urban worker has much more opportunities for development. I did not like the cynical attitude of the village guys towards the girls. Several times the guys tried to beat me, but to no avail, and I stubbornly continued to walk at night. I lived, however, well, and gradually I began to get used to village life.

One morning, when the cook was lighting the stove, there was a huge explosion in the kitchen. It turned out that Romus' ill-wishers filled the log with gunpowder and put it in our woodpile. Romus took this incident with his usual equanimity. It amazed me that Little Russian never got angry. When he was irritated by someone's stupidity or meanness, he screwed up his gray eyes and calmly said something simple and ruthless.

Sometimes Maria Derenkova came to visit us. She liked Romus' courtship, and I tried to meet her less often. Izot disappeared in July. His death became known when Khokhol was leaving for Kazan on business. It turned out that Izot was killed by hitting him on the head, and his boat was scuttled. The body was found by the boys under the broken barge.

Returning, Romus told me that he was marrying Derenkova. I decided to leave Krasnovidovo, but I didn't have time: that same evening we were set on fire. The hut and warehouse with goods burned down. I, Romus and the runaway men tried to put out the fire, but could not. The summer was warm and dry, and the fire went through the village. Several huts in our row burned down. After that, the men attacked us, thinking that Romus set fire to his insured goods on purpose. Convinced that we suffered the most, and there was no insurance, the men fell behind. Pankov's hut was still insured, so Romus had to leave. Before leaving for Vyatka, he sold all the things saved from the fire to Pankov and offered me to move in with him after a while. Pankov, in turn, offered me a job in his shop.

I was offended, bitter. It seemed strange to me that men, kind and wise individually, go berserk when they gather in a “gray cloud”. Romus asked me not to rush to condemn and promised to meet soon. We met only fifteen years later, “after Romas served another ten-year exile in the Yakutsk region on the case of the People’s Rightists.”

After parting with Romus, I felt homesick. Matei Barinov took me in. Together we looked for work in the surrounding villages. Barinov was also bored. He, the great traveler, could not sit still. He persuaded me to go to the Caspian Sea. We got a job on a barge going down the Volga. We only reached Simbirsk - Barinov composed and told the sailors a story, "at the end of which Khokhol and I, like the ancient Vikings, were hacking with axes with a crowd of men," and we were politely landed on the shore. With hares we reached Samara, there we again hired a barge and a week later we sailed to the Caspian Sea, where we joined the artel of fishermen "in the Kalmyk dirty fishery of Kabankul-bay." retold Yulia Peskovaya

The story is told in the first person. The protagonist is a provincial youth, whom the schoolboy N. Evreinov persuaded to enter Kazan University. At first, the hero lived in the Evreinovs' house, but quickly realized that he was a burden here and every piece of bread he ate caused irreparable damage to the family budget. The young man moves to Gury Pletnev, with whom they unloaded barges on the Volga together. Now the hero's home has become a dirty room in "Marusovka" - a kind of hostel where all the city rabble lived.

After some time, the young man, thanks to the patronage of Evreinov, will fall into a circle where forbidden literature was read in the evenings. But these books didn’t make much of an impression on the young man, just like studying at the university, to which he is becoming more and more indifferent every day. He was attracted by the port, the conversations of the loaders, their stories and stories, and all these conversations about "reasonable and kind" were too far from the real life of ordinary people.

But the circle, nevertheless, influenced the fate of the hero: there he met Andrei Derenkov, who gave all the proceeds from his grocery store to help those in need, and his charming sister Maria. The young man passionately and recklessly fell in love with this girl, but he did not even dare to talk about his feelings. Maria, like her brother, was a "populist" and spent all her strength on educating poor orphans.

In autumn, the hero finds a new job - Vasily Semyonov's pretzel bakery. The work was very hard, there was no time to visit the university, nor to go to a circle where you could even catch a glimpse of Mary. It was during this period that a certain Georges, the riotous tutor of a landowner, inspires the young man with a simple thought: all stories of freedom and democracy are nonsense, because a working person needs only a piece of bread, a warm corner and a beloved woman nearby to be happy. This thought turned out to be diametrically opposed to everything heard over the past two years, the hero decided to shoot himself. I bought a pistol for this purpose at the market, but my hand trembled and, after treating a shot lung for two months, he returned to work in a bakery.

The following spring, Khokhol, a former political exile, offered the young man to move to the village of Krasnovidovo and work in his shop. The hero began a new, rural life, in which, after a while, he began to feel very comfortable. But once an explosion sounded in Khokhl's shop, it turned out that the competitors decided to get rid of the more successful merchant in this way. The damage was insignificant, the trade continued, and one day Khokhol announced that he was going to marry Maria Derenkova. The hero decides to run away from this house and not see his beloved wife of another. But he doesn’t have time: the village was set on fire, the shop burned to the ground, and Khokhl was arrested and sent to another ten-year exile in the Yakutsk region.

Mitya Barinov, the hero's new friend, persuades him to go to the Caspian Sea. They started their journey on a barge going down the Volga, and after a couple of weeks they were already at the final destination of their journey, where they joined the artel of talkative fishermen.

My Gorky Universities is an autobiographical work written by the author in 1923. It is part of a trilogy that consists of the stories Childhood, In People and My Universities. Just with the last story, which completes the trilogy, we met in the lesson. Now let's answer the question: Which person's influence on Alyosha Peshkov was the strongest. To do this, let's get acquainted with the work My Universities in a summary, as well as with its heroes.

For a detailed study of Gorky's work, which describes the last step in the formation of the writer's personality, we see the birth and development of a revolutionary mood and advise you to get acquainted with the full version of the text. Those who do not have time can get acquainted with the summary of the work.

My Universities Gorky summary

So, My universities tell about the later life of Alyosha Peshkov, the hero of the story. In this book, on the advice of a young high school student Evreinov, he goes to Kazan. He plans to go to university there. Saying goodbye to, the hero sets off. Further, we learn that the hero never enters the university. Due to the constant lack of funds, Alyosha no longer thinks about studying, he is busy with how to earn money for living.

Reading Gorky's work My Universities, we see how difficult life is for a guy. He works at several jobs, while not shunning hard work that requires physical endurance. First he lives with the Evreinovs, soon Peshkov meets Pletnev, an employee from the printing house, with whom he settles. It was Pletnev who later brought our hero together with the revolutionary Derenkov, for whom Alyosha worked in a bakery. The hero was inflamed with the ideas of the revolution, and they gathered in Derenkov's store and wanted to change the established arrangement. Moreover, he even delivered forbidden pamphlets with pastries, thereby spreading the ideas of the revolution.

Later, Alyosha will meet Romas, nicknamed Khokhol, a man who spread and conducted revolutionary propaganda among the peasants. Having met in Khokhloma, Peshkov moved to him in Krasnovidovo, because Romas promised not only work, but also help in entering the university. Alyosha agreed, because he did not abandon the hope of starting training. However, Alyosha works in Krasnovidovo, reads a lot, but never begins to study. Instead, he talks with peasants, gets acquainted with the local way of life. Next, we learn about the fire that burned down many houses. Risking his life, the hero saves all his books.

Romas leaves the village, giving parting words to the young man - the hero of the work. The hero himself at that time was 20. The story has an open ending, where Alexei does not enter the university, but goes with Barinov to a fishing artel to the shores of the Caspian Sea.

As a result, Alyosha left behind thoughts about the university, but he got more. Life was his university. Traveling, meeting a wide variety of people, observing and even participating in circles of revolutionary youth, the hero reflected on life, on the person as a whole and his role, and made his own conclusions. He developed, studied and believed that a person is great and beautiful.

Heroes of the story

In Gorky's story, the author creates many characters. Among them are the hero's grandmother, and the high school student Evreinov, and Pletnev, an employee of the printing house. We get acquainted with Derenkov, the owner of a shop, who conducted revolutionary propaganda among the youth, and Romas Mikhail, a revolutionary propagandist among the peasants, is also here. The main character is Alyosha Peshkov, who has long said goodbye to childhood and adolescence.