Maxim Gorky is one of the most complex personalities of the late 19th – first third of the 20th centuries. And today he remains a mysterious figure, largely inexplicable. They argue about the circumstances of his death: some believe that he died a natural death, others that he was “helped,” and about his greatness as a writer: was he a figure inflated by his era? Was his fame not the result first of revolutionary fashion and then of ideological propaganda? Why did he go into exile from Lenin and return to Stalin? These and other questions are answered by Pavel Basinsky, a writer and journalist, laureate of the Big Book Prize, author of the books Leo Tolstoy: Escape from Paradise, Saint vs. Leo about the enmity of Tolstoy and John of Kronstadt, The Lion in the Shadow of the Lion and "Look at me. The secret history of Lisa Dyakonova.” The book contains rich illustrative material; Also included are the memoirs of Vladislav Khodasevich, Korney Chukovsky, Viktor Shklovsky, Yevgeny Zamyatin and a little-known obituary of Leon Trotsky.