One of the main themes that Maxim Gorky developed throughout his life was that of the honest (good) Russian man and the Russian intelligentsia’s endless role of enlightening him and protecting him from the authorities. This theme runs through all the writer’s major works, from the early Chelkash and the autobiographical trilogy to the final unfinished novel The Life of Klim Samgin. In continuing the theme of “the people” as it appeared in the nineteenth-century Russian literature, in works of such authors as Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, and especially his contemporaries - Nikolai Leskov and Anton Chekhov - who were close to him in spirit, Gorky not only testifies to the “bestial nature” of the Russian people, but, finding no intelligible explanation for that wildness, never hides his contempt for it. Gorky himself offers no opinions as to whether this wildness was the result of life in an extremely harsh natural environment or of centuries of foreign and later domestic slavery. This, however, should not be viewed as a reproach to Gorky, because in the more than eighty years since his death, we, his descendants, have found no such answers, either.

中文翻译：

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高尔基：寻找诚实的人

马克西姆·高尔基（Maxim Gorky）一生中发展的主要主题之一是诚实的（好）俄罗斯人和俄国知识分子在启发他和保护他免受当局侵害方面的无尽作用。这个主题贯穿于作家的所有主要作品，从​​早期的切尔卡什（Chelkash）和自传三部曲，到最后未完成的小说《克里姆·萨金（Klim Samgin）的人生》。为了延续19世纪俄国文学中出现的“人民”这一主题，亚历山大·普希金，尼古拉·果戈尔，伊凡·图格涅夫，列夫·托尔斯泰等作家的作品，尤其是他的同时代人尼古拉·莱斯科夫和安东·契kh夫（Anton Chekhov）在精神上与他亲近，高尔基不仅证明了俄罗斯人民的“天性”，而且没有找到关于这种荒野的可理解的解释，也从不掩饰他的蔑视。高尔基本人对这种荒野是在极端恶劣的自然环境中生活的结果，还是数百年来外国奴隶制和后来的家庭奴隶制的结果没有任何意见。但是，这不应被视为对高尔基的指责，因为在他死后的八十多年中，我们（他的后代）也没有找到这样的答案。