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Abstract: The article deals with the source, text, literary, and socio-pedagogical studies of M. Gorky’s correspondence with children. The research object encompasses the letters of M. Gorky and the teachers of Orekhovo–Zuyevo School No. 3, written in 1928, presented in the context of the children’s epistolary collection of A. M. Gorky Archive of the Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The study reveals the role of creative essay in the system of teaching literature in the early Soviet school and the importance of the students’ dialogue with the writer, whose works were studied in the classroom. The possibility of direct dialogue between readers and M. Gorky acted as a powerful educational component on the way to the comprehensive development of the Soviet school student. A source-based and textological analysis of children’s essays with a cover letter from the teacher and response letters from M. Gorky’s book (one of which is being published for the first time) allowed the author to reconstruct the history of the creation of epistolary and student texts, their interaction, to come closer to understanding the author’s vision of the characters in the short story “Chelkash”, the idea of Gorky’s unwritten socio-pedagogical article on “social romanticism” and the philosophy of pedagogy, as well as to determine the source potential of children’s essays and the role of their functioning in culture. The article looks at the school continuation essay from the point of view of informational and pedagogical value, the expediency of applying the chosen methods of teaching literature at school. The individual interpretation of the school essays presented to the writer allowed looking into the individual psychological world of the writing students. The overall analysis of all the submitted essays revealed a typical and “childish” common property, which Gorky called “social romanticism”. Gorky’s tactful assessment of the school’s literary assignment demonstrated his interest in pedagogy, as well as his attentive and positive attitude to the working methods of the new Soviet school. The continuation essays based on well-known texts were perceived by the writer as a successful experiment in exchange of experience. The results presented in the article can be used to comment on M. Gorky’s letters, addressed to young correspondents, as well as to conduct research in the field of methods of teaching literature in schools and universities, history of literature and pedagogy, textology, and source studies.

About the author(s) :

Elena V. Kudrina

A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences

(Moscow, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2830-2671

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 14.02.2025; date of publication: 30.06.2025

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