About the work
Drama by Maxim Gorky, written on Capri in 1907. Russian censorship barred a public staging, so the play's premiere took place only on 6 September 1910, at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, directed by Max Reinhardt.
Plot
Within the family of police chief Ivan Kolomiytsev, who financially exploits his brother Yakov, who lives in the same house, all authority and shared values disintegrate. Ivan's children each face a choice between adopting their father's cynicism or breaking away from it: daughter Vera is assaulted by a policeman and resigns herself to an arranged marriage, son Pyotr succumbs to alcohol, and only the disabled daughter Lyubov consciously frees herself from the family. In the end, Uncle Yakov dies unnoticed while Ivan remains unmoved.
Cultural significance
Set against the backdrop of the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, Gorky presents the decay of an authoritarian, corrupt family as a mirror of a disintegrating social order. Because Russian censorship banned the play at home, its 1910 Berlin premiere was also its world premiere, years before it could be shown in Russia.