Alexei Maximovich Peshkov ( Russian : Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в or Пе́шков; 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868 – 18 June 1936), primarily known as Maxim Gorky ( Russian : Макси́м Го́рький), was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method, and a political activist. , Russian short-story writer and novelist who first attracted attention with his naturalistic and sympathetic stories of tramps and social outcasts . He was given Order of Lenin award . He was also a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. From 1898—when he was thirty—until his mysterious death in Stalin's Russia, Gorki was the most famous , the most embattled of the Russian novelists, both in Russia and in the outside world. He was a symbol of the Russian turmoil, and like all symbols had the strength of being open to many interpretations. Maxim Gorky was revered as the leading Russian artist and intellectual ...