Hailed as one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century, Mother (“Mar” in Russian) tells the story of Pavel and his mother Nilovna during the Russian revolutionary movement. Soon after the death of his alcoholic father, Pavel leaves his old ways and joins the movement. The illiterate Nilovna only wants to help her child, but then, the love for a son turns into a serious inquiry into the role of women, the state of the proletariat and their possible rise to claim self-esteem in a bourgeois world.
Based on real characters, Gorky wrote Mother to boost the morale of his people in the wake of the failed Russian Revolution of 1905. It certainly did play a role in the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Lenin himself described it as “a book of utmost importance.” The revolutionary era is long over but Mother continues to be a popular read even today.
