A. A. Gruška as an Interpreter of Aristotle

Abstract

The article “Maxim Gorky as an Interpreter of Aristotle. Toward the Theory of Tragic Purification” written in 1929 by a A. A. Gruška a major Moscow Latinist and Wortphilologe of considerable renown writing, the last dean of the Department of History and Philology of Moscow State University, deserves the interest of scholars as a document of an era unhappy for Russian science. This curious verbose piece deals inter alia with the way M. Gorky “revealed through an extraordinary power of his literary prowess the very essence of the psychological process Aristotle understood under catharsis”. Gruška’s sketch went unnoticed in what was left of Classics in the 1920s Russia, the timing being exceptionally ill-chosen for any serious discussion of the kind. Analysing the careless way in which Gruška retells the seemingly pivotal for his article scene from Gorky’s story “Dreariness” (1896), one inadvertently comes to the conclusion that Gorky, Gruška’s favourite in the 1900s, by then had ceased to be of any considerable interest for Gruška, save for a nostalgic trip down the memory lane, while the article was written out of necessity and in haste, incorporating his miscellanea and Lesefrüchte to provide for what should be read between the lines.