In the novel “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin” by the great Russian writer M. Gorky (1868–1936), the petty-bourgeois world of provincial Russia is depicted; with great depth, the life and everyday life of “provincial nests of Russian inertia” are portrayed, as well as the social psychology and worldview of reactionary petty-bourgeois society. The novel reflects the unrest that, under the influence of the revolution, even seized the backward layers of society.