Estate in miniature: Maxim Gorky in Freiburg-Günterstal

Gorky’s discursive construction as a “proletarian writer” and “father of Socialist Realism” not seldom collides with his real biography, which for many years led him into a specific form of emigration. One of the stations led him to the German university town of Freiburg, more precisely to the small village of Günterstal near Freiburg, where Gorky lived from June to November 1923 and where — according to the thesis of the contribution — he cultivated a way of life that can be compared with the tradition of estate life: (1) strong hierarchical characteristics; (2) a typical form of sociability, determined by long-term stays of guests; (3) special forms of communication, which manifest themselves in a distinct culture of letters; (4) special experiences in the countryside areas, which are understood as — mostly desired and idyllic — counterpart (heterotopia) to urban life and as such are also reflected. At the same time, however, there is a fundamental difference between this estate and the surrounding “rural life” of the peasantry and the villages; the estate in turn forms a heterotopia with these.