Maxim Gorky’s person has become a legend already during the writer’s life, and his perception has been ideologized both in Russia and abroad. This is evidenced by the analysis carried out in the article reception Gorky’s drama in Poland, the most important phase of which was determined by the changing political situation. The reception has changed substantially: from the spontaneous popularity of the Russian writer at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries through ambivalence in the interwar period, forced apotheosis after World War II to marginalization after 1989 and reinterpretation attempts in recent times. As the analysis shows, a significant part of Gorky’s plays has survived the difficult test of time. These literary works, for many directors and spectators, are a carrier of universal values, while the author is considered a classic of Russian dramaturgy.
The paper is devoted to Zinaida Gippius’s literary portraits left on the pages of ego-documents, especially memoirs. She was one of the most significant figures of the Russian Silver Age. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, the writer created her own legend and image based on internal conflict, which in turn influenced the diversity of her portraits in memoirs. Their analysis leads to the conclusion that these portraits fit into the stereotyped, ambivalent perception of a woman, and majority of the authors reveal the tendency to mythologize and dehumanize her heroine: on the one hand her divinization, and on the other – reification. It also proves that the memoirist had perpetuated and widened the legend about her.