Pisareva O. M. Gorky as a Historian of Russian Literature.

Subject matter of the study - "A History of Russian Literature" by M. Gorky, articles, essays, literary portraits, the writer's correspondence; objective of the study - studying of peculiarity of M. Gorky's historico-literary concept, the artist's contribution in the development of Russian Literary Criticism; methods - historical-functional, comparative-historical, descriptive; novelty - it is submitted the most complete and many-sided characteristic of M. Gorky's historico-literary concept created by the author in the 1910-1920's; it is analyzed the features of M. Gorky's periodization of the history of Russian Literature, it is defined and given the writer's criteria of estimation of literary works of the past; it is specified the peculiarities of M. Gorky's understanding of the aesthetic phenomena and categories; it is accomplished a complex analysis of "A History of Russian Literature" and a number of the author's articles, their place is defined in the historico-literary thought at a boundary of the 19-20 centuries; results - can be used during preparation of generalizing works on history of literature and reading special and facultative lecture courses in the system of higher education, during specialized seminars for teachers, during working out of methodical recommendations and writing of textbooks on this problem. Also the materials and conclusions of the thesis will promote further researches in the field of Gorky studies; area - philology.