On the occasion of the Moscow Art Academic Theatre's 50th anniversary "The chief initiator and founder of the social-political line in the theatre was A.M. Gorky's" Stanislavsky pointed out. The theatre's first presentations of Gorky's plays "the Philistine's" and "The Lower Depths" voiced a protest against the Tsarist regime and exposed openly the feudal-borgeois order. Maxim Gorky's plays won the Art Theatre, wide public recognition. Photo shows: K. Stanislavsky (left) and his wife M.P. Lilina - actress of the theatre with Maxim Gorky at Yalta. 1900 Portrait of Maxim Gorky (Alexei Maximovich Peshkov), (1868 - 1936) Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the Socialist realism literary method and a political activist and first President of the Union of Soviet Writers. c.1910 Supplied By: SCRSS - Society for Co-operation in Russian & Soviet Studies