Twenty-six Men and a Girl (Russian: Двадцать шесть и одна, romanized: Dvadtsat shest i odna) is a 1899 short story by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky and one of his most famous works. Twenty-six Men and a Girl has been praised by critics for sympathetic tone and rhythmic prose, particularly evident in the emotional folk songs of the bakers.^[1]

Plot

"Twenty-six Men and a Girl" is a pioneering story of social realism, and is a story of lost ideals. Twenty-six men labor in a cellar, making kringles in an effective prison. They are looked down upon by all around them, including the bun bakers. Their only seeming solace is the sixteen-year-old Tanya who visits them every morning for kringles they give her.

A new baker, a soldier, joins the bun bakers. Unlike all others they know, he befriends them, boasting of his virility with women. He ultimately seduces Tanya.

Upon learning about this, the bakers surround Tanya and yell abuse at her. After regaining her composure, she rebukes them. Afterwards, Tanya never stops at the bakery again.^[2]

Reception

The only one of Gorky's early stories which makes one forget all his shortcomings (except the mediocrity of his style) is that which may be considered as closing the period, "Twenty-six Men and a Girl" (1899)... The story is cruelly realistic. But it is traversed by such a powerful current of poetry, by such a convincing faith in beauty and freedom and in the essential nobility of man, and at the same time it is told with such precision and necessity, that it can hardly be refused the name of a masterpiece. It places Gorky, the young Gorky, among the true classics of our literature. But "Twenty-six Men and a Girl" is alone in its supreme beauty - and it is the last of Gorky's early good work: for fourteen years he was to be a wanderer in tedious and fruitless mazes.

— D. S. Mirsky^[3]