The sculptural composition by the German sculptor Will Lammert is based on Maxim Gorky’s story “The Owner”. This is one of four works by Lammert commissioned by the Gorky Museum in Kazan. The sculptor’s Kazan cycle also includes sculptures called “Among Creatures That Once Were Men”, “Crazy Mathematician” and “Teresa”.

The four years that Gorky spent in Kazan made a lasting impact on him. He believed that his physical self was born in Nizhny Novgorod, but his soul came from Kazan. There, he changed many addresses, tried his hand at unloading cargo and gardening, lived in basements and slums, was introduced to Narodnik revolutionaries and almost committed suicide.

At the age of 17, Maxim Gorky, known as Alexey Peshkov back then, started working as a bakery assistant in a pretzel shop run by a merchant named Semyonov in Rybnoryadskaya Square in Kazan. Gorky dedicated a novel and two short stories to this brief period. The writer concluded that he did not know a more difficult job than that of bakers, when “day in, day out, amid the meal dust and the grime… the smelly stuffiness of the hot basement, we kneaded dough and shaped pretzels, which were sprinkled with our sweat.”

Describing Semyonov’s predilection in the novel “The Owner”, Gorky mentioned his special attitude to pigs. The young Peshkov’s painful impressions are described in the scene of feeding the animals,

Lammert visualized this scene by likening the owner’s appearance to that of an animal, just like Gorky did in his book.

Will Lammert was a German sculptor and painter who studied in Germany and trained in Italy. Between 1934 and 1951, he and his family lived in the Soviet Union. He was against World War Two and opposed the Hitler regime. He worked with the Gorky Museum and the Tatar Opera and Ballet Theater, for which he created a unique stucco decoration.

Lammert created sculptural busts of Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vasily Kachalov, as well as a number of unique works. Lammert spent the last years of his life working on a monument to the victims of fascism for the largest concentration camp for women in Ravensbrück near Berlin.