Аннотация:The concepts of “folk” and “intelligentsia” define the atmosphere of intellectual arguments in the beginning of the Maxim Gorky’s novel “The Life of Klim Samgin”. National self-identification of the character in his tender years is built upon an instinctive refusal of the “foreign”. Klim’s social circle includes a guest of the Samgin’s writer Katin, who emphasizes in his look and speech his engagement with the people, but his “Russianness” looks exaggerated. The author describes in the article such main traits of Russian national identity as language, traditional clothes, folk music. The author also compares Russian and European identities as seen by the characters of the novel.