Stepan Skitalets
| Skitalets | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
November 9, 1869 Samara Province, Russia |
| Died | June 25, 1941 (aged 71) Moscow, Soviet Union |
Stepan Skitalets (Russian: Степа́н Скита́лец), (November 9, 1869 – June 25, 1941), was the pen-name of Stepan Gavrilovich Petrov, a Russian/Soviet poet, writer of fiction and folk musician. The name Skitalets means "wanderer" in Russian.
Skitalets was born in Samara Province to a peasant father who'd once been a serf. After gaining his freedom Skitalets's father spent some time as a village bartender and later took to wandering through Russia, with his young son in tow, the two making a living together as street and barroom musicians for several years. Afterwards they returned to Samara province where Skitalets's father settled down as a joiner. Skitalets's father taught him to play the gusli, and Skitalets was well known in later life for his skill with the instrument and for being a talented folk singer. He spoke of his early years with his father in a short poem: "His gusli my singer father left, / He left me songs my share, / To sow his peasant seed song gift / To grow in my native air. During the years of wandering with his father he often experienced want and bad conditions, but he was also able to collect a wealth of experiences, meeting different people and travelling widely throughout Russia.
After being expelled from the Samara Teacher's Seminary in 1887 under suspicion of political radicalism, he went out on his own in southern Russia, working as a clerk, actor, singer, writing for several papers, and taking part in the student revolutionary movement.
In 1898 he met Maxim Gorky, whose fame was already on the rise, and the two became close friends. This meeting was the deciding point of his young life.
Skitalets came to Moscow with Gorky where he joined the Sreda, a literary group founded by the writer Nikolay Teleshov, which included many of Russia's most popular authors and artists, such as Leonid Andreyev, Ivan Bunin, Fyodor Chaliapin, Gorky and, when he was in town, Anton Chekhov. In 1902 Skitalets's first collection of stories and poems was published by Gorky's company Znanie (Knowledge).
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