Maxim Gorky, Russian Writer with a Gusli Player
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (Maxim Gorky) (1868-1936), Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist, with Stepan Gavrilovich Petrov (Stepan Skitalets) (1869-1941), Composer, poet and folk musician, playing a Gusli. The name Skitalets means "wanderer" in Russian. 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 Anton Chekhov. In 1902, Skitalets's first collection of stories and poems was published by Gorky's company Znanie ('Knowledge'). The exact instrument pictured is a Shlemovidnye (helmet-shaped) Gusli
