Skitalets, Stepan

(pen name of S. G. Petrov). Born Oct. 28 (Nov. 9), 1869, in the village of Obsharov-ka, Samara Province, present-day Privolzh’e Raion, Kuibyshev Oblast; died June 25, 1941, in Moscow. Soviet Russian writer.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Skitalets contributed to newspapers of the Volga region and was subjected to political persecution. Strongly influenced by M. Gorky, he became associated with the Znanie (Knowledge) publishing house. His first novella was Octave (1900). Before the 1917 revolution, Skitalets wrote the novella Candle Stubs (1906) and other novellas and realistic short stories imbued with democratic sentiments. V. I. Lenin praised his poetry (see Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 55, p. 223).

From 1922 to 1934, Skitalets lived abroad. His autobiographical trilogy, which comprises the novels House of the Chernovs (1935) and Fetters (1940) and the novella Stages (1908; new edition, 1937), depicts the sources of the revolution and the revolutionary path chosen by a man of the people. Skitalets’ works have been translated into foreign languages.