Stepan Razin

A.P. Chapygin’s novel, a famous Soviet writer (1870–1937), tells the events of the peasant war of 1670–1671 led by Stepan Timofeyevich Razin. At the center of the work are the fate of Razin and his closest associates. The writer reflects not so much the biographically consistent development of Razin’s character as the strength and vividness of the manifestations of an already-formed personality of the people’s hero.

The novel recreates the everyday Russian language of the 17th century.

“An exquisite penetration into the spirit and flesh of the age”—that was how M. Gorky wrote about “Stepan Razin,” recognized as a monument of world literature.

“I would very much like to say that I love and highly value you, master of literature, for whom art has always been above any profit and convenience. I love you for your love of literature—for the northern сияние of your talent.”

From a letter by Maxim Gorky to Alexey Chapygin

Other contemporaries also praised Chapygin’s work, including Sergei Yesenin and Nikolai Tikhonov: “From the remote, dark northern forests came the peasant Alexey Chapygin and brought with him the truth about the Russian people and faith in them.”

“Our kinsman, Chapygin—singing, like snow and the river”—

Sergei Yesenin in the poem “O Rus, spread your wings…”