Aleksey Chapygin

{{Infobox writer  | image = Aleksey Pavlovich Chapygin.jpg | imagesize = 200px | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1870|10|17}} | birth_place = Kargopolsky Uyezd, Olonets Governorate, Russian Empire | death_date = {{death date and age|1937|10|21|1870|10|17}} | death_place = Leningrad, USSR }} '''Aleksey Pavlovich Chapygin''' ({{langx|ru|Алексе́й Па́влович Чапы́гин}}; {{OldStyleDate|17 October|1870|5 October}} - 21 October 1937) was a Russian writer, and one of the founders of the Soviet historical novel.<ref name="Dictionary">Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, Bédé, Edgerton, Columbia University Press, 1980.</ref>

==Biography== Chapygin was born in Kargopolsky Uyezd, Olonets Governorate. His northern peasant origins are reflected in his works.<ref name="Dictionary"/> His first book of stories, ''Those Who Keep Aloof'', and his novel ''The White Hermitage'', describing northern life, were published before the Russian Revolution of 1917.<ref>''25 Years of Soviet Russian Literature (1918-1943)'', Gleb Struve, Taylor & Francis, 1944.</ref> He is best known for his two novels about peasant uprisings in the 17th century, ''Itinerant Folk'' (1934–37) and ''Stepan Razin'' (1926–27). ''Stepan Razin'' is considered a classic of Soviet literature.<ref name="Dictionary"/>

Chapygin drew upon Russian folklore for both the style of ''Stepan Razin'' and the positive and romanticized portrait of Razin himself. The Soviets excused this modernization of history as a justifiable polemic against the negative portrayal of Razin in 19th-century Russian literature.<ref name="Dictionary"/> ''Stepan Razin'' was published in the magazine ''Red Virgin Soil''.<ref>Red Virgin Soil: Soviet Literature in the 1920s, Robert A. Maguire, Northwestern University Press, 2000.</ref>

==English translations==

*''Stepan Razin'', Hutchinson International Authors, Ltd., London, 1946.

==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070310204623/http://www.prazdniki.ru/person/1/87/ Biography] {{in lang|ru}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070313073159/http://moshkow.rspu.ryazan.ru/cgi-bin/koi/HIST/CHAPYGIN/ Aleksey Chapygin ''Razin Stepan''] {{in lang|ru}}

==References== {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chapygin, Aleksey}} Category:1870 births Category:1937 deaths Category:People from Plesetsky District Category:People from Kargopolsky Uyezd Category:Soviet novelists Category:Soviet male writers Category:Writers from the Russian Empire Category:Soviet short story writers Category:20th-century Russian short story writers