GORKY MAXIM: (1868-1936) Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, Russian Writer and political socialist Activist & CHALIAPIN ...

GORKY MAXIM: (1868-1936) Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, Russian Writer and political socialist Activist & CHALIAPIN FEODOR (1873-1938) Russian Opera Singer. An excellent vintage signed postcard photograph by Gorky and Chaliapin, the image showing both artists in a half length pose, Gorky seated alongside Chaliapin standing close. Individually signed by Gorky and Chaliapin, in bold black fountain pen ink, to clear areas of the image. Poststamped and addressed to the verso, to Argentina, with annotations in Cyrillic. Very small overall age wear, otherwise VG Gorky wrote Chaliapin's autobiography in 1916. He would write to Chaliapin in 1909 `I myself will write your life as you dictate it… I hasten, my friend, to tell you the following, You're undertaking a serious business, an important and widely significant matter, that is, something interesting not only to us Russians but to the whole world of culture and especially of art! Do you understand this?... A symbolic life, which attests indisputably to the great strength and power of our land… Watch out, Feodor, don't toss your soul into the hands of word peddlers!… I am terribly afraid you won't understand the national, the Russian significance of your autobiography! Listen, my dear, shut your eyes and think a minute..´.