PESHKOV ZINOVY: (1884-1966) Russian-born French General, best-known as the adopted son of Gorky. Born as Yeshua ...

PESHKOV ZINOVY: (1884-1966) Russian-born French General, best-known as the adopted son of Gorky. Born as Yeshua Zalman Sverdlov, he was taken at the early age of twelve under the protection of Maxim Gorki, becoming later his secretary. In 1902 Zinovy was baptized and changed his name, adopting the real last name of Gorky, his official godfather, Peshkov. He accompanied Gorky to US in 1906 and worked supporting Gorky´s cause in Italy until 1914 when on the outbreak of World War One he enlisted the French Foreign Legion. Peshkov was awarded with the Grand Cross of the Legion D´Honneur after having fought at the two World Wars. Signed and inscribed 8.5 x 10.5 (21,5 x 27 cm) page removed from an autograph album, in Cyrillic. Signed `Zinovi Pechkoff´, and inscribed to Marina in bold black ink. Also dated in his hand, Paris, August 1936. Small overall minor age toning to edges, otherwise about VG The present autograph was signed by Zinovy Peshkov in August 1936; only two months earlier Maxim Gorky passed away in Moscow, in June 1936, while he was under unannounced house arrest, and whose death has long been surrounded by speculation and related to Stalin´s NKVD agents. Provenance: The present page originates from the personal autograph album of Marina Chaliapin (1912-2009), the daughter of Russian opera singer Feodor Chaliapin (1873-1938), widely regarded as one of the finest bass singers of the 20th century, and his mistress Marina Petsold (1882-1964) who became the singer's second wife in 1927. Chaliapin's daughter was married to Luigi Freddi (1895-1977) the Italian journalist and politician who edited the journal Il Popolo d'Italia and who was also hugely influential in Italian political cinema in the second half of the 1930s and beginning of the 1940s