I’ve been scanning in family photos and I came across this one. My father, rather unhelpfully, wrote-

Russian photo from my maternal grandfather: [NAME] Among the notables: back row, third figure on right is Maxim Gorky[!]; front row, second figure on left (with watch-chain) is Feodor Chaliapin.

Chaliapin was apparently a notable opera singer.

What are the other names so I can know which one is my great-grandfather? If it’s okay, once the names are transliterated, I’m not going to say which one I’m related to. I realize it was a long time ago, but you never know.

But how cool is it that he knew Maxim Gorky?

  • @Sergigig
    20•7 months ago

    Пятницкiй, Скиталецъ, М. Горький, Найденовъ, Л. Андреев, Шаляпинъ, Бунинъ, Телешевъ, Чирико

    Бунин is a famous writer and poet

    Both Бунин and Горький are part of the school literature curriculum, although I don’t recall any Бунин’s writings but thats on me

    • Flying SquidOP
      24•7 months ago

      Thank you, but the problem is I can’t read those words. What are they with a Latin alphabet without translation? Google Translate translates the words into English.

      • @Sprinks
        33•7 months ago

        Theyre names so the latin alphabet form would be the translation, more or less.

        Пятницкiй, Скиталецъ, М. Горький, Найденовъ, Л. Андреев, Шаляпинъ, Бунинъ, Телешевъ, Чирико

        Would be…

        Pyatnitsky, Skitalets, M. Horky (possibly gorky?), Naydenov, L. Andreev, Shalyapin, Bunin, Teleshev, Chiriko.

        (Note, im a native english speaker studing to speak Ukrainian)

        • Flying SquidOP
          12•7 months ago

          Thank you, that’s what I was hoping for!

          • Farid
            13•7 months ago

            I speak Russian at a native level, but that’s an archaic pre-revolution orthography that I’m not 100% sure about. But I’m 99% sure that most of those transliterations are correct. Except Gorky. In Ukrainian Г makes a rough H sound, while in Russian it’s G, as in “good”.

            And a bonus fun fact for you, горький (gorky) means “bitter”.

        • Flying SquidOP
          8•7 months ago

          Also, definitely Gorky. He’s the most famous.

      • Lemminary
        8•7 months ago

        You can use ChatGPT for that! Here’s what it spit out when I asked it to romanize the names and write them inline.

        Пятницкiй (Pyatnitsky), Скиталецъ (Skitalets), М. Горький (M. Gorky), Найденовъ (Naydenov), Л. Андреев (L. Andreev), Шаляпинъ (Shalyapin), Бунинъ (Bunin), Телешевъ (Teleshev), Чирико (Chiriko)

        E: Apparently, it can also read the names on the picture! Just copy and paste it into the chat.