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[TEN YEARS OF COAL AND METAL CITY] Desiat’ let goroda uglia i metalla: Sbornik [i.e. Ten Years of Coal and Metal City]

Item #889

Stalinsk: Iubil. komissiia po organizatsii prazdnovaniia 10-letiia Kuznets. metallurg. zavoda im. Stalina i goroda Stalinska, 1939. 288 pp.: ill., 2 portraits. 25x18,5 cm. In original red cloth with mounted photograph and gilt lettering on the front cover and spine (faded). Slightly bumped, small ink stain on t.p., otherwise mint.

First and only edition. One of 10 000 copies. Extremely rare. Design by Buzovertov and Popov, photographs by Burakov and Rukavishnikov.

A triumphal edition published in the 10th anniversary of a major coal mining and industrial center in the 1930s - Kuznetsk Iron and Steel Plant - and settlement around it.

Since 1929 workers were bringing to life a project of a huge metal plant under Kuznetsk town. Being classics of that time, a gardencity for workers was founded nearby construction the same year. The newly formed socialist settlement increased and merged with the old one, being renamed together into Stalinsk (the name was changed to Novokuznetsk in 1961). The founder of the plant and its first director was a revolutionary Sergei Frankfurt (1888-1937). In 1935 he had written a book ‘Birth of Steel and Man’ about this industrial site but in 1936 he was executed - no wonder that our edition kept silence of his name. Except for that, the book is full of different names: authors of the articles were blast furnace workers, steelworkers, engineers, newspaper editors, teachers, and others.

The curious point is that people of Novokuznetsk considered Mayakovsky their countryman because his poem ‘A Story of Kuznetskstroi and People of Kuznetsk’ (1929) significantly increased enthusiasm about this construction and literally made its reputation. Mayakovsky never visited this city, but the poem was published in the anniversary edition on p. 213-214.

Finally, there is an abundance of photographs: people, early buildings, streets and parks. The formation of the city’s image has occurred during the constructivist period. The competition, held for civil constructions of the new settlement, attracted A. Shchusev, Vesniny brothers and German architect E. May. Ideas of the last one were accepted and now Novokuznetsk is the only Soviet city where the heritage of May is preserved.

Worldcat doesn’t locate this edition.

Price: $950.00