Bookvica

[CHAGALL-LIKE ILLUSTRATIONS] Konyok-Gorbunok [i.e. The Little Humpbacked Horse]

Ershov, P.

Moscow: Academia, 1934. Item #1119

124, [4] pp.: ill. In original decorative boards with cloth spine. Very good, covers a bit rubbed and soiled, back cover with a few blue stains, small crack on the front endpapers along the spine.

A beautiful edition of one of the most famous Russian fairy-tales with illustrations by Nikolay Rozenfeld (1886-1938).

Written in 1834 by Peter Ershov (1815-1869), the Little Humpbacked Horse went down in history as one of the greatest monuments of Russian literature. The author conceived the fairy-tale in the early 1830s after reading newly-published tales of Alexander Pushkin (there have been claims that the tale was either written or edited by Pushkin). According to Ershov, the Little Humpbacked Horse almost entirely repeats the words of storytellers from whom the author heard the tale and brought it into a slender form, supplementing in certain passages. An excerpt from the Little Humpbacked Horse first appeared in 1834 in the Biblioteka dlya chteniya [i.e. Library for Reading] magazine and was published as a separate edition the same year. In 1843, after the release of the third edition, the fairy-tale was completely banned by the censorship and was not reprinted for the next 13 years. In 1856 and 1861, following the death of Nicholas I, Ershov prepared new editions of the tale, restoring tsarist censorship gaps and significantly revising the text. Having become a classic of children’s reading, the Little Humpbacked Horse has been translated into 27 languages ​​and printed with a total circulation of seven million copies. Until 1917, the tale was reprinted 26 times and went through more than 130 editions in the USSR.

Despite the annual reprints, the Little Humpbacked Horse constantly attracted the attention of censorship. In 1934, at the height of collectivization, the Soviet authorities made an attempt to ban the fairy-tale as the plot was interpreted as the story of the ‘son of a village kulak’. Nevertheless, 100 years after the creation of the tale, the publishing house Academia printed a richly illustrated edition of the Little Humpbacked Horse with a circulation of 10,300 copies. The book came out under the editorship of A. Tikhonov and with a foreword by M. Azadovsky. The edition featured remarkable card-board design, endpapers and colorful illustrations by the Soviet artist and book designer Nikolay Rosenfeld. A year after the publication of the book, Rosenfeld, together with his ex-wife and nephew, was accused of conspiracy and an attempt to kill Stalin. Nikolay died in custody in 1938.

This 1934 edition of the Little Humpbacked Horse was printed in accordance with the first edition and verification with the second and third editions. Some of the missing lines of the first three editions were restored from the fourth version of the text.

The Little Humpbacked Horse tells the story of a peasant’s unpromising youngest son, Ivan, who, after freeing a golden-maned mare, is being rewarded with two handsome stallions and a little humpbacked horse. The little horse guides the guileless Ivan through the seemingly impossible tasks set him by the Tsar. Although Ivan lacks the cleverness of his ruthless brothers and the scheming courtiers, it is he who succeeds the Tsar and marries the beautiful princess.

Overall, a charming copy of one of the most famous and troubled Russian fairy-tales.

Worldcat shows copies of the edition at Harvard University Library, Amherst College Library, Cornell University Library, New York Public Library System, Princeton University Library, Library of Congress, University of Wisconsin, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, and University of California.

Sold