Item #1277 [SOVIET GEORGIA] Gruziia [i.e. Georgia]. A. Kutateladze.
[SOVIET GEORGIA] Gruziia [i.e. Georgia]
[SOVIET GEORGIA] Gruziia [i.e. Georgia]

[SOVIET GEORGIA] Gruziia [i.e. Georgia]

Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1931. Item #1277

16 pp.: ill. 22x19,5 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Spine restored, some soiling, pale children’s marks occasionally, otherwise very good copy.
Remarkable children’s book produced in a comparing principle “earlier/now” or “before the 1917 Revolution and after”. In 1921, Georgia (Stalin’s homeland) was occupied by Bolsheviks and then turned into a Soviet Republic. Ideology and socialist institutions were established instead of the previous lifestyle.
The artist Apollon Kutateladze (1899-1972) was entrusted to promote changes to new socialist generations. From 1922 to 1926, he studied at the Tbilisi Academy of Arts under E. Lanceray, G. Gabashvili and I. Charlemagne. Kutateladze contributed to the design of magazines ‘Niangi’, ‘Drosha’, ‘Khelovneba’, ‘Tsiteli Skhivi’ (later ‘Pioneri’). The last one could be regarded as the most important children’s periodical in Georgia.
In this book, each double-page spread is dedicated to a single region of contemporary Georgia: Kartli and Kakheti, Imereti, Adjara, Mingrelia, Svaneti, Khevsureti. The verso pages show old manners and traditions liquidated. On rectos, Kutateladze drew powerful tractors and ships, a hydroelectric station, developing agriculture with rich harvest, a sanatorium and physical culture, schools, radio broadcasting, equal rights and labor of men and women. Created in a rather laconic style, illustrations bring to mind other Soviet children’s books until 1932. Every illustration combines separate images into one composition, just like photomontages.
In all, wonderful propaganda for Soviet children.

Worldcat shows copies located in Princeton, Columbia, Chicago Universities.

Sold

See all items in Children, Georgia
See all items by