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[CHEKHOV FOR TAJIK CHILDREN] Kaştanka [i.e. Kashtanka]

Chekhov, A.

Stalinobod [Dushanbe]: Sektori adabijjoti bacagona Nasrijjoti davlatiji Tocikiston, 1937. Item #1283

64 pp.: ill. 27x20 cm. In original illustrated cardboards. Some soiling, few tears of front flyleaf, binding corners slightly rubbed and bumped, otherwise very good copy.

Second edition. One of 7000 copies. Extremely rare edition printed in Tajik language using Latin script.
After Central Asia had been annexed by the USSR, the Soviet authorities, together with local intelligentsia, began to develop a policy of creating new literary norms and changing of alphabet in particular.
The Tajik language was proclaimed official in the newly formed Tajik ASSR as part of the Uzbek SSR, which was transformed into a separate union republic in 1929. In 1922, the process of translating the Tajik language from the traditional Arabic-Persian script into Latin script started and was completed by 1936. Since the late 1920s, about 70 national languages have suffered latinization or adapted new romanised alphabets: Tatar, Saami, Tsakhur, etc. All Slavic languages, including Russian, were also in plans of the latinisation campaign, but in the process of romanisation the Soviet authorities cancelled this campaign and a new reform of writing began switching national languages into Cyrillic script in 1939.
This edition included an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s ‘Kashtanka’ into Tajik language undertaken by I. Mullogana. Next to him/her, the book credited probably an editor who was crossed out from the printer’s information behind the title page and on the last page of the book. Most likely, the person was executed during two month of book publishing in 1937.
Cover design and illustrations were created by Russian and Soviet graphic artist and painter Dmitrii Kardovskii (1866-1943). He taught and graduated a range of modernist artists (Lentulov, Grigor’ev, Sudeikin) but remained a realist artist for the whole lifetime. Kardovskii produced illustrations for ‘Kashtanka’ in charcoal and Chinese ink in 1903.

Not found in Worldcat.

Price: $550.00