Bookvica

Golos sakharnika [i.e. Voice of a Sugar Industry Employee] #1-12 for 1926

Moscow: TsK sakharnikov, 1926. Item #1517

30x23 cm. In contemporary binding with most of the original covers preserved; marbled edges. Good. Tears to spine, covers rubbed and bumped. Pp. 17-18 (#9) lost. No covers of #12. Pale water stains on edges, few spots, minor blank fragments of outer edge of pp. 21-30 (#1) lost, tear across pp. 31-32 (#2), tears in the middle of the last leaf of #3 (text not lost), tears to outer edge of pp. 29-30 (#10) and pp.13-14 (#11).
Print-run varies between 4000 and 6000 copies. Edited by A. Lugovoi. Drawn decorations were created by the artist, Khitko.

A year’s set of the specialized monthly “Golos sakharnika” (published between 1920 and 1930). It is one of the few magazines of the Soviet sugar industry, particularly interesting for its design.
Early journals on sugar beet production in Russia were published in the pre-revolutionary period and were targeted at sugar refiners, farmers and traders. These included “Zapiski komiteta sakharovarov” (1834–1839), “Zapiski po sveklosakharnoi promyshlennosti” (1871–1917), “Vestnik russkoi sakharnoi promyshlennosti” (1890–1916). In the Soviet period, different organizations simultaneously printed four periodicals in Russian: “Biulleten Sakharotresta” (later renamed “Sovetskii sakhar”), “Zhurnal sakharnoi promyshlennosti”, “Golos sakharnika” and “Nauchnye zapiski po sakharnoi promyshlennosti”, some of them also issued in Ukrainian.
“Golos sakharnika” was the organ of the Central Committee of the Russian and Ukrainian trade union of the sugar industry, “Trudsakhar”. Between 1920 and 1922, it appeared in Kharkiv, but later the union and the editorial board moved to Moscow.
The magazine regularly featured numerous photomontages and photographs of employees of various sugar refineries. Almost every cover design in our set includes a photomontage composition. A great diversity of photomontages are printed inside.
The front cover of issue #1 features a montage, “During the Production”, that combines one female worker next to a machine and two male workers carrying sugarloaves. The cover design of #2 s a montage entitled “Our Youths Are Working”, shows young men carpentering in workshops and sitting atop a carriage; one boy poses with a shovel. #9 opens with a curious photomontage, “The Refinery is under Repair”, depicting no people but with internal and external photographs of a factory, chains and metal pipes, as well as the constructivist title. A few covers include pictures of bare-chested men working with sugarloaves.
The issues contain photomontage compositions representing both employees and buildings of various factories named by settlement: Verkhniachka, Smela, Rakitnoe etc. Some works are signed with the monogram “E. Fer”, most likely all montages were made by one person. Pictures were provided by the photographer K. Pechov.
All photo illustrations of this magazine depict Soviet sugar enterprises before World War II, the Nazi occupation of Ukraine and the western territories of Russia, military action that destroyed most factories. Post-war recovery plans included some of these refineries while the rest were considered superfluous to the needs of the Soviet Union. Finally, the dissolution of the country, the collapse of the economy and many other factors brought these sugar refineries to ruin.
Worldcat shows some issues located in Yivo Institute.

Price: $3,500.00