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[FOLKLORE IN THE USSR] Pesni narodov SSSR [i.e. Songs of Peoples of the USSR] / Compiled by A. Globa

Moscow: GIHL, 1933. Item #1608

194 pp. 18,5x12 cm. In original illustrated cardboards. Ornamental endpapers. Binding rubbed and bumped, slightly soiled, otherwise very good and clean internally.
First edition. One of 3000 copies. Rare.
Songs were collected by writer and playwright Andrei Globa (1888-1964). He also supervised adaptation into Russian.
Design was created by Lev Miul’gaupt (1900-1986). Born in Belgorod, he graduated from the Language Department of MSU, then turned to arts and studied at workshops of artists L. Bruni and V. Favorsky in 1925-1929. Miul’gaupt is known as an engraver and book illustrator. For this edition, he produced an illustrated title page featuring an upper composition with reindeer heads and a central vignette with a camel rider.
This collection includes adaptations of folk songs of Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Avar, Ossetian, Balkar, Kumyk, Tat, Svan, Volga Tatar, Bashkir, Kalmyk, Mari, Votic [Udmurt], Mordovian, Chuvash, Buryat, Mongolian, Yakut people. Their folklore was represented differently. The compiler recorded 25 Turkmen folk songs but managed to find the only Tat one. The latter was actually thought up in the Bolshevik period and is devoid of any ethnic sign. According to Globa, “crystallization of a folk song usually takes place over many decades and centuries”. Unlike this statement, peoples of the USSR were forced to compose socialist folk songs commending the Communist party in a limited period of time. By 1933, Globa found several songs on the Komsomol or the Red Army.

Worldcat shows the only copy located in Princeton University.

Price: $350.00