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[THE EXECUTED RENAISSANCE] Aist i liagushki [i.e. Stork and Frogs]

Budiak, Yu.

Item #1707

Kyiv: Kul’tura, 1930. 12 pp.: ill. 17,5x17 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Tears of spine, soiling, otherwise good.

Russian by A. Pavlova.
A children’s book by remarkable Ukrainian writer Yuri Budiak (pseudonym of Yuri Pokos; 1879-1942). Born in the Poltava province, he debuted with his own poems in 1895. He frequently changed jobs, served as a sailor and even participated in the Second Boer War. After he came back to Ukraine in 1906, he published in periodicals ‘Rada’ [Union], ‘Literaturno-naukovoi visnyk’ [Literary and Scientific Messenger], ‘Ukrains’ka khata’ [Ukrainian House]. After the February Revolution of 1917, Yuri Budiak was an active figure in the Ukrainian movement and worked in the Central Rada, then in the Bila Tserkva society ‘Prosvita’ [Enlightenment]. In 1922 and 1924 he was arrested by Soviet authorities blaming him for welcoming Petliura – however, he was acquitted. In the 1920s, he joined the literary group ‘Plug’ [Plow] and regularly published. At that time, he released seven poetry collections and several prose books, including children’s stories. In the mid-1930s, a range of Ukrainian literary representatives were executed. Yuri Budiak was also arrested and accused of counter-revolutionary and nationalist journalist activities. He was sentenced to five years of GULAG camps. Budiak had survived the sentence but died in occupied Kyiv in 1943.

This children’s poetry book was designed by Mikhail Yantsyn (1890-1942). He was known as a book illustrator, landscape and portrait painter, theater artist. Born in the Turkestan region, he graduated from the Skobelev gymnasium, then studied at the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University and the Central School of Technical Drawing of Baron A.L. Stieglitz. His spouse was children’s writer Vera Vasil’eva with whom he moved to Kyiv in the late 1920s.

The only copy is located in Richmond Public Library.

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