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[NEW CHINA, 1952] Svobodnyi Kitai [i.e. Liberated Сhina]

Gorbacheva, Z.

Item #2231

Moscow; Leningrad: Detgiz, 1952. 296 pp.: ill., 3 ills. 22,5х18 cm. In original full cloth with colored illustration and gilt lettering.

First and only edition. Cover and title page design by Yu. Kiselev. Edited by a Russian orientalist of German origin, Nikolai Kiuner (Kühner; 1877-1955).
This well-illustrated propaganda book about the People’s Republic of China was written for older children by Orientalist Zoya Gorbacheva (1907-1979). Born in St. Petersburg, she studied at the Faculty of History of Leningrad University and graduated from it in 1930. She was an employee of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1936 and was engaged in researching the history of peasant uprisings in China.
She writes about the history of the country, its revolutionary period and promotes contemporary development under Communists. The book features a scheme of Chinese regions, a scheme of industrialization projects, photographs of a village, peasants, residential sampans of the poor common before 1949, view of the Potala Palace, representatives of various ethnic groups, children, streets of Mukden, Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai, Canton, Dihua, a metallurgical plant, street trade, various agricultural works, construction of a dam on the Gan River by youth, a triumphal march of the People's Liberation Army on a Canton street and a holiday march of youth with traditional drums, Chinese shock-workers, a female student holding literacy classes for adults, Soviet tractors driven by young Chinese men.
The book was published during the Cold War, so Gorbacheva mentioned imperialists of the USA, their collaboration with Chiang Kai-shek and attempts to preserve China “weak and disjointed”.

Copies are located in Columbia, California, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Illinois, Hawaii, Ohio Universities and NYPL.

Price: $450.00