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[RUSSIAN DP PUBLISHING IN REGENSBURG] Glavneyshiye pravila russkogo pravopisaniya [i.e. The Most Important Rules of Orthography]

Tsurikov, N.

Item #2397

Regensburg: author’s edition, 1947. 46, [4] pp. 20,5x14,5 cm. In original publisher’s printed wrappers. Wrappers age-toned, but otherwise near fine.

Extremely rare. First edition. Text in Russian.

Uncommon Russian grammar directory and one of the earliest Russian émigré books issued in post-war Regensburg. A rare example of DP (displaced persons) publishing, Nikolay Tsurikov’s Glavneyshiye pravila russkogo pravopisaniya was issued at the author’s own expense two years after he fled Prague. Notably, Russian State Library lists only eight books published in Russian in Regensburg.
The edition is divided into ten sections, addressing key orthographic rules for nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns, verbs, prepositions, etc. Approved by UNRRA censorship, our copy likely belonged to a Russian DP in Allied-occupied Germany. After WWII, as Soviet citizens fled westward, the Allies established DP camps,
holding about 1.5 million people, including laborers and POWs from Soviet-occupied zones. Regensburg, home to the largest DP camp from 1945 to 1949, produced numerous newspapers, books, and brochures under U.S. Military Government approval. Many publications, banned in the USSR, were disseminated here. The camp also had its own postal service, churches, schools, factories, and kindergartens. Many Soviet DPs in Regensburg claimed Ukrainian identity to avoid repatriation. Crime, including blackmarket trade and gang activity, was prevalent, and tensions grew as Soviets were blamed for rising crime. Soviet authorities later attempted to forcibly repatriate DPs, accusing many of treason.

The author, Nikolay Tsurikov (1886–1957), was a law graduate of Moscow University, a Russian émigré journalist, and an anti- Bolshevik activist. During the Russian Civil War, he fought with the White Army and was evacuated to Constantinople before settling in Prague in 1923. There, he became a prominent anti-Bolshevik
journalist, publishing under the pseudonym Ivan Belenikhin. After the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, his activities were banned, and in 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo, spending three months in prison. As Soviet forces neared Prague in 1945, he fled to Germany, where he led the German branch of the Union for the
Struggle for the Freedom of Russia.

Worldcat shows copies of the edition at the University of Notre Dame, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Utah,and Stanford University.

Price: $350.00