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[BERDICHEV IMPRINT] Samouchok Nimetskoi Movy: v 30-tokh Lektsiiakh z Naivazhnishymy Pravylamy Hramatyky ta Kliuchem do Vprav: dlia Pochatkivtsiv [German Language Tutorial: in 30 Lessons with the Most Important Grammar Rules and a Key to Exercises. For Beginners]

Koretskyi, I.

Item #2509

Berdichev: Redaktsiia “Nova Doba”, 1941. 32 p. 8vo (20×14,5 cm). Vol 1 of 3. Original publisher’s typed softcover. Title also in German. In Ukrainian and German. Run not mentioned. German title reads: I. Koretzkyj Lehrbuch der Deutschen Sprache: zum Selbstunterricht in 30 Unter-Richtstunden mit den Wichtigsten Regeln der Grammatik und einem Schlüssel zu den Übungen. Fur Anfänger. Good contion. New staples.

This edition – either second or third – was printed by Nova Doba, a Berdychiv-based publisher that issued an eponymous newspaper from 1941 to 1943. Nova Doba on pair with a similar periodical Ukrainske Slovo was a regional kind-of-official newspaper of the occupational Nazi regiment, curated by the collaborationist Ukrainians. It included such rubrics like “From the Führer’s HQ”, “The Wehrmacht High Command reports”, caricatures on the Allied forces etc. It also included a Russian-language page. The run of Nova Doba was 11 000 copies. Nova Doba listed close to 50 workers. It operated its own typography named after hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. (Kovalchuk, I. Stvorennia i Funktsionuvannia Berdychivskoi Okruzhnoi Hazety „Nova Doba” u Druhii Polovyni 1941 Roku / Drahomanivski Istorychni Studii : Zbirnyk Naukovykh Prats Molodykh Istorykiv. Kiev, 2013. pp. 293–302) During WWII the city of Berdichev was occupied from 1941 to 1944. Zhytomir region surely was in need of German-speaking specialists. This tutorial was a handy and self-dependent way for the willing Ukrainians to learn the language, without being absent from work on any kind of organised courses or schools. Autumn 1941 the region saw purges of Ukrainian nationalists who fell out of favour of Nazi regiment: they were becoming too active striving towards the independent state. Quite possibly, the persecution of nationalists and nationalist supporters led to a shortage of loyal German-speaking professionals. This Samouchok was a means to find new loyal employees around the important frontline region.

According to the 1st edition of 1940, the complete Samouchok was 139 pages long, with a total of 30 lectures and p. 106–139 being a list of answers to the questions and exercises. The tutorial published in III vols was 30 to 50 pages in each part and was issued in 3 vols. This vol. 1 provides 9 out of those 30. Samouchok ends abruptly on an unfinished exercise – but not because it’s not complete – rather it’s an artefact of a poor publishing process. The 9 lectures provided are basic rules for a novice learner and give an understanding of the alphabet, present past and future tenses, possessive pronouns, declension, conjugation, gender and a vocabulary of several hundred words. Its vocabulary looks like one aimed at basic everyday interactions: tools, work, food is among topics in the lectures. Nothing is known about the author. Overall an interesting wartime linguistic artifact. The Krakiw edition is in Nimtsi v Ukrainy. Naukovo-Dopomizhnyi Bibliohrafichnyi Pokazhchyk 1917–1941 (Kiev, 1998), #983.

Rare. Not in WorldCat. Not in KVK.

In Ukraine a copy of the complete book is present in Biblioteka Kyivskoho Stolychnoho Universytetu im. B. Hrinchenka. Not in the Russian State Library. Not in the National Library of Ukraine.

Price: $750.00