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[SHERWOOD ANDERSON IN UKRAINE] Yaytse: opovidannya [i.e. The Egg: Short Stories]

Anderson, Sh.

Item #2544

[Kharkiv]: Knyhospilka, 1926. 64 pp. 15x11,6 cm. In original publisher’s illustrated wrappers. Fold marks at the edges of the wrappers, but otherwise internally clean copy.

Scarce. First edition. Text in Ukrainian. 1 of 5,000 copies. Design of the wrapper by anonymous local artist, under the monogram “Zh.A.”
One of the earliest, if not the first, Ukrainian translations of anything by Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941), a famous American novelist and short story writer.
The edition came out during the brief period of “Ukrainization,” when Ukrainian was actively promoted in schools, publishing, and administration across the USSR. In 1931, Moscow reversed the policy and imposed restrictions, vigorously suppressing the language, particularly in eastern Ukraine and the Kuban. Many pre-1931 books were removed from school curricula, libraries, and official reading lists, and a large number gradually disappeared from public access.
The book contains four short stories - “The Egg,” “The Other Woman,” “Brothers,” and “The Door of the Trap” - translated from English by Borys Antonenko-Davydovych (1899-1984), a noted Ukrainian writer, translator and linguist. Antonenko-Davydovych actively worked in journalism, contributing to the newspaper Proletarska Pravda and serving as executive secretary of the journal Hlobus. He was also a member of the literary group Lanka (later MARS) and took part in the literary debates of 1925–1927. In the early 1930s, following a wave of arrests and the suicides of fellow writers, he moved to Kazakhstan, where he worked on anthologies of Kazakh literature in Ukrainian translation. On January 5, 1935, he was arrested and accused of refusing to Russify Ukrainian dictionaries. Initially sentenced to death, his punishment was commuted to ten years in labor camps. Antonenko-Davydovych served his sentence in Siberian camps, including Siblag and Bamlag. During World War II, he was held in Bukachachlag prison before being transferred to hard labor in a mining camp. After his release, he returned to Ukraine, but in 1946 was arrested again without trial and sentenced to lifelong exile in the village of Maloroseyka, Krasnoyarsk Territory. Antonenko-Davydovych was allowed to return to Kyiv in 1957, where he was rehabilitated and reinstated as a member of the Writers’ Union.

No copies found in Worldcat.

Price: $450.00