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[BANNED EDITION] Shamil. Povest’ [i.e. Shamil. The novel] / translated from Russian by S. Kovga

Pavlenko, P.

Item #2623

Kyiv: Radianskiy Pis’mennyk, 1941. 276 p. 17x11,2 cm. Original illustrated cardboard binding by Boris Kryukov (Kriukow). In Ukrainian. First edition in any language. Sent into print 9th of May, 1941, few weeks before the beginning of Nazi Invasion of Ukraine and the consequent seize of Kyiv. The Russian edition came out in Makhachkala in 1942.

Boris Kriukow (1895-1967), one of the prominent contributors to Kyiv book design of 1920s and 1930s, local artist and Kyiv Art School graduate. He stayed in Kyiv during German occupation, then moved to Lviv and even organized his art exhibitions during the German period of the city. From 1944 to 1948 he lived in Austria and painted under the pseudonym of Ivan Usatenko, taking part in art exhibitions in Salzburg, Innsbruck, etc. Later immigrated to Argentina where he became one of the most productive book illustrators of the Ukrainian emigre community. Kriukow’s name became forbidden in the USSR after the war and the books illustrated by him were banned and excluded from the public libraries.
This is likely one of the last works by Kriukow for a Soviet publisher. The historical novel about the imam Shamil, one of the most famous rebels in the history of Russian Empire, the legend of the resistance to the demands of the Empire in North Couscous and the founder of the self-governed Imeretia state on the lands of Chechnya and Dagestan, it has an interesting timing. Despite portraying Shamil’ as a fighter for the rights of the people against the imperial rulers, his figure is traditionally seen as an icon for separatist movements of North Caucasus. These ideas were still very much alive there in the begging of WWII, as few thousand people have joined the Nazi-formed army units to fight the Red Army, and in 1944 the mass deportations of Chechen and Ingush people have started, the formal reason for it was named the collaboration with the
retreated Nazi forces.

Pyotr Pavlenko (1899-1952) was a journalist, ‘Pravda’ correspondent, brigade commissar and the screenwriter. He is best known as an author of a twovolume novel about a possible future war with the Japanese, “In the East,” as well as screenplays for the films “Alexander Nevsky” and “The Fall of Berlin.”

Rare. The only copy in US is at Harvard, according to Worldcat.

Price: $1,500.00