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[RUSSIAN DP PUBLISHING IN POSTWAR BAYREUTH, GERMANY] Kazaki [i.e. The Cossacks]

Tolstoy, L.

Item #2740

Bayreuth: Lorenz Ellwanger, 1947. 128 pp. 20,6x14,6 cm. In original publisher’s illustrated wrappers. Wrappers detached, tears, the text block split in two, previous owner’s ink inscription on the title-page, but otherwise good.

Scarce. Text in Russian.
A remarkable example of Russian DP publishing and an extremely rare edition of Leo Tolstoy’s autobiographical novel “The Cossacks”. The book was published in Bayreuth, Germany, by Lorenz Ellwanger two years after the end of World War II. At the time, Bayreuth served as a major center for Eastern European refugees in the American occupation zone of Germany, many of whom had fled or refused repatriation to the Soviet Union.
Following Allied agreements, the immediate postwar years saw the mass, often forced, repatriation of Soviet citizens to the USSR. Many Russians, Ukrainians, and Cossacks refused repatriation, fearing Stalin’s regime, which treated prolonged contact with the West as evidence of collaboration. The Bayreuth DP camp developed self-governing institutions and an active cultural life, including a vibrant Russian-language publishing scene operating under UNRRA censorship. The camp gradually dissolved as residents emigrated to the United States and other Western countries under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. Many who were forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union, however, faced accusations of treason, imprisonment, or execution.
Our copy of the book likely belonged to one of the DPs living in Allied-controlled Bayreuth. Unlike most DP books from post-war Germany, “The Cossacks” lacks the censorship approval of the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration), suggesting it may have been secretly produced for underground distribution.
Leo Tolstoy’s novel was first published in 1863 in the literary journal “The Russian Messenger” [i.e. Russkiy Vestnik]. Originally conceived under the title “Young Manhood”, the work occupied Tolstoy for nearly a decade. He began the manuscript in 1853 and repeatedly revised it, at one point rewriting the entire novel after rereading the Iliad. Following severe gambling losses, Tolstoy was forced to complete the work and sell the manuscript to editor Mikhail Katkov for 1,000 rubles.
The novel draws heavily from Tolstoy’s experiences as a young army junker stationed in the Caucasus during the final stages of the Caucasian War. Many scholars identify the protagonist, Dmitry Olenin, a disillusioned aristocrat who leaves Moscow in search of a more authentic life among the Cossacks, as a reflection of Tolstoy himself during his youth of gambling, drinking, and restless self-indulgence. The novel became one of Tolstoy’s earliest major critiques of the romanticized “noble savage” myth and foreshadowed the philosophical and moral concerns that would later define his mature works.
Overall, one of the first Russian émigré books from post-war Germany, lacking censorship approval of UNRRA.

Worldcat shows copies of the edition at the University of Munich, Hamburg State and University Library, National Library of Spain, and University of Illinois at Urbana.

Price: $350.00

Status: On Hold