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[SOVIET LIKBEZ FOR THE DEAF] Glukhonemoi na uchebe [i.e. Non-Speaking Deaf at Study. An Elementary Russian Primer for Deaf Adults]

Berliand, A., Lagovskii, N. Lerman, L., Yurieva, Ye.

Item #2785

Moscow: Izdatel’stvo NKSO RSFSR, 1935. 69, [2] pp.: ill. 22x30 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Spine, back cover and title page corners restored, some foxing and soiling, tiny hole in p. 27-28 (with no content affected), otherwise very good.

Second, revised edition. One of 6000 copies.

Rather constructivist cover design was created by Dmitry Kaznacheev; realistic illustrations are drawn by Lev Smekhov (1908–1978), the illustrator of children’s periodicals and books.
This early Soviet primer is a part of the state likbez campaign which added the Russian sign language in the early 1930s.

In Russia, the first sign language teaching school opened in Pavlovsk (near St Petersburg) in 1806. During the 19th century, major institutions for the education of the deaf were established in Moscow and St. Petersburg. According to the 1897 census, the total number of deaf individuals in the Russian Empire exceeded 120,000. In the late 1910s – the early 1920s, early associations and congresses of deaf people were formed in Russia. In 1919–1920, Homes for the Deaf and Non-Speaking opened in Petrograd and Moscow, featuring workshops, dormitories, canteens, and cultural clubs. Schools for deaf children were founded across the USSR but many deaf adults remained illiterate.

In 1931, the deaf were enrolled in factory technical schools for the first time. In 1932 the People’s Commissariat for Education issued a decree to reduce illiteracy of deaf people in the USSR. In the 1930s, deaf individuals gained access to higher education. Efforts to eliminate illiteracy expanded significantly. During 1934, the All-Russian Union of Deaf (VOG) trained 97 literacy instructors, 31 cultural workers, and 25 sign language interpreters. Over the period of 1933–1935, VOG taught more than 2,900 people to read and write in its literacy schools. Many deaf people were drawn to the “giants of the five-year plans”.

The second edition of this book was published after one of the authors, Nikolay Lagosky (1863–1933) had passed away. He began working with deaf people in 1884 when he became a trainee intern at the St. Petersburg School for the Deaf. After three years of internship, he became a teacher and educator of deaf children. In 1907–1912, Lagovsky worked at the Alexandrovsky Farm (near Zaporizhzhia) — a system of schools for the deaf where students acquired agricultural skills in order to later find employment in rural areas. Lagovsky’s first books were published in 1900-1903. They were devoted to the issues of teaching and upbringing of the deaf and made a significant contribution to Russian sign language teaching. After the October Revolution, Lagovsky actively collaborated with the Bolshevik government, contributing to the establishment of the Central Institute for the Deaf in 1918. It was the first scientific institution in Russia dedicated to studying methods of teaching the deaf and training specialists in deaf education.

Physician Abram Berliand was the author of early Soviet editions promoting hygiene and first-aid methods. Ye. Yurieva authored another primer for deaf adults in 1941.

In the early 1930s, a teaching method was developed in which the primary emphasis was on creating an unbreakable link between visual perception of the world and sign language – without the mandatory intermediate stage of reading and writing.

This particular primer contains elementary words and phrases of everyday life represented with drawings, fingerspelling, printed and cursive letters. Foremost, the book reproduces a photo of the Russian manual alphabet, with letters grouped into three categories according to their resemblance to printed forms. Then, the primer introduces words themselves: a house, table, eyes, bird, porridge, bread, airplane, as well as words necessary for the early Soviet era: sickle, plow, collective farmer, worker, factory machine. In the more advanced section of the book, portraits of party leaders and symbols of the USSR appear with their names, but without manual alphabet cues. Also, concepts are given for Red Army, rifle, gas mask, factory, city, collective farm, cooperative, ice skates, female student, and phrases such as “a worker is walking to a factory,” “collective farmers are plowing,” “a woman worker is ice-skating,” “a worker is reading a newspaper,” etc. Even here, images advocated for the collectivization campaign.

Digits up to 10 in the manual alphabet, as well as the Russian printed and italic alphabets are included.

Not found in Worldcat.

Price: $950.00