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[STRUWWELPETER IN UKRAINIAN] Yurza-Murza

Item #2799

Lviv: Vydavnytstvo L’vivs’koi filii Ukrains’koho kraevoho tovarystva okhorony ditei i opiky nad molodiu u L’vovi, 1930. 16 pp.: ill. 24x17 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Spine, edges restored, few little pale stains, otherwise very good.

Second edition of Ukrainian adaptation of German children’s verses “Der Struwwelpeter”. The book contains ten poems about behaviors considered harmful for children. In addition to adapting the original verses, the translator added three of his own: one about a child who picked his nose, another about a child who ate rubbish off the ground, and a third about a child who threw tantrums while being washed.

The translation was undertaken by Yuri Shkrumeliak (1895–1965). He mastered several European languages and worked fluently as a translator from German, English, Czech, Russian, and Polish. During the First World War he made his debut with the patriotic poem “By the Rows of Rows” (1915) published in Vienna. He took part in the liberation struggle and collaborated with M. Yevshan in the archives of the Ukrainian Galician Army's Primary Team. In the interwar years, between 1920 and 1930, he worked as an editor for the magazines “Dzvinochok” [Little Bell] and “Svit dytyny” [The World of the Child], bringing the noted children's poet Mariyka Pidhiryanka into collaboration. From 1928 to 1939, he was employed by the publishing concern of Ivan Tyktor, serving as editor-in-chief and columnist under the pseudonym Ivan Sorokaty for the newspaper “Narodna Sprava” [The People’s Cause], while continuing his work with the children's magazine “Dzvinochok”. After the Second World War, in 1945, he was sentenced to ten years in a Soviet concentration camp and served his term in the Pechora camps. Following his release in 1956, he was rehabilitated.

Over his lifetime, he authored more than 30 books for children, among the best-known of which are “Yurza-Murza” (first ed. 1921), “Zapisky Ivasia Krilyka” [Notes of Ivas Krilyk], “Strilets Nevmyrakha” [The Undying Rifleman], “Mova vikiv” [The Language of the Ages], and a four-part “Istorii Ukrainy dlia ditei” [History of Ukraine for Children]. He produced numerous translations of world classics, poetry, short stories, and fictionalized memoirs in its calendars and almanacs.

The adapted text was paired with new illustrations by Ukrainian artist Osyp Kurylas (1870–1951). From 1886 to 1890, Kurylas studied at the Lviv School of Art and Industry, which was directed by Z. Gorgolewski. Due to a lack of funds to continue his education at the Academy of Fine Arts, he supported himself by taking commissions for icons and portraits of local townspeople. In 1898–1900, he completed a course in painting at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts and took part in several exhibitions in Lviv. During the First World War, he served in the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. Over the course of the war, he produced numerous sketches, postcards, portraits, and genre scenes. In this relatively short period, he created around two hundred portraits of riflemen, as well as battle paintings such as ‘Makivka’ and ‘The Battle of Lysonia’. In the early 1920s, he worked as a drawing teacher at the Oleksa Novakivskyi Art School. In 1935, following Novakivskyi's death, he became the school's director. During this time, in addition to teaching, he illustrated newspapers, magazines, primers, and school textbooks, and painted works on religious themes. After the Soviet annexation of Western Ukraine, Kurylas continued to live and work in Lviv.

His illustrations share the same subjects, and the cover once again features a similar unkempt boy. In Kurylas’s version, however, he looks more like a character from a horror story.

Not found in Worldcat.

Price: $550.00