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[MAYAKOVSKY, ASEYEV, TRET'YAKOV - PIONEERS OF SOVIET PROPAGANDA] Lef-agitki Mayakovskogo, Aseyeva, Tret'yakova [i.e Leftist Propaganda by Mayakovsky, Aseyev, and Tretyakov]

Kruchenykh, A.

Item #2853

Moscow: Vserossiyskiy soyuz poetov, 1925. 61 pp. 18,5x14 cm. In original publisher's illustrated wrappers. Very good. Tears of the spine, rubbed edges, private library stamp on the verso of the front wrapper: "From Niccolo Mitsishvili's Books."

Rare. First edition. One of 3,000 copies. Two-color constructivist wrapper design by Valentina Kulagina-Klutsis (1902-1987), a Russian book designer and a central figure in the 20th-century Constructivist avant-garde. Valentina and her husband, Gustav Klutsis (1895-1938), are best known for their pioneering use of photomontages in Soviet revolutionary and Stalinist propaganda.

An important collection of propaganda verses written by the leading Soviet avant-garde poets and the pioneers of Soviet propaganda - Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), Nikolay Aseyev (1889-1963), and Igor Tretyakov (1892-1937). The book compiles the best examples of their patriotic agit verses penned for the famous avant-garde journal LEF and includes an introduction and notes by Alexey Kruchenykh (1886-1968). The verses sharply criticize Tsarist Russia and pre-revolutionary societal vices while celebrating the Red Army and the new Soviet man. Overall, an important collaboration between the founders of the Soviet propaganda art.

Niccolo Mitsishvili (1896-1937) was a Georgian poet and an active member of a group of Georgian Symbolist poets and prose-writers, “Blue Horns”. The head of the art department in the state-owned printing house, he promoted spreading of literacy among Georgians by creating a workshop for editors. In 1936 attending a party held by his close friend Sandro Shanshishvili (1888-1972), Niccolo spoke badly of the Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, Lavrenti Beria (1899-1953). This incident did not remain unnoticed. Shortly after the party, Mitsishvili was arrested and executed in 1937, during the period of the Great Purge.

Status: On Hold