Item #450 [ROMANI LANGUAGE] Vash adaya lylvari [i.e. About This Book]. B. S. Zhitkov.
[ROMANI LANGUAGE] Vash adaya lylvari [i.e. About This Book]
[ROMANI LANGUAGE] Vash adaya lylvari [i.e. About This Book]

[ROMANI LANGUAGE] Vash adaya lylvari [i.e. About This Book]

Item #450

Moscow: Uchpedgiz,1932. 31, [1] pp.: ill. 19,5x13,5 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Fine.

First and only edition. One of 1000 copies. Extremely rare, especially in such mint condition. In Romani language. Imprint in Russian on the back cover. Translated and completed by N. Pankov. This is a children’s book by famous Soviet writer Boris Zhitkov (1882-1938) about history and making of books. In original Russian the book was published in 1927 for the first time with illustrations by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky (1889-1965). The book is an outstanding example of the genre of children’s ‘industrial’ books created in 1920s by such artists like Lebedev and Tsekhanovsky. Tsekhanovsky’s illustrations are used in this edition but transformed and covers are completely different. The book was very well received, and it was probably one of the reason why this book was translated in many other languages of USSR like Erzya, Mari, Moksha, Komi, Finnish, Azerbaidjani and others. This is an edition in Romani language.

After the Revolution Romani fell into new authorities’ sight. Starting from 1920s Soviets tried to include them into mainstream state culture life. They were supposed to move on to sedentary lifestyle and start work in kolkhoz but even though such kolkhozes were created in 1930s most of Romani kept their nomadic lifestyle. There
were attempts to establish organs coordinating jobs among Romani, in the beginning of the 1930s there were three schools in Moscow where teaching was in Romani language and Romani pedagogical courses. The most important and active work was happening in the field of creating Romani writing. Translator of this book Nikolay Pankov (1895-1959) was a Romani Soviet writer and translator from a famous in the past dynasty. He was an activist for revival of Romani culture.

Together with professors he was working on creation of such writing. In 1927 Lunacharsky approved introduction of Romani alphabet into life. After that Pankov was actively involved in creation of Russian-Romani dictionary as well as translated a lot of Russian and world classics into Romani and wrote himself. In the beginning of the 1930s a whole series of textbooks and anthologies were published for students as well as translations. Soviet children’s books stand out from that group. By the end of the 1930s Soviet policy rapidly changed from including minorities into the union to direct Russification. Romani schools were closed, All Russian Romani Union was eliminated, publishing of books in Romani language stopped. In total there were nearly 300 books published in Romani between 1927 and 1938. Basically Romani writing language was eliminated like other small languages.

No copies found in Worldcat.

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