Search Results: Travels: Russia, Siberia, Far East and Pacific from PY Rare Books

The scarce catalogue of Asian numismatics compiled by Baron Stanislas de Chaudoir, one of the greatest coin collectors of the early 19th century. With an unusual bibliography, only in Chinese ideograms, of 88 Chinese works relating to the subject.A lovely example of the rarer first Russian issue, in a fine Russian binding.Stanislas de Chaudoir (1790—1858) was a Russian aristocrat with a passion for numismatics and antiquities. In the second half of the 18th century his father Jean Joseph relocated from Bavaria to Poland, where Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria granted nobility to him and his family. Stanislas subsequently established himself in Zhytomir, nowadays Ukraine. There, over the course of his life, he assembled an extensive collection of antiquities from the Kievan Rus and the Greek Black Sea colonies.Part of the Chaudoir's collection was purchased by the Hermitage Museum during his lifetime; the most valuable items, however, were subsequently taken to England by the Chaudoir's second wife… Read More

A FINE EXAMPLE OF A UKRAINIAN ARTISTIC AND ACADEMIC COLLABORATION, CELEBRATING - UNDER THE RUSSIAN RULE - THE COUNTRY HISTORY AND PAST GLORY.Evarnitskii (Dmytro Yavornytsky, 1855-1940) was a knowledgeable historian, ethnographer and lexicographer with marked pro-Ukrainian tendencies. He used for the present publication both primary and archival sources in his research, and a selection of them was later published as 'Istochniki dlia istorii zaporozhskykh kozakov' (Sources for the History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, in 1903). He then became, in 1902, director of the Museum of Antiquities of Katerynoslav Gubernia (later the Dnipropetrovsk Historical Museum).His text mainly develops, in Russian and French, biographies of important Ukrainian figures, and is illustrated through the collaboration between two of the best artists and book illustrators of the period, both also Ukrainian. Samokish's style in the present work echoes one of his masterpieces, the celebrated 4-volume 'Tsarskaia Okhota' [Imperial… Read More

'UN ETAT IMMOLE MAIS UNE NATION INDESTRUCTIBLE': BEAUTIFUL WORK ILLUSTRATING THE TRADITIONAL COSTUME AS POLITICAL REVENDICATION AND MANIFESTATION OF THE NATIONAL IDENTITY.
Also one of the very few books on Polish costume, chronologically the third such book listed by Colas.
Compiled by the Polish political activist and literary critic Zienkowicz (1808-70), who fled to France during the Great Emigration, the work bears a strong political statement. Dedicated "Aux amis de la cause polonaise", it begins with a lyric introduction defending the national character of Poland, "this nation [which] no longer exists but in the regrets or hopes of the people". Zienkowicz denounces in particular the "cruel and ridiculous" Russian decree, which forbade the use of national costumes.
His work further covers the history of Polish peoples and regional characteristics, but also analyses wider aspects: a whole chapter is dedicated to Polish music (illustrated with notes of Polonaises, among other melodies, exactly… Read More

A fine series of beautiful portraits and scenes taken by one of the most significant female photographers of her time: first edition of this large-format album published to raise funds for the war relief.
The work opens with an introduction that stands in contrast to the often-hostile messages propagated against the Soviet Union by the West around World War Two: "The USSR often has been called the "family of nations", because more than 150 nationalities live there in harmony. This album will serve as an introduction to a few of these peoples – our Soviet allies".
It was published by the Russian War Relief, which was the largest American agency for foreign war relief established in July 1941, one month after Germany's attack on Russia. For this publication, they worked with the American photographer Margaret Bourke-White (1904–71), who is best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of the Soviet five-year plan and the first American female war photojournalist.
In the… Read More

The very rare atlas to the first edition of Lisianskii's voyage, "a very important and rare work on the history of Alaska in general and Sitka in particular" (Lada-Mocarski).
A very good complete example.Detailed note kindly provided on request.Provenance
The author? (large ink signature in Russian to title); Tambovskoe glavnoe narodnoe utschilischche [and] Fundamentalnaia biblioteka tambovskoi gubernskoi gimnasii (pre-Soviet blue ink stamps to title and wrapper, black ink inscription to title, shelfmarks to title, 'Atlas Lisianskago' [Atlas of Lisianskii] written in black ink to upper wrapper); European private collection (since the 1990s).
Description
Large folio (68 x 52 cm). Engraved title page, 13 maps on 12 leaves, including 4 double-page, and 3 engraved plates. Printed on thick paper of varying stock, some leaves of light blue paper. Contemporary blue-green marbled wrappers, kept in modern leather-backed solander box.
Condition
The volume has been folded in its middle at some point, leaving a… Read More

Exhaustive collection of striking, informative, curious and amusing popular Russian prints following the Russo-Turkish and Caucasian wars, but also covering a large variety of subjects in a very graphic way.
Rare: we could find only two copies of this album sold in 1975 and 2008 (the latter missing a plate); Worldcat locates only two physical copies (Indiana University, BnF).
The so-called lubok, or popular folk prints, appeared in Russia in the early 17th century and quickly became popular with peasants and urban lower classes for their accessible anecdotic images and narratives on a broad variety of themes. Sometimes reprinted many times over the years, they would often decorate peasants', merchants' and bourgeois' houses and even replace icons, books and newspapers.
The successful publisher and educator Ivan Sytin (1851-1932) was one of the largest producers and distributors of printed lubok in the second half of the 19th century; he presented his prints at various exhibitions, including the… Read More

Russia and the Pacific seen by four Japanese castaways: almost 4 meters of drawings and maps llustrating their impression of the Russian land, people, culture, military, dress, etc., together with depictions of Marquesan and Hawaian people.
The Kankai Ibun, or "Strange Tales of a Circumnavigation", for the first time recorded the experiences of four Japanese who had been rescued by a Russian vessel in 1792 and were taken to St. Petersburg before eventually returning to Japan on the Krusenstern expedition in 1804.
The first scroll opens with two aerial maps of Avacha Bay (Kamchatka) and the entrance to Nagasaki harbour, followed by Russian flags and detailed rendition of Russian military uniforms, the Russian boat Nadezhda entering Nagasaki harbour surrounded by a multitude of Japanese vessels from the Saga and Omura domain, a map of the Ob river basin, a small map of the a scene on Baikal lake, a sketch of a newly built Russian naval vessel and a water-mill. The second scroll shows two scenes of the… Read More

Unusual and fascinating atlas of the famous German communities of the Russian empire
- 'Nemtsii' [Germans] possibly comming from 'nemyi' [mute] because these communities would speak only German, and hence not Russian with natives. (There is another, similar explanation: 'nemyi' would have described first all foreigners, but then narrowing down to Germans only during the 18th century.)
The text gives some interesting statistics while the atlas shows a general map, and more detailed maps of the regions of St. Petersburg, Saratov and Samara, and southern Ukraine (Odessa to Crimea).
A rare Russian imprint in German: apparently no copy in America and we could trace 5 copies in Europe (British Library, Royal Danish Library, and three in Germany: Berlin, Uni. Halle and Leipzig).
Description
Oblong folio (46 x 54 cm). Title and contents printed on upper blue wrappers, V pp. notes and tables, five lithograph maps hand-coloured in outline and numbered; only half of lower wrapper present, occasional light… Read More

An important study of central Siberia, containing extensive geological research into the vast territory from Lake Baikal towards the Arctic ocean.
Alexander Chekanovsky (1832-76) was of Polish origin. A geologist, ethnographer and researcher, he took part in the 1863 Polish uprising and, as a result, was exiled to Siberia. He took this as an opportunity to continue his scientific work. With the help and influence of Friedrich Schmidt - who wrote the preface of this Diary - Chekanovsky was transferred to Irkutsk and appointed to the Siberian Division of the Geographical Society in 1867. While in Irkutsk, he made several scientific discoveries which brought him fame in Russia, until his early death aged 44.
Published some 20 years after his death, this Diary is actually composed of several diaries, describing expeditions and observations on the three main rivers of the Central Siberian Plateau, where Chekanovsky discovered a ridge, eventually named after him: the Chekanovsky Ridge, in the Lena delta in… Read More

A fresh and uncut copy of the first edition of this rare, early, and illustrated account of Siberia and the Chinese border, unusually describing the second British mission in Russia and highly praised by contemporaries.During the winter 1823-24 Martos undertook a trip around Baikal from Krasnoiarsk to Maimachyn, a Chinese border town. In his book, written in the form of a diary, Martos provides a picturesque description of nature, life and culture in Eastern Siberia, populated predominantly with Buriats. Visiting salt, porcelain and fabrics factories the author witnessed the development of production and trade in the region. Martos focuses in particular on Irkutsk, giving not only statistical information on the city but also detailing its founding and further development. To Martos's own surprise he discovered a British mission in Seleginsk, a village on Eastern side of the Baikal, in the heart of Chinggis Khan's Motherland. It was formed by an Englishman and two Scottish with their… Read More

A rich, detailed account of the Amur region in the Russian Far East, describing its history, geology, topography, climate, flora and fauna, as well as the economics and ethnography of the region.
Franz Shperk (1835-1906) came from a medical family, and became a doctor and naturalist himself, like his two brothers, Eduard and Gustav. Upon graduation from the Medical University in Kharkov (nowadays Ukraine), Franz was appointed a district doctor in the city of Olekminsk, on the other side of the empire, in the Yakutsk region. While working as a doctor there from 1867 to 1875, Shperk also followed his passion as a naturalist and studied the geography, ethnography, history, anthropology and climatology of the region. He conducted detailed observations during these nine years, such as measuring the air temperature three times a day and the water level in the Amur river. His research resulted in the present publication for which he received a Silver Medal from the Russian Geographical Society. Shperk left… Read More

FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST BOOK OF FATHER IAKINF, CALLED LATER "THE FATHER OF RUSSIAN SINOLOGY". Bichurin (1777-1853), here writing under his monastic name Iakinf, was named in 1805 leader of the 9th Russian Mission to Peking and head of the Sretenskii monastery in this town. During his 14-year stay he learnt Chinese, compiled his own dictionary and prepared other scholar works for later publication. He returned to Saint Petersburg in 1821: the first part of these Zapiski contains a detailed travel account of Iakinf's journey from Pekin to the Russian border town Kiakhta, including descriptions of the Great Wall, of the cities of Kalgan (Zhangjiakou) and Urga (Ulan Bator), the Gobi desert etc.
The three other parts are entirely devoted to Mongolia, then under Chinese rule: its geography, political system, climate, trade, population (its structure, fashion and customs). Bichurin gives a sketch of the history of Mongols, as well as of the legal system used by China to rule the region. The… Read More

First edition, very rare: OCLC locates the Harvard copy only.
Nikolai Protasov (1865–1903), an active member of the Eastern Siberian section of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, was the first to go about a proper collection of the folk-songs of Siberia. In 1901 he recorded, on a phonograph, almost 150 songs, writing some of them out in notation. It is twenty of these songs which are published here as indicated in the long title: "From [the songs] collected in 1900 in the province of Irkutsk and the Transbaikal region by Nikolai Protasov. Arranged by Aleksei Petrov. Published … by the Song Commission of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society".Protasov's complete collection did not appear in his lifetime, and it has even been suggested that he burned his manuscripts in despair at not being able to see his work in print.
According to the preface, it was thanks to Rimsky-Korsakov that these songs appeared at all. He gave them to the Commission set up by the Tsar in 1897 to collect Russian… Read More

Fine copy of this uncommon issue devoted to the USSR, to 'Russia, Russia, Russia', aiming at detailing for the American public still suffering from the 1929 crisis all aspects of Stalinist USSR in the early 1930s. Richly illustrated, the account is wide-ranging, lively and slightly ironic from time to time - of great interest for those interested in the Western view of the USSR at that time. Interestingly, while it reports on Communist USSR, the very capitalist magazine is filled with numerous American advertisements triggering consumption - a sharp contrast!
With a striking front cover by Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo's husband and well-known Communist fresco painter.
DescriptionFolio (35.3 x 29 cm). 148 pp. with many illustrations, some in colour.BindingOriginal wrappers printed in colour after Riviera.ConditionSlightly rubbed to extremities, otherwise in appealing condition.

Tolstoy's own editing of his first novel: a lovely example, rare in original wrappers, of this second edition, specially adapted for children's reading and showing for the first time a different version from the standard text.
Becoming a father of many children in the 1860s and 70s, Tolstoy developed a keen interest in educational practices, pedagogy and children reading. These two fertile decades saw the birth of his pedagogical periodical Iasnaia Poliana (1862) as well as his celebrated Alphabet, whose publication finished in 1874.
Tolstoy decided then to rework a creation of his own youth, a semi-autobiographical novel on his childhood. Published twenty years earlier, Childhood and Adolescence had been Tolstoy's first published work, his first attempt at fiction and his first literary success.
It appeared from 1852 onwards in Sovremmenik, the literary periodical founded by Pushkin. Upset with the journal's extensive editing, Tolstoy had the work published as a book in 1856, restoring in particular… Read More

First edition of this celebrated illustrated travelogue, in a spectacular binding with the arms of the Russian Empire. This is the first of Demidoff's travelogues to be published, with all plates printed on India paper.In 1837 Count Anatoliy Nikolaevich Demidoff, Prince of San Donato (1812-70), launched a geological expedition to Ukraine and Crimea at his own expense. He was accompanied on his travels by the artist Denis Raffet, who illustrated Demidoff's account.We have come across other examples of this impressive binding, sometimes without the double-headed eagle on the covers. This is the first we see in red morocco, and one of the rare ones with the binder's label.Description and Bibliographic referencesTall 8vo. (26 x 16.7 cm). Half-title, wood-engraved frontispiece on India paper, title, vii, 621, [3 including errata and table] pp., with 23 wood-engraved plates after Raffet, all printed on India paper mounted and with tissue guards, one page of sheet music, numerous wood engravings in text;… Read More

A fine example of the first edition of these folk tales from the White Sea region, edited by Nikolai Onchukov (1872-1942), with the participation of the linguist Aleksei Shakhmatov and the prose writer Mikhail Prishvin among others. Onchukov spent the years 1900-08 working in the Far North under the auspices of the Russian Geographical Society collecting ethnographic and folkloric materials.This volume contains a portion of Onchukov's collection, and features 303 tales from Arkhangelsk and Olonetsk provinces. The tales are organised by narrators, and some information about the storytellers is provided. All the tales are written in northern Russian dialects, which makes the work a valuable linguistic source on language which barely exists today.This is the volume XXXIII of the Zapiski Imperatorskogo russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva po otdeleniiu etnografii [Notes of the Imperial Geographical Society; Etnography].ProvenanceAvenir Nizoff (Ă©migrĂ©, pianist, who lived in Edmonton, Canada, in the… Read More

The Russian Navy and the Americas: warmly inscribed by one of the authors to the first Russian submarine commander in the Pacific. "Very rare" (Savine) illustrated émigré publication, with historical folding maps featuring the arctic coast of Russia from Europe to the North-West passage and the Alaska.
The compendium is divided into two parts, each comprising thematic articles written by different Navy officers and commanders. The first part is an overview of the history and achievements of the Russian Navy from the times of Peter the Great (creation of the Russian fleet) up until the first post-revolution year. It focuses in particular on Siberia, the history of the Alaskan Russian-American colonies and on discoveries in the Arctic and the North Pacific.
The second part is dedicated mostly to Russian naval officers in the US, especially the Association of Former Russian Naval Officers in America, which was established in New York in May 1923 by a group of 90 senior officers of the Russian Navy.
The… Read More

"Extremely detailed and worthy of study" (Lada-Mocarski): an early work on Russian commerce, containing a folding map depicting Alaskan islands, with the Russians' discoveries in the East Sea and America, including regions between the Kamchatka Peninsula and Alaska. Although approximate, it identifies Yakutia, the Kurils, 'Ile alakcha' and the Aleutians.Published anonymously and very likely written by M. de Marbault (also Marbeau, d. 1781), a secret diplomat (member of the "Secret du Roi") in the 1770s, this work "pays considerable attention to discoveries and trade between Kamschatka and America" (Howes). Giving a historic insight into the Russian expansion into Siberia and farther East and North, Marbault curiously notes that "until the present day, Russians kept in secret their discoveries to the east of Kamchatka" (our translation). He lists eight most significant islands from the Archipel du nord and briefly discusses their geographic details, populations and resources.Marbault not only focuses… Read More