Search Results: Authors starting with C from Bookvica

Moscow: Posrednik, 1933. 102, [2] pp.: ill. 22x15 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Spine chipped with small tears, covers slightly soiled, few minor stains on pages, tiny hole of p. 49-50, otherwise very good and clean. First Russian edition. One of 10 400 copies. Rare. Translation was undertaken by E.and O. Gorbunov. Cover design features a woodcut composition by artist P. Riabov. He created a two-color sequence of butterfly, swallow, 'flying man' Otto Lilienthal performing his glider, falcon and Wright's airplane above all of them. The back cover shows this sequence in the past - without humans, colored in black only. A line with place and date of publishing is interrupted by a paper toy, flying propeller. The edition is illustrated with photographs and schemes. By the 1930s, the rapturous thrill of the "iron bird" was gone, an airplane became a piece of contemporary reality. Human flight as a miracle remained only in children's books while the rest editions presented it rather as… Read More

Leningrad: Izdanie Gosudarstvennogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva, 1930. 176 p.: ill., 1 folding map, 1 folding table. 26,5x18 cm. In original printed wrappers. Spine worn, with small tears and minor fragments lost, few water stains on front cover, wrappers slightly soiled, some underlines, otherwise very good and clean internally. Printer's defect on p. 13-14 (leaf slightly torn and damaged before printing; some introductory text affected). First and only edition. One of 1000 copies. Rare. The Lopars [lit. "lopari"] is an old Russian name for representatives of the Saami ethnic group living on the Kola Peninsula. Their population remained between 1500 and 2000 people in the 20th-21st centuries. The traditional life of the Russian Saami began to collapse even before the October Revolution, but the strongest blow to it was dealt in the 1920s-1930s, with active industrial development and forced collectivization on the Kola Peninsula. As a result, the Saami practically stopped engaging in their… Read More

St. Petersburg: Academy of Science, 1866. 1. O funktsiyakh, naimenee uklonyaushchikhsya ot nulya [i.e. On the Functions with the Smallest Deviation from Zero]. St. Petersburg: Academy of Science, 1873. 32 pp. 25x16 cm. 2. O razlozhenii funktsiy v ryady pri pomoshchi nepreryvnykh drobey [i.e. On Functions Decomposition Using Continuous Fractions]. St. Petersburg: Academy of Science, 1866. 26 pp. 25x16 cm. No wrappers as issued. Uncut. Near fine. Two rare imprints of Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev's (1821-1894) important contributions to the theory of approximation of functions. In both works Chebyshev wrote about phenomenon now known as Chebyshev polynomials (a sequence of orthogonal polynomials which can be defined recursively), their qualities and features. Chebyshev polynomial is a polynomial with the largest possible leading coefficient, but subject to the condition that their absolute value on the interval [-1,1] is bounded by 1. Chebyshev polynomials are important in approximation theory because… Read More

Moscow: Izogiz, 1933. 127 pp.: ill. In original printed wrappers. Near fine. First and only edition. One of 10 000 copies. Rare. This is small but important book overviews all art movements and career of their members for the first 15 years of Soviet state. An art historian Andrei Chegodaev (1905-1994) examined how the individual approaches changed the epochs from the imperial art through the avant-garde to the Stalinist socialism. The book contains 31 full-page illustrations by V. Lebedev, D. Shterenberg, V. Favorskii, P. Miturich, V. Konashevich, A. Deineka, I. Nivinskii, N. Tyrsa, N. Kupreianov, Iu. Pimenov, L. Bruni, D. Zagoskin, I. Pavlov, A. Kravchenko, N. Piskarev, B. Zenkevich, N. Chernyshev, S. Gerasimov, M. Rodionov, G. Vereiskii, E. Budogoskii, P. Pavlinov, A. Goncharov, M. Pikov. G. Echeistov. They particularly influenced the establishment of the Soviet book design and graphics in general. Worldcat locates 8 copies at Princeton University, Amherst College, Harvard College, Columbia… Read More

Stalinobod [Dushanbe]: Sektori adabijjoti bacagona Nasrijjoti davlatiji Tocikiston, 1937. 64 pp.: ill. 27x20 cm. In original illustrated cardboards. Some soiling, few tears of front flyleaf, binding corners slightly rubbed and bumped, otherwise very good copy. Second edition. One of 7000 copies. Extremely rare edition printed in Tajik language using Latin script. After Central Asia had been annexed by the USSR, the Soviet authorities, together with local intelligentsia, began to develop a policy of creating new literary norms and changing of alphabet in particular. The Tajik language was proclaimed official in the newly formed Tajik ASSR as part of the Uzbek SSR, which was transformed into a separate union republic in 1929. In 1922, the process of translating the Tajik language from the traditional Arabic-Persian script into Latin script started and was completed by 1936. Since the late 1920s, about 70 national languages have suffered latinization or adapted new romanised alphabets: Tatar, Saami,… Read More

Warsaw: PWN, 2018. This amply illustrated reference book on Georgian book design in the 1920s and '30s is based on a broadly representative private collection of a hundred works. It traces the main trends and developments in Georgian book design at that time, and identifies the main artists involved. The book boasts two bilingual introductory essays. The first is by Pavel Chepyzhov, a collector, bookseller and the founder of Bookvica, who has dedicated a number of years to the study of this topic. Presented in Russian and English, it explores the links between Georgian designers and the Russian avant-garde movement, revealing the influence of artists such as Ilia Zdanevich and Alexei Kruchyonikh. The second essay, by the art historian, Qetevan Kintsurashvili, is presented in Georgian and English, and explores the subject in the wider context of the Georgian art off the period. Each item in the collection merits a full illustrated description. All the people involved in the production of the works… Read More

Moscow: Krest'ianskaia gazeta, 1927. 56 pp.: ill. 22,5x15 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Spine chipped, with small tears, otherwise very good copy. First and only edition. One of 10 000 copies. Very rare. Good edition on Soviet exploitation of the huge Putilov Ironworks and its role in industrialization of the country. It was written by juvenile nonfiction writer Vladimir Cherevkov (1894-1960). He told a story how the Putilov Works turned from military to civil machinery. Before the Revolution, the Putilov Ironworks was the largest mechanical engineering and agricultural machinery plant in Saint Petersburg. In February 1917, workers of the manufacturer organized a strike and thus set in motion a chain of revolutionary events. Some months later, the enterprise was nationalized. When the Russian Civil War was over, the plant was renamed the Red Putilovite Plant and reoriented on manufacture of the first Soviet tractors, Fordzon- Putilovets, based on the Fordson tractor. A photograph of these… Read More

Knigoizdate'stvo Akademii khudozhetsv: [Leningrad], 1927. 77, [3] pp.: ill. 18x13 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Near fine copy. Tiny tear of the spine. First edition of the first book. Yakov Chernikhov (1889-1951) was one of the most unusual and innovative talents of the time, known for his Architectural Fantasies, and here are these fantasies in the making. This is a textbook on a special subject developed Chernikhov himself, which he called «the art of graphic representation». It was not a drawing textbook, as one might understand from the title. Under the old-fashioned title Chernikhov meant something very modern. It is about graphic, spatial, and abstract compositions, and seeks to encourage students to use lines, planes, and solid to express beauty and movement without depicting anything known or recognizable, experimenting with all the boundless possibilities open to them. This book was designed for beginners, for people who had not so far been involved in drawing, and not burdened… Read More

Warsaw: Zwiazek Nar. Polskej Młodz. Akad, 1926. [4], 80 pp., [3] tabl.: ill. 21x16 cm. Added title page in French (Lettres de Frederic Chopin a Jean Bialoblocki). Original publisher's printed wrappers. Few tears of the spine. Otherwise a near fine copy. First edition of Frederic Chopin's (1810-1849) letters to his close friend Jan Bialoblocki (c. 1806-1828). Chopin knew Bialoblocki from the days when his father let rooms to the students of the Warsaw Lyceum where he was a Professor of French. The two remained friends even after Bialoblocki graduated from the Warsaw University (he studied painting). During a summer holidays Frederic paid a several visits to Jan. He was the addressee of many composer's letters during all his life. These letters revealed a lot of details of Chopin's personal life, work, travels, opinions, et al.

Moscow; Petrograd: Gos. izd-vo, 1923. 6-ye izd. M.; Petrograd.: Gos. izd-vo, 1923. 165, [3] pp., 1 portrait. 23.6x15.6 cm. In original illustrated publisher's wrappers. First few pages detached, loss of the pieces of the spine, tears of the wrappers, neat restoration of the front wrapper (tape). Good. Scarce. Sixth edition with Whitman's portrait. First edition published in 1907. Avant-garde wrapper design by Evgenii Belukha (1889-1943), an artist and designer who greatly contributed to the 1920-1930s Soviet book illustration. Sixth edition of Korney Chukovsky's classic Russian translation of excerpts from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Much of Walt Whitman's enormous popularity in 20th century Russia stemmed from the literary activity of the two noted Russian writers, Konstantin Balmont (1867-1943) and Korney Chukovsky (1882- 1969). The former published the first Russian translation of excerpts from Whitman's Leaves of Grass under the title Pobegi travy [i.e. Shoots of Grass] in 1905. The… Read More

St. Petersburg: Polyarnaya zvezda, 1922. 84 pp. 19.5×13 cm. In original publisher's wrappers. Small tears, losses and light foxing of the wrappers, otherwise very good. The highest point of the polemics between Korney Chukovsky and Russian Futurists. Ever since futurism in Russia took on a large scale in 1913, one of the most popular children's poets and literary critic Korney Chukovsky (1882-1969) embarked upon a task of combatting the 'vicious' movement. The author organized numerous lectures and public gatherings criticizing principles of the ideology and its representatives, with many of whom Korney was in friendly relationship. 'At the time, my attitude towards Futurists was difficult, I hated their sermon, but loved them and their talents', - later recalled Chukovsky. The connection between the Russian Futurists and Korney had a polemical character. The members of the movement gave as much space to Chukovsky in their oral speeches as the author himself: 'Chukovsky believed that he was… Read More

Nalchik: Kabardinobalkarskoe GIZ, 1940. 110, [2] pp.: ill. 26x19 cm. Original illustrated cardboards. Bleak stains on the title page, remains of a label on the spine, tears and small losses of boards extremities. One of 3000 copies. First translation to Kabardino-Circassian language. The book originally published in 1936 became immensely popular right away. The illustrations by Elena Safonova (1902-1980) featured in the first Russian edition as well and became classic. As often the case with the North Caucasian languages Arabic characters were being used in Kabardino-Circassian script before 1917, then latin in 1924-1936 and after all-Union decision to transform everything to Cyrillic it was changed again. This is one of the early examples of the use of Cyrillic letters for Kabardino-Circassian language.

Chita: Dal'pechat': Tip. Ob'edin. Soiuza Zabaik. Kooperativa, 1921. 120 pp. 26,5x19 cm. Original front cover. The back cover and spine renewed, edges of pages and front cover restored, few stains on the front cover, otherwise very good and clean internally. First and only edition. Scarce. A collection of essays written by the leader of Far Eastern Futurists, Nikolay Chuzhak (real name Nasimovich; 1876-1937). For many years, Chuzhak was a journalist and editor of the underground press. He threw himself into the revolutionary movement in the late 19th century. In 1904, he joined the Communist Party, edited the party periodicals, and was arrested several times. In 1908, Chuzhak was exiled to the Irkutsk province. At different times, he headed the editorial boards of the newspapers Rabochaia Sibir' [i.e. Working Siberia] (1917), Krasnoye znamya [i.e. A Red Flag] (Vladivostok, 1918-1922), Dal'nevostochnyi put' [i.e. The Far Eastern Way] (Chita), Vlast' truda [i.e. The Power of Labor] (Irkutsk), etc.… Read More

Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1939. 44 pp. 20 cm. In original wrappers with letterpress design. A private library stamp on the title page and p. 3, a couple of tears, otherwise very good. Rare. An important example of a Soviet propaganda edition on the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). The print run was enormous - 100,000 copies as indicated. During the 1920-1930s, a variety of Soviet propaganda books were issued on the struggle of the Chinese proletariat to build Communist China. Moreover, the USSR systematically provided political support to China as a victim of Japanese aggression in the 1930s. In September 1937, the USSR and China signed the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and approved Operation Zet, the formation of a secret Soviet volunteer air force, in which Soviet technicians upgraded and ran some of China's transportation systems. Although the pact made no mention of Soviet military support, it de facto established a tacit understanding that the Soviets would provide both military and… Read More

Paris: La Parade, cop. 1950. [16], 116 pp., 8 ills. 18x11,5 cm. In contemporary cloth binding with title in Russian mounted on the spine. Spine faded, otherwise near fine. A screenplay of the French experimental film Orpheus (1950). The edition is supplemented with photographs by Roger Corbeau (1908-1995) printed on both sides of eight inserts. The copy was signed by Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) on the half-title (Cannes, 1954). Cocteau stayed in Cannes from March 18, 1954, to April 9, 1954, presiding over the jury of the Film Festival. The autograph contains a drawing of Orpheus' head turning to Jean's name and the inscription Au très cher ami Joudkevitch, de tout cœur [i.e. To my dear friend Yutkevich, with all my heart]. Sergei Yutkevich (1904-1985) was the only Soviet film director who was awarded the Cannes Film Festival prize for best director three times. In 1946, Yutkevich visited the first festival as a member of the Soviet delegation and came back as a winner in 1954. That year, he… Read More

Leningrad: Kubuch, 1925. 344, [2] pp.+ IV pp. of ads 18x13,5 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Fragments of spine lost, with few tears of covers, otherwise very good and clean internally. First Russian edition. One of 6000 copies. Rare. Cover design was created likely by G. Lvov, who is best known for his work in the 'Iunye Stroiteli' magazine The novel was translated from English by Russian writer and theatrical critic Vladimir Ashkinazi (1873-1941) under the pseudonym V. Azov. In other times, he also used pseudonyms Pek, Onegin and others. Before the Revolution, he published in a huge number of periodicals: "Novosti dnia" [News of the Day], "Russian Vedomosti" [Russian News], "Russkoe slovo" [Russian Word], "Novosti" [News], "Rech" [Language], "Rossiya" [Russia], "Karandash" [Pencil], "Zritel" [Spectator], "Zarnitsy" [Heat Lighting], "Strekoza" [Dragonfly], "Budil'nik" [Alarm Clock], etc. He himself undertook the publication of the journal "Blagoy Mat" [Sound Foul Language], which was banned… Read More

Paris: Imp. de Navarre, 1939. 343 pp. 18,5x13 cm. In original printed wrappers. Spine and front cover slightly restored, ink signature on t.p. covered up with sticker, otherwise very good. First Russian edition of a devotional book Streams in the Desert sharing ideas of One Mission Society. Its author, Lettie Burd Cowman (1870-1960) was an American writer and one of the cofounders of the Oriental Missionary Society (later One Mission Society). Together with her spouse Charles, Cowman moved to Asia and organized Bible Training Institutes in Japan, Korea and China. The book Streams in the Desert was originally published in English in 1925. At the time of Communist atheism, this work was translated into Russian and spread in emigre circles beyond the country. Yet, this particular edition became the beginning for the Oriental Missionary Society to work with Russian people. Later the book was officially published several times after the dissolution of the USSR. In 1993, the Moscow Evangelical Christian… Read More