[The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Valya] NEOBYKNOVENNYE PRIKLIUCHENIIA KARIKA I VALI

Moscow: Izdatel'stvo detskoi literatury [Detizdat], 1937. Very good.. Rare first edition of this subversive fantasy children's book, featuring surrealist photomontages of children interacting with insects after turning smaller than ant size. At the beginning of the Soviet era, fairy tales and fantasy books were renounced in favor of more ideologically suitable and didactic works, which the government enforced by forming a state publishing policy and creating its own publishing arm. In the early years of state control, critics argued that fantasy and fairy tale books "harmed children's fragile minds [and] taught superstitions and mysticism" (Goodwin 51). By the 1930s, they began to appear in new Soviet clothing through the leadership of writers like Samuil Marshak and Maxim Gorky, but championing these new works was a difficult and dangerous task. The publisher of this book, the Moscow branch of Detizdat, was the state publishing house for children's literature; Marshak headed the Leningrad branch until a colleague reported an "abnormal state of affairs" there in the year this book was published, calling Marshak and others traitors, and "blaming several female writers for being 'our hidden enemies'" (quoted in Goodwin, 118). The Stalinist purge led to the arrest and execution of some employees, as well as the dismantling of the branch. Marshak himself moved to the Moscow branch the year after this book was published. In the midst of such a high risk environment, the surrealist fantasy photos of this book take on an entirely new meaning: a determined celebration of childlike wonder at the fantastic, even in the face of real danger. OCLC locates only one institutional holding, at the University of Minnesota. Rare, striking, important. 8.25'' x 6.75''. Original blue pictorial cloth stamped in brown, silver, and dark blue, blue-lettered spine. Illustrated with numerous black-and-white surrealist photomontages, most full page. Text in Russian. 251, [2] pages. Ink owner names on front pastedown. Hinges repaired. Spine toned, with moderate soiling and bumping to cloth. A bit of light spotting to text.