[The founder of Yukaghir literature] Zhizn' Imteurgina Starshego. [The Life of Senior Imteurgin].

In original illustrated wrappers. In good condition, rebacked, worn to the edges, small tear on the front cover. First edition.
Limited to 30 325 copies.
[Edited by S. Marshak].

Teki Odulok (born Nikolay Spiridonov; 1906-1938) was the founder of Yukaghir literature. He was born in a poor Yukaghir family (people in the Russian Far East) and was sent by the Communist Party to Leningrad, where he was educated at the Ethnographic Department of the University. Teki Odulok participated in a scientific expedition to Kolyma and Chukotka, where he gathered information and artifacts of his native people. He became the first person among the minority peoples to receive a PhD in economics. Rane Willerslev, a Danish anthropologist, wrote about him: "Later he had a prominent career as an author, in which he promoted the official rhetoric of the time, that the Soviet state had saved his people from eradication and brought them out of their primitive, ignorant state" (Willerslev, R. On the Run in Siberia. 2012. P. 36). In January 1937 he was accused of being a Japanese spy and was executed. His books were banned.
This story is considered the first major work of the literature of the peoples of the North. When the writer was still alive it was republished three times and translated into English, Lithuanian, Estonian and Polish. That's why Teki Odulok is the first northerner whose works became known to foreign readers.
The book was illustrated by artist Valentin Kurdov (1905-1989) who studied at Vkhutein under Pavel Filonov and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. For a year he also studied at the Petrograd State Institute of Artistic Culture under Kazimir Malevich.
OCLC locates one copy of this edition in US only: in the Texas A&M University Library. McGill University Library has one copy also.