[GEOGRAPHY IN YIDDISH] Geografiya chastey sveta i vazhneyshikh stran (krome SSSR) [i.e. Geography of Parts of the World and Major Countries (Except for the USSR)]

Moscow: Der Emes, 1941. 256 pp.: iIl., maps. 22.6x14.9 cm. In original publisher's cardboards. Spine and edges slightly rubbed. Otherwise near fine.

Scarce. Third edition.

ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR GEOGRAPHY MANUALS IN YIDDISH PUBLISHED FEW YEARS BEFORE THE SUPPRESSION OF JEWS IN THE SOVIET UNION.

In the USSR geography was introduced as a separate subject in school education in 1927. Seven years later, with the adoption of the decree On Teaching Geography in Primary and Secondary Schools the position of geography in the curriculum fundamentally changed. From that time on, the Soviet education system started working on the improvement of the content of the academic subject, as a result of which new textbooks on geography began to appear.

In 1935, a graduate of the Saint Petersburg Imperial University and professor of geography, Germogen Ivanov (1868-1941), compiled the famous geography textbook for secondary schools, Geography of Parts of the World and Major Countries (Except for the USSR). The textbook came out in multiple editions and was translated into numerous languages including Azerbaijani, Karelian, Komi, etc.

The Jewish edition of the textbook was printed in 1940, just a couple of years before the launch of the massive campaign against Jews in the Soviet Union. While in the 1920s and 1930s Soviet authorities made efforts to encourage 'Soviet proletarian culture' in Yiddish (as a countermeasure against the traditional Jewish 'bourgeois' culture), after the end of WWII books in Yiddish were banned from printing and antisemitism became a state policy.

Germogen Ivanov graduated from the Imperial Historical and Philological Institute (faculty of science) with the title of a gymnasium teacher in 1890. At around the same time, Ivanov met Miklouho-Maclay, under the influence of whom, he decided to devote himself to geography. Germogen graduated from the Imperial St. Petersburg University in the natural category of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty in 1895. The same year, he was approved as a teacher of physics and mathematical geography at the Shelter of Prince Peter Georgievich Oldenburgsky. The author of one of the most famous geography manuals, Ivanov was also a teacher of general and commercial geography at the trading school named after Emperor Nicholas II from its foundation from 1897 to 1902.

Worldcat shows 1 copy of the edition at Yivo Institute for Jewish Research.