Search Results: Slavic Literature:Poetry from ZH BOOKS

Moskva/Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo, 1930. Hardcover. Near Fine. Second edition; 8vo 5 1/2" x 8"; pp. [6], 5-207, [1]; original blue/green boards with printed DJ; minor wear and discoloration to bottom edge of back cover; portrait frontis; near fine. DJ fair with a few closed tears and small losses of paper. Uncommon in the elusive DJ. "Two books" was the first collected edition of Pasternak's major collections of poems - 'Sestra Moia Zhizn' (My Sister - Life), considered seminal in Russian poetry, and 'Temy I Variatsii' (Themes and Variations). Interestingly enough, most poems from the latter were originally written for 'My Sister-Life' but then withdrawn from publication by the author.

Moskva: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Khudozhestvennoi Literatury, 1947. Soft cover. Near Fine. First edition in this format; staple-bound 5" x 8"; pp. 3-46, [1]; original stiff pictorial wraps; small piece chipped off upper corner of front cover, else near fine. Il'ia Muromets, depicted in numerous epic poems some of which were collected in this book, was a Kievan Rus epic hero and one of the greatest bogatyrs. Though most of his adventures appear to have been a work of fiction, scientists believe that he indeed was a historic person sometime in the 12th century. He is also the only epic hero to be canonized as a Saint by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Moskva: Sovetskii Pisatel, 1943. Soft cover. Near Fine. First edition, 12mo 4 1/2" x 6"; pp. 3-50, [2] index; original printed wraps; minor wear to covers with a few small faint spots; near fine. Pasternak wrote his collection of poems 'On Early Trains' at a time, when Socialist realism as a cultural model was becoming more and more constricting, thus forcing the author to abandon his natural avant-garde style and resort to, in his own words, a "shoemaker" type of poetry. The poems in this collection were written between 1935-1941. The publication was allowed as a form of propaganda, showcasing the ability of the Soviet literary authorities to "rehabilitate an outrageous and bourgeois writer." Succumbing to the demands of the government did not mean Pasternak liked these particular poems. In fact, in a letter to his friend - fellow writer Daniil Danin, he called 'On Early Trains' "a useless book.

Moskva: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Khudozhestvennoi Literatury, 1931. Hardcover. Good. Second revised edition; 4 1/2" x 5 3/4"; pp. [4], 5-164, [4] index; original boards with cloth spine; paste-on label with title to front cover; wear mostly along edges and corners of boards; some rubbing to head and tail of spine; pages clean; good or better. This edition limited to 3000 copies. The present book, "Over the Barriers," contains one of Pasternak's earlier collections, before he was forced to drastically change his style of creating poetry in order to comply with Stalin's demand for Socialist realism.