Krivochko Abraham [A. Kariv], editor. Includes a story by Isaac Babel. Cover illustration by Iosif Moiseevich Chaikov [Yosef]

BERESHIT. A [COMPLETE NO MORE PUBLISHED] [BERESHIS] בראשית א: [קבץ ספרותי]

Moskvah [Moscow]; Leningrad : [publisher not identified] [Printed by Druckerei Gutenberg in Berlin], 1926. Item #42176

1st edition. Original colorful printed avant-garde paper wrappers designed by Yosef Chaikov, 8vo, 199 pages; 23 cm. In Hebrew. A collection of poems and stories by Hebrew writers in the Soviet Union. Type-set in Leningrad, the work had to be printed in Berlin. The work was edited by Abraham Krivochko (A. Kariv) and includes a story by Isaac Babel. The brilliant front cover, which is featured on the home page of YIVO's Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (yivoencyclopedia.org), was created by Tchaikov bringing together a striking amalgam of Revolutionary ideas. The letters of the title are dramatic, symbolically beginning and ending with the color red. “The combination of colors and theatrical effects is striking…[the cover design] has the challenging element of a dramatic opening.” See Ch. Abramsky, “Yiddish Book Illustrations in Russia: 1916-1923” in Israel Museum Catalogue, Tradition and Revolution, p. 68. "The logo of the publishing house is illustrated by B. Shubin." The writers' group that published the book was unable to find a printing press in the Soviet Union prepared to print a Hebrew book, and the manuscript was therefore sent to Berlin for printing. Only a small portion of the printed copies were allowed into the Soviet Union. See Y"Y HaKohen, Pirsumim Yehudi'im B'Brit HaMoetzet, Jerusalem, 1961, p. 39-40. Interestingly, our copy includes a Russian-language price stamp on the inside rear cover (“50 Kop”) as well as a removed title page and one line of text excised from the half-title (“Permission Leningrad Gublita No. 11906”), perhaps all related to this copy being one that managed to be brought into the USSR?Joseph Moisevich Chaikov (also spelled, among other spellings, Tshaykov, Tchaikov, and Tchaikovsky; 1888 – 1979) was a “Russian Imperial and Soviet Russian sculptor, graphic designer and teacher of Ukrainian Jewish descent….Chaikov studied in Paris in the years 1910 through 1914. In 1912 he co-founded a group of young Jewish artists called Mahmad, and published a Hebrew-language magazine with that name; in 1913 he participated in the Salon d'Automne. He returned to Kiev in 1914. He was co-founder, along with El Lissitzky, Boris Aronson and others, of the Jewish socialist Kultur Lige in Kiev, led sculpture classes there, supervised a children's art studio and illustrated children's books, and in post-revolutionary Kiev focused on billboards and agitational propaganda. In 1921 he published the Yiddish-language book Skulptur, advocating avant-garde sculpture as a contribution to a new Jewish art. This book was also the first book on sculpture to be published in Yiddish. Chaikov moved to Moscow to teach at Vkhutemas from 1923 to 1930, alongside fellow sculptors Boris Korolev and Vera Mukhina. All three designed and taught cubist sculpture in the distinctively Russian Cubo-Futurism style, radically geometric and highly dynamic. From 1929 Chaikov was the head of the Society of Russian Sculptors. In 1932, after the end of the period of artistic freedom, all of these cubists turned back to Socialist Realism and produced more classically styled work. In the 1930s his work was prominently shown at the two Soviet world's fair pavilions, for the 1937 Paris Exposition and the 1939 New York World's Fair. His work in Paris was an extensive frieze of nine-foot figures, the People of the USSR, carved on two steles flanking the entrance to the pavilion. Fragments of the Paris work were unearthed in rural France in the 2000s, after having been presented to the French labor union after the fair, relocated to a holiday château, broken up by pro-Nazi youth during the occupation, and buried for 50 years. Chaikov continued to work in a variety of genres, techniques and scales. He was named an Honored Artist of the USSR in 1959, and his work is in the permanent collection of MOMA” (Wikipedia). SUBJECT(S): Hebrew literature, Modern -- Soviet Union. Litte´rature he´brai¨que -- URSS. Hebrew poetry -- Hebrew literature. OCLC: 15005057. Title page and one line of text from half title removed, as indicated above. Small number penned at base of spine. Light rubbing to cover with small stain in lower outer corner. Unobtrusive faint owner’s stamp in Hebrew on half title and blank front endpaper. Good condition thus; Book remains very striking and attractive. (YID-43-14-+-'e).

Price: $600.00