Cold War | PY Rare Books

The remarkable CIA-backed first edition of a Nobel Prize

Doktor Zhivago

G. Feltrinelli, Milan [but Mouton, The Hague], 1958. £17,500

One of the most famous first editions of 20th-c. Russian literature: published by the CIA under a false imprint - or literature as a political weapon. A pleasant copy.

Image for M. BULGAKOV. Master & Margarita. Complete, uncensored text. Second edition, Frankfurt, 1971. #2

The complete, uncensored text - with the striking dust-jacket

BULGAKOV, Mikhail

Master i Margarita [Master and Margarita]

Possev-Verlag, Frankfurt/M., 1971. £1,750

Bulgakov's masterpiece in its entirety, complete with the famous dust-jacket. A very good copy, fresh internally. This is the 1971 second printing.

Image for [USSR: SIBERIA & FAR EAST]. Group of Four Unpublished Intelligence Reports. UK/USA, 1960s. #2

From a missile site and political discussions to the coldest city in the world and "a little alcohol"

A Group of Four Confidential Reports of British, American and Australian Diplomats in Siberia and the Russian Far East

, July 21-27, 1960; February 12-22, 1962; August 29 - September 9 [c. 1965]; August 8-12 [c. 1965-67]. £1,250

About 40 pp. of fantastic and confidential reading giving a detailed and open description of Siberia during the USSR, to Irkutsk, Khabarovsk and Yakutsk. A rare find, apparently unpublished.

Image for POTOTSKII-SHAPOVALENKO. Guide for the Propagandist of the People's Monarchy. First edition, in Russian. Argentine, 1954. #2

Propaganda against propaganda

POTOTSKII, N[ikolai] [pseud. for Nikolai SHAPOVALENKO]

Sputnik propagandista narodnoi monarkhii. Monarquia democrática: Guida del propagandista [Democratic Monarchy: The Propagandist's Guide]

Nasha strana, Buenos Aires, 1954. £195

First edition of this anti-USSR and anti-communist work, focusing on the right speech to have to spread monarchist views for Russia. An uncommon South-American imprint.

Image for KOZAK & HUTSALIUK, Important run of Lys Mykyta. Detroit, 1952-75 #1

Great Ukrainian satire of the Cold War

KOZAK, Edvard and Liuboslav HUTSALIUK

Lys Mykyta [WITH] Lys Mykyta. Kalendar na rik 1949 [The Fox Mykyta [WITH] The Fox Mykyta. Calendar for Year 1949].

Kozak, Munkhen, [1948] and Detroit, Michigan, 1952-75. £3,950

A striking satirical magazine, published in the US in Ukrainian, remarkable for its Cold-War caricatures covering more than 20 years. An important run of more than 170 issues, with the very first 1949 Almanac.

Image for ORWELL. Homage to Catalonia. First Russian edition. Louvain/Paris, ca. 1971. #2

Out of stock

With a publication history still unclear

ORVELL, Dzhordzh [George ORWELL]

Pamiati Katalonii [with] Vspominaia Ispanskuiu voinu [Homage to Catalonia [with] Looking Back on the Spanish War]

Rosseels printing, Louvain for "Editions de la Seine, Paris", [c. 1971].

Clandestine, CIA-funded first edition in Russian of Orwell's memoirs about the Spanish Civil War. An important edition with a secret publication history.

Image for ORWELL, STRUVE & KRIGER. Animal Farm, 2nd edition in Russian, Frankfurt, 1967. #2

Out of stock

Some more equals than others - in Russian

[ORWELL, George] Georg ORVELL

Skotskii khutor [Animal Farm]

[Frankfurt-am-Main], Posev, 1967.

The first and highly symbolic translation into Russian of George Orwell's satirical allegory on Stalinism: the very rare second edition.

Image for G. ORWELL. Kolhosp tvaryn. First Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm. Neu-Ulm, 1947. #2

Out of stock

With the only preface Orwell ever wrote for the work

ORWELL, George and Ivan CHERNIATYNSKYI (transl.; pseud. for Ihor SHEVCHENKO)

Kolhosp tvaryn [Animal Farm: A Fairy Tale]

[Neu-Ulm], Vydavnytstvo "Prometei", [1947].

Pleasant copy, in the pictorial original wrappers, of this celebrated and important edition, the first Ukrainian translation of Orwell's masterpiece.

Image for SOLZHENITSYN. Arkhipelag GULag. First edition, Paris, 1973-75 #2

Out of stock

His masterpiece

SOLZHENITSYN, Aleksandr

Arkhipelag Gulag [The Gulag Archipelago]

Imprimerie Moderne (vol. 1) and Impressions Internationales (vol. 2-3), for YMCA Press, Paris, 1973-75.

First edition of Solzhenitsyn's best work, an extensive account of the Soviet camps.

Out of stock

Inscribed first edition

SOLZHENITSYN, Aleksandr Isaevich

Arkhipelag GULAG [The Gulag Archipelago]

Imprimerie Moderne (vol. 1) and Impressions Internationales (vol. 2-3), for YMCA Press, Paris, 1973-75.

First edition of Solzhenitsyn's magnum opus on the prison camp system and his best work, here in a choice copy inscribed to a leading broadcaster for the BBC Russian service in London.

Image for B. PASTERNAK. Doktor Zhivago. First pocket edition, Paris, 1959. #2

Out of stock

CIA-produced with a fake French imprint

PASTERNAK, Boris

Doktor Zhivago [Doctor Zhivago]

[Paris], Societe d'Edition et d'Impression Mondiale [SEIM], 1959.

Fine example of this edition, specially made for smuggling into the USSR - one of the early editions of the great novel, which saw light in just a couple of years.

Image for [POSTCARD]. For a Sovereign Ukraine...! New York, 1951. #2

Out of stock

A topical ephemera

[UKRAINE]

Za suverennu Ukrainu i rozpodil Rosiiskoi imperii! For a Sovereign Ukraine and the Dismembering of the Russian Empire!

G. U. SUMA, New York, 1951.

Great and unusual US-printed postcard for Ukrainian independance from the Soviet Union, shown as an extension of the Russian empire.

Image for CHERESHNEV. Kubanets. Two issues, Philadelphia, 1851 & 1953. Very rare magazine. #2

Out of stock

Kuban cossacks émigré in America

CHERESHNEV, V. V. (editor)

Kubanets. Informatsionnyi zhurnal gruppy starshikh ofitserov i obshchestvennykh deiatelei kubantsev v SShA [The Kubanian. Information Journal of a Group of Kuban Senior Officers and Community Leaders in the USA]

Philadelphia, 1951 and 1953.

Two issues of a very rare, almost home-made magazine for Russian émigrés in the US.

Image for PASTERNAK, B. Doktor Zhivago. Ann Arbor, 1959. #3

Out of stock

The first edition in Russian after the Nobel Prize award

PASTERNAK, Boris

Doktor Zhivago [Doctor Zhivago]

The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1959 [but December 1958].

First printing of the first "legal" Russian edition of this famous Nobel Prize winner. A lovely copy of Pasternak's masterpiece.

Image for PASTERNAK, B. Doktor Zhivago, excerpts. 1958-59 #2

Out of stock

Ideal from smuggling into the USSR

PASTERNAK, Boris

Doktor Zhivago v vyderzhkakh i poiasneniiakh, opublikovannykh v ezhenedelnike Posev №№ 46, 47, 48 i 49 za 1958 g [Doctor Zhivago in Excerpts and Explanations]

Posev, [Frankfurt-am-Main, ca. end of 1958-early 1959].

A scarce, very early pamphlet with important excerpts from Pasternak's celebrated novel - banned in the USSR and published here with help of the CIA.

Image for TSVETAEVA, Lebedinyi Stan, first edition. Munich, 1957. #2

Out of stock

The unpublishable finally published

TSVETAEVA, Marina Ivanovna

Lebedinyi stan [A Swans' Wedge. Poems from 1917-1921]

Einheit, Inh. I. Baschkirzew, Munchen, 1957.

First edition of this important cycle about the Revolution and the Civil War, impossible to publish in the USSR and even abroad for several decades. A very good copy.