The bard of St Petersburg looks East
Publication: Gos. izdat. Khudozh. literatury, Moskva, 1956 and 1954.
Excellent association copies of these two works, both inscribed by the great Russian poetess to her fellow translator A. Kholodovich.
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First editions, first printings, presentation copies, both inscribed by Akhmatova to the linguist Aleksandr Kholodovich, who collaborated extensively with Akhmatova on her translations of Korean poetry.
Koreiskaia klassicheskaia poeziia is inscribed on the front free endpaper verso in the year of publication, “Your own from your own I offer to you”, following the language of the Orthodox Eucharist. For the book of Chinese poems, she chooses a briefer inscriptive style.
Already renowned in the early 1910s, Akhmatova’s aristocratic manners and artistic integrity earned her the sobriquets “Queen of the Neva” and “Soul of the Silver Age”. During her lifetime, she endured the revolution, Nazi occupation, and the terror of Stalin, keeping her poetic flame alive by carefully committing her compositions to memory and then burning the paper they were written on. “Always grand in her restraint, lucid in the agony she was able to convey, Akhmatova was the bard of St Petersburg. She managed to be everything the city has always been: elegant, expressive and laden with grief. She was, in her disciple Joseph Brodsky’s unforgettable phrase, ‘the keening muse'” (New York Times).
Her decision to translate Korean and Chinese poetry mirrors, and was to a certain extent a product of the close political ties among the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and North Korea in the aftermath of the Korean War. The 1950s were the high tide of socialist brotherhood, offering writers and artists exciting intellectual and creative opportunities.
For the Korean poems, Kholodovich provided literal translations on which she could build and penned an introduction and scholarly notes. The Kontsevich system for Cyrillizing Korean is based on his early work in the field of linguistics.
Akhmatova was one of the most significant Russian poets of the 20th century and was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965 and 1966.
Provenance
Robert Eden Martin (b. 1940; American lawyer and noted collector of Russian, British and American literature works).
Item number
1026
Two works, octavo. Monochrome frontispiece to Chinese Poems, title pages printed in blue and black, contents of Korean Poems printed in blue and black.
Binding
Korean Poems: original black cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt and decorated in blue, red, and gilt, red pictorial endpapers. Chinese Poems: original reddish-brown cloth, covers decorated with embossed cloud motif, spine and front cover lettered in black on gilt ground.
Condition
Chinese Poems lightly rubbed, with faint marginal stains to front endpapers; excellent copies.
First edition of Kuzmin's eight poetry collection. This copy particularly attractive for its condition - and its provenance: one of only 62 'ad nominem'.
First edition with these striking illustrations, printed with a beautiful technique rendering perfectly the Palekh style of folk art. An impressive, artistic edition in folio format; this copy in excellent condition, with the original wrapper and box.
A landmark in Russian literature history: one of the most important compilations of classic Russian literature, featuring the first and life-changing publication of Dostoevsky's debut novel as well as contributions from major writers and critics such as Turgenev, Nekrasov, Belinskii, and Herzen.
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