Our Notes & References

Fine, large-format plates, in excellent condition with great original hand-colour – an extremely rare edition: absent from the standard bibliographies and collections; we could trace only two other copies: in Yale but defective with only one plate, and in Stadtbibliothek Weberbach (content not checked), to which we can add three individual sheets at Russian State Historical Museum (GIM, Moscow).

Gottfried Geissler (1770–1844) lived in Russia for nearly eight years, from September 1790 to March 1798. During much of this time, he worked as a draughtsman on the renowned naturalist Peter Simon Pallas’s expedition to Southern Russian and the Crimea (1793–94). Geissler produced a variety of illustrations of landscapes, plants, animals, and traditional costumes, many of which were later published in Pallas’s Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die südlichen Statthalterschaften… (Leipzig, 1799–1801), much popularised through two subsequent English editions.

After his return to Leipzig in 1798, Geissler’s “enormous wealth of impressions formed the basis for a whole series of (today mostly very rare) publications on customs and traditions in Russia” (Hexelschneider, our translation here and elsewhere). “These ‘pictures’, grouped into different suites, were published in small editions in Leipzig between 1801 and 1805. Each of them is now a bibliographic rarity, and a complete set [svod] is not available in any library in Russia or abroad” (Itkina).

The present edition is the first completed work from this ‘series’ by Geissler in Leipzig. It was published in 1801, as confirmed by an announcement of new books in the Patriotisches tageblatt oder öffentliches… [Patriotic daily newspaper…] (20 November 1801, Brno; p. 1075), the catalogue of printed works in the Kaiserlich privilegirter Reichs-Anzeiger (Num. 320, December 6, 1801), and later articles by Abaidulova and Hexelschneider. The preface to this edition, written by literary historian Johann Gottfried Gruber (1774-1851), is dated 16 February 1801.

In this preface, Gruber references the success of another project with Geissler, “Darstellung der Russen in St. Petersburg”, likely referring to Sitten, Gebräuche und Kleidung der Russen in St. Petersburg [Customs, Traditions and Clothing of the Russians in St. Petersburg] (Leipzig, 1801-1803), a collection of 8 issues with a total of 40 plates of Russian types. Although the first one or two of these issues were published before our Russische Volks-Vergnügungen, the series was completed only in 1803. Gruber also notes that “four more plates will follow”, in addition to the two plates included in the first issue. However, to our knowledge, the total number of plates is limited to four, as in the present copy, and there are no references to additional plates in any catalogue. This suggests that the publication ceased after the two issues currently known, and that the present copy is complete.

The only source we could find explicitly mentioning a number of plates in a copy is a 1931 catalogue by Karl und Faber Kunst- und Literaturantiquariat (catalogue No. 47): their copy had only the two plates from the first issue.

Gruber, along with Johann Gottfried Richter (1763–1829) — a translator and promoter of Russian culture in Germany — spent significant time in Russia and provided detailed textual descriptions for the four lively depictions of folk scenes. For the first plate, titled “A Holiday (Prastnik) in the Countryside”, he notes that “in no other country can there be more holidays than in Russia”, and explains the plot of a popular “pigeon dance (Golubez)”. The second plate, “The Russians’ Barotz Game”, illustrates two men gripping each other by the collar and hopping in a circle on one leg while using the other leg to fight. Among the spectators is a notable figure: a hairdresser’s apprentice with a women’s hairstyle, the result of practice by one of his comrades. The description remarks, “boys with such strange hairstyles can be seen every day on the streets of St. Petersburg”. The third and fourth plates portray the “Cocagna Folk Festival”, a celebration during which authorities distribute abundant food and drink from a massive pile, often to mark major occasions such as coronations or military victories. Each description is rich with detail, capturing various groups of characters with careful attention.

It is worth mentioning that a 2015 publication, Kh. G. G. Geisler. Byt i nravy russkogo naroda na rubezhe XVIII–XIX vekov [C. G. H. Geissler. Life and Manners of the Russian People at the Turn of the 18th–19th Centuries], does not mention this Russische Volks-Vergnügungen. However, it does discuss three of the four plates (excluding “Prastnik”), describing them as “individual sheets from the late 1790s” from the collection of the State Historical Museum (GIM, Moscow). In the introductory article, E. Itkina speculates about the plates’ content, apparently unaware of Gruber’s comments and of the existence of the complete publication represented by this present copy.

The celebrations depicted in the plates featuring the “Cocagna Folk Festival” are referred to in Russian as “bykodranie”, based on a similar scene illustrated by John Augustus Atkinson. Itkina notes that “both artists might have witnessed these festivities in February 1796 [during the wedding of Grand Duke Constantine] or at the coronation of Paul I in April 1797.”

Geissler’s later works, also published in collaboration with Gruber, continued the subject: Abbildung und Beschreibung der Völkerstämme und Völker… [Illustration and Description of the Tribes and Peoples under the Government of the Russian Emperor Alexander] (Leipzig, 1803); Sitten, Gebräuche und Kleidung der Russen aus den niedern Ständen [Customs, Traditions and Clothing of the Russians from the Lower Classes], (Leipzig, 1805); and several works produced with commentary by Richter: Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebräuche und Lustbarkeiten… [Paintings of the Customs, Traditions and Entertainment of the Russian, Tatar, Mongolian and Other Peoples in the Russian Empire], (Leipzig 1804); and Spiele und Belustigungen der Russen aus den niedern Volksklassen [Games and Amusements of the Russians from the Lower Classes] (Leipzig, 1805). None of these publications include the plates from the present edition, and they are all of smaller format.

In October 1807, Geissler received a diamond ring from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. During the French occupation (1806–13), he sketched scenes of civilian life and produced numerous images and caricatures depicting moments from the Battle of the Nations (16–19 October 1813). In early 1813, he also undertook an unusual project, publishing two Russian-German phrasebooks: Hand- und Hülfsbuch für Deutsche und Russen and Neuester und vollständigster Russischer Dolmetscher (Abaidulova).

Bibliography

Bobins I, 191 (this copy); not in Abbey, Colas or Lipperheide, not in Cat. Russica or Gubar.

Abaidulova, Anna. «…Alles liebte damals das Russische»: o nemetsko-russkikh razgovornikakh khudozhnika Kh. G. G. Geislera 1813 g. // Nemtsy v Sankt-Peterburge. Biograficheskii aspekt. XVIII–XX vv. Vyp. 10. SPb.: MAE RAN, 2016, pp. 138–150.

Evdokimova A. A., vstup. statia E. I. Itkina. Kh. G. G. Geisler. Byt i nravy russkogo naroda na rubezhe XVIII-XIX vekov, Kuchkovo pole, Moskva, 2015.

Hexelschneider, Erhard. “Gottfried Geißler” // Sächsische Biografie, hrsg. vom Institut für Sächsische Geschichte und Volkskunde, 2004.