Our Notes & References

“The first attempt to present Japanese children’s art in the USSR [and] the first official Japanese exhibition in the Soviet institutional space” (Belozerov, our translation).

Scarce: OCLC locates three copies in the US (Amherst, Harvard, Princeton) out of a total of five (Tresoar-Frisian literary and historical centre, Netherlands, and Waseda University, Tokyo), to which we can add a copy at University of Hawaii. We couldn’t trace any copy at auctions in the West.

Organised by the All-Union Society of Cultural Relations Abroad (VOKS) and the State Academy of Arts Sciences (GAKhN), the exhibition of Japanese children’s books and art took place in October 1928 at the State Historical Museum. The event’s main initiator was Iakov Meksin (1886-1943), “one of the most passionate and influential Soviet advocates for the art of children’s books, publisher, collector, researcher, and the founder of the Children’s Book Museum [in 1934]. His significance to pre-war Soviet children’s literature is immeasurable” (Vinogradova, our translation).

The exhibition featured a total of 1,450 items, including picture books, toys, magazines, sheet music, games, educational books, books for parents, and many children’s drawings. In the catalogue’s introduction, Meksin highlights the achievements of Soviet children’s book design and emphasises the importance of international collaboration and exchange. This is followed by an article titled “Drawings of Japanese Children” by Nina Sakulina, an art education specialist and researcher at the Academy of Arts. The catalogue includes many plates, including four full-page, reproducing illustrations from contemporary Japanese books and some of the children’s drawings. The cover illustration was created by Aleksandr Mogilevskii, an artist from Wassily Kandinsky’s circle who went on to have a long career as a prominent Soviet illustrator.

After its showing in Moscow, the exhibition travelled to Leningrad, Kharkiv, Odesa, Kyiv, Minsk, Baku, and Tbilisi. However, following the exhibition of Japanese cinema in 1929, diplomatic relations between Japan and the USSR deteriorated, halting cultural exchanges until the 1950s. In 1938, the Children’s Book Museum was closed, and Meksin was arrested on charges of “counter-revolutionary and espionage activities.” He died in captivity five years later.

Bibliography

Belozerov V. V. “Vystavki iaponskogo detskogo risunka v SSSR: risuia Iaponiiu, pokazyvaia mir” // Iaponskie issledovaniia, 2023 (1), pp. 27-45; Vinogradova, Olga, Zakharov, Kirill. “Kartinki-puteshestvennitsy: Iakov Meksin i vystavki nemetskoi i iaponsloi knigi v SSSR” // Detskie chteniia, 2019 (2).