Our Notes & References

For Soviet children on the controversial Congo pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World Fair. First edition, and most likely the only one of these illustrations.

Very rare, with OCLC locating only one copy of this edition (Berlin State Library), and one of the Sverdlovsk edition in Chicago.

This story follows two brothers from a Congolese village, Joseph and Mutara, who are deceived by two white men and taken to Brussels to be exhibited at the World’s Fair—most likely Expo 58. Forced to sit in a glass booth, they must appear cheerful inside a staged, idealised setting filled with modern furniture, fine food, and toys, meant to demonstrate how life in Congo had “improved” under Belgian and American influence. After several days marked by fear and the death of their lemur, the boys are rescued by two doctors—a white woman and an African man—who recognise their distress. In the end, they return home.

The story was written by Anna Kalmanok (pen name N. Kalma; 1908–88), a children’s author and translator. While there is no evidence she visited Expo 58, the narrative clearly alludes to the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair and its controversial Congo pavilion, which featured a so-called “indigenous village” later condemned as a human zoo. In mid-July 1958, the Congolese participants protested their humiliating treatment and demanded to return home, abruptly ending the exhibit and prompting sympathetic coverage in the European press.

This edition was illustrated by friends and collaborators Veniamin Losin (1931–2012) and Evgenii Monin (1931–2002). One of their drawings notably depicts the Atomium, the iconic symbol of Expo 58. The story was first published simultaneously in Moscow and Sverdlovsk in 1962, and later republished in 1963 in Udmurt and in 1964 in Southern Altai—likely with different illustrations.