Our Notes & References

First edition of the first collection of selected poems by “one of the great modern masters of Russian literature” (Terras), one of the commanding figures of the so-called Silver Age of Russian Poetry, and later branded “enemy of the people” by the Soviet authorities.

A surprisingly fresh, excellent example, almost ‘as new’. Scarce in Western institutions and on the market: we could locate only four holdings (Chicago, Harvard, Yale and Stanford, possibly only microfilm), and no copy at auction in recent decades.

Over the course of his poetic career, Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) repeatedly compiled and published collections of selected poems as an attempt “to present a kind of overview of his life and creative work […] Boris Gasparov convincingly shows that in the genesis of Pasternak’s oeuvre, impressions from the work of his father – the artist Leonid Pasternak – play a significant role. Here we can assume that Pasternak perceived each collection as a kind of personal exhibition” (Polivanov).

The edition includes poems from Poverkh barierov [Over the Barriers], the celebrated and successful Sestra moia zhizn [My Sister Life] and Temy i variatsii [Themes and Variations].

It was published in 700 copies by the publishing house-artel “Uzel” [“Knot”], which was formed in 1925 by a poetry circle which included Sofiia Parnok, Benedikt Livshits and Pasternak himself among others; its distinct mark — here present on the title page — was designed by the prominent graphic artist and art historian Vladimir Favorskii (1886-1964). The publishing house disappeared pretty soon afterwards, in 1928, with the tightening of censorship and the final intervention of the State in literary life.

Provenance

Mikhail Krasnov (European private collector of important Russian literature).

Bibliography

Turchinskii, p. 415; Lesman, No. 1720; Rozanov, No. 3583; Victor Terras, Handbook of Russian Literature, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1991, pp. 330-333; Polivanov K. M., Pasternak i sovremenniki. Biografiia. Dialogi. Paralleli. Prochteniia, Izdatelskii dom GU VShE, Moskva, 2006.