Our Notes & References

Children’s poems about the Khanty and Mansi peoples.

Rare: we could only one copy of this second edition (LoC) and none of the first in US libraries; OCLC records two copies of the first 1962 edition, both in Germany.

Retold from the Mansi by S. Kozlov, this collection celebrates wild animals and their role in the life of the Mansi, an Ob-Ugric Indigenous people of the Khanty–Mansi region in western Siberia. The poems were written by Iuvan Shestalov (1937–2011), a writer and poet of Mansi origin, widely regarded as the founder of modern Mansi literature and its foremost representative.

Shestalov first published his poems in 1957, and it is significant that before him, Mansi poetic expression existed primarily through shamanic ritual performance. His lyrical works thus mark the beginning of a new literary era and the foundation of written Mansi poetry.

The illustrations are by two artists: Mai Miturich (Miturich-Khlebnikov, 1925–2008), nephew of the Futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov and son of the avant-garde artist Vera Khlebnikova; and Ivan Bruni (1920–95), son of the painter and graphic artist Lev Bruni and grandson of the Symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont. From 1959 to 1962, Bruni served as chief artist at the Detskii Mir publishing house.