Our Notes & References

Large-format editions of this children’s book in two endangered Siberian and Uralic languages: Even and Nenets.

Both editions were printed in just 1,000 copies, for the small populations of native speakers of these languages. Even (also known as Lamut), is a Tungusic language, now spoken by approximately 5,700 people—mostly reindeer herders—in the Russian Far East, Yakutia, Magadan and Kamchatka (Russian 2010 census). The translation was made by Vasilii Keimetinov, an Even poet, translator, and the author of a five-volume Even-Russian etymological dictionary, while still a student (cf. Starkov).

The language of the other edition is Tundra Nenets, a Samoyedic language of the Uralic family, spoken from the eastern coast of the Kanin Peninsula on the White Sea to the Yenisei River in north-west Siberia. According to the 2021 Russian census, approximately 24,000 people speak Nenets. The translator is Anatolii Rozhin (1912–77), a Nenets educator and author of the first Nenets primer based on Russian orthography.

The short story tells of a Chinese boy, Xiao-lin, who decides to help his parents by tending the garden and yard. When his parents return home and ask who has done the work, he replies that it was his ten little friends—his ten fingers. The author, Sanʹ Shan-Fei (possibly San Shang-fei), appears to be known in Russia only through this story. The University of Hawaii Manoa Library identifies the author as Baiying Shen (1897-1992), a Chinese primary-school educator, editor, and children’s books writer. This would imply that the book was first published in China, before its first Russian edition in 1954.

The book is vividly illustrated with almost full-page compositions by Nikolai Kochergin (1897–1974) a Soviet poster artist and a leading figure in the ‘renaissance’ of Soviet children’s book illustration (1950s–60s).

The story proved very popular after its 1954 edition, and was reissued in 1955 and 1956 with the same illustrations by Kochergin. From 1956 onwards it was translated into multiple minority languages of the USSR, most appearing in 1958. RNB holds examples in Udmurt, Evenki, Mari, Nanai, Mansi, and Chukchi, as well as two 1959 editions in Chechen and Ingush.

All are very rare: across auction records and OCLC, we could trace only three copies in minority languages: in Even (like ours), Evenki, and Nanai—all at Memorial University of Newfoundland. We could trace a further copy of each of ours volumes at the Russian National Library (RNB, St Peterburg). No copies traced at auction.

Bibliography

Starkov D. D. “Mezhdunarodnyi seminar po sokhraneniiu i populiarizatsii iazykov korennykh malochislennykh narodov Arktiki”, Arkticheskii mnogoiazychnyi portal, 13 April 2022.