Our Notes & References

An actual, pre-revolutionary animal theatre drawn by a Soviet animal artist: first edition of this fine children book, also interesting for its propaganda message during these last years of the NEP.

Very rare: no copy apparently of any edition of this work on Worldcat, and none at auctions in the West (only two traced in Russia).

The clown, animal psychologist and first honoured circus artist in Russia, Vladimir Durov (1863-1934) founded his animal theatre in 1912 in his own house in Moscow; it became later known as “Grandfather Durov’s Corner”. His method of training was not based on violence, as was the case with his predecessors, but on the development of conditioned reflexes based on encouragement. In his work with animals Durov used the achievements of experimental science and the discoveries of Ivan Sechenov, Ivan Pavlov and Vladimir Bekhterev. Durov’s theatre united animals from all over the world, including elephants, hippopotamuses, bears, deer, wolves, foxes, monkeys, and seals.

The book demonstrates amusing achievements of Durov’s training, with a pinch of Soviet propaganda: from a gargantuan anteater, “a beast from the south [America]”, carrying a red banner, to a porcupine — a native of Africa and Southeast Asia — reading a book and promoting education. The images in which a wolf and a goat eat from the same plate, a cat plays serenely with rats, and a fox feeds a rooster, resonate with the Soviet government’s fleeting idea to unite different classes during the New Economic Policy (NEP, 1921-28). The so-called NEPmen, or small businessmen, were allowed to engage in trade in the countryside but were negatively viewed in cities as their revenue could be too large there. One such urban nouveau riche, a chimpanzee, is portrayed indulging himself in a restaurant. Another member of his family, macaque Makarka, shows a better example working as a switchman at a small railway, which in fact had a replica of a real steam locomotive and was the main attraction of Durov’s theatre.

The edition is illustrated with bright and colourful lithographs by the leading Russian animal painter Vasilii Vatagin (1883-1969) who for many years was a staff artist of the Darwin Museum and collaborated with the Zoological Museum and the Moscow Zoo. Drawing his subjects from life while at Durov’s theatre, Vatagin rendered each animal with great precision and at the same time incorporated some features of constructivism and avant-garde in his dynamic and experimental compositions. Each illustration contains a short verse by the writer Nikolai Shestakov (1894-1974).