[Title in Russian and Zulu] Skazki Zulu: Izinganekwane [Zulu Folk Tales]

Moskva: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1937. First Edition. Octavo (22cm); publisher's red pictorial cloth lettered in blind, upper cover stamped in red and black, housed in modern chemise and paper-covered slipcase; [4],246pp.; ten leaves of full-color plates (collated complete), half-tone illus. throughout. Cloth rubbed at margins, corners bumped, textblock quite browned and brittle, front hinge starting, else a Very Good copy. Early Soviet collection of Zulu folk tales issued by the Academy of Sciences as their inaugural volume in the Letters and Literature of Africa series. The work compiled forty-three tales, as well as an introductory essay and annotated index in the rear. The marvelous illustrations were provided by the Soviet illustrator and set designer Nikolai Ushin (1898-1942), whose contribution to an eight-volume translation of the Thousand and One Nights won him a gold medal at the 1937 Paris Exposition. The artist perished five years later during the Siege of Leningrad. The preservation of the Russian folkloric tradition reached a golden age during the first two decades following the October Revolution. Simultaneously, the African continent, long subjugated by Western oppression, was a favorite source of inspiration for Soviet children's literature. The production of such a thoroughly researched and illustrated volume of Zulu folktales to the Soviet canon of folklore can be seen as both an act of solidarity and part of the systematic "nurturing [of] values and political sensibilities in the state’s youngest citizens." Reference: Raquel G. Greene, "Constructions of Africa in Early Soviet Children’s Literature." Article available online.…