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Illustrated Books, European History, Most Recent Listing; 4to; 519 pages; Kyiv, [Ukraine]: Drukarnia S. V. Kul'zhenko. Very Good-. 1905. First Edition; First Printing. [2 p. L. ], 519 pages; Library of Congress binding in dark red buckram, preserving the publisher's color pictorial wrappers (front and rear) , the color pictorial title page and the color pictorial first sectional title -- the front wrapper depicts a "Kobzar" -- a traditional Ukrainian bard, shown here accompanying himself on his multi-stringed kobza. This copy has the usual marks applied by the Library of Congress to accessioned material at the time. There is a paper shelf label mounted to the spine, a tiny perforated "L. C. " stamp at the foot of the title page (repeated at the foot of pp. 99-100) , and a penciled shelf number on the verso of the title page. Two bookplates mounted to the front paste-down endpaper: Yudin collection bookplate with portrait of the collector, and vignettes of his library and a church building -- (Cyrillic letters, but printed by the U. S. Government Printing Office) ; and a Library of Congress "Eagle" bookplate, stating at the foot "Yudin Collection" -- the LC Surplus-Duplicate stamp appears on the first blank leaf facing the bookplates. Paper label on spine has printed notation: "YUDIN" and call number supplied in ink manuscript. This copy was included in the matchless Yudin Collection -- formed by Gennadii Vasil'evich Yudin (1840-1912) , a wealthy Siberian distiller. Yudin's collection consisted of at least 80, 000 books and related items. The Library of Congress bought Yudin's collection in its entirety in 1906, and its contents still forms the bulk of the LC's Russian language holdings. Yudin made his home near Krasnoyarsk, Siberia and his collection is particularly strong in material related to his native Siberia, but he was also quite interested in Ukraine and probably knew the language to some extent. The compiler of this anthology was the poet Oleksa Kovalenko -- [1880 -1923]. Before the 1917 Revolution, he lived in Kyiv. From 1903 his poetry appeared in Ukrainian periodicals and at least ten large prerevolutionary anthologies of Ukrainian literature. Kovalenko edited three of the particularly important of these pioneering anthologies. The first to be published was this one "Rozvaha" (Amusement, 1905) . The later two were "Ternovyi vinok" (Crown of Thorns, 1908) , and "Ukraà  ns'ka muza" (The Ukrainian Muse, 1908) . There are contributions included here by Hryts Kernerenko (a. K. A. Grigorii, Hryhorii, or Hirsch Kerner) -- one of the first Jewish authors to write in Ukrainian. Another notable contributor was Ivan Yakovych Franko [1856-1916]. The final item in this 1905 anthology is a piece of music, printed in musical notation for piano -- by M[ykola] Lysenko, 7 pp. Mykola Vitaliyovych Lysenko [1842-1912] was a reknowned Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist. He set to music a patriotic poem by Oleksandr Konysky -- [Molytva za Ukrayinu] known as the "Prayer for Ukraine", which has become Ukraine's spiritual anthem. Americans might remember an historic televised moment from earlier this year when the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York performed this hymn a the cold open of Saturday Night Live -- on Saturday 26, February, two days after Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Quite scarce, and it is a happy circumstance that the lovely wrappers with their vivid chromolithographs are retained in this copy. See OCLC Number: 708607848 [for the "other" L. C. Copy]. The University of Alberta in Edmonton is recorded as having another copy, under a difference OCLC number [65621206]. Indiana University and Harvard also have copies, under yet another OCLC number [23538556]. It is no accident that this book appeared in 1905, the same year as the "first" Russian revolution. While the reverberations from this did complicate life for Ukrainian artists living under the control of the Russian empire (especially the composer.
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