PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.
Můj rodokmen [My genealogy].
[Prague, Průmyslová tiskárna, 1937.]
8vo, 12 unnumbered leaves, with 10 full-page lithographs in the text by Karel Svolinský; a very good copy in the original printed wrappers, original glassine wrappers (a little chipped) preserved.
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Můj rodokmen [My genealogy].
First edition, privately printed, of this Czech translation of Pushkin’s Moia rodoslovnaia (‘My genealogy’, 1830), the great Russian poet’s defence of his ancestry against some recent racial slurs. The fine illustrations are by Karel Svolinský (1896–1986), who is best known for his designs for Czech postage stamps.
František Táborský (1858–1940) was a minor poet whose translations (of Lermontov, Griboedov, and Blok, as well as Pushkin) helped Russian literature find a Czech audience. ‘From the aspect of literary history his most significant contributions relate to Pushkin, about whom he wrote over the course of half a century, later collecting his observations in an important monograph’, Puškin, pěvec svobody (Kšicová, p. 167), also published in 1937, the centenary of Pushkin’s death.
OCLC locates three copies only (Toronto Public Library, Illinois, MIT). See Kšicová, Ruská poezie v interpretaci Františka Táborského (1979).