LEONOV, Leonid Maksimovich.
Tuatamur.
Moscow, M. & S. Sabashnikov, 1924.
16mo, pp. 72, [6], plus final blank; private ownership stamp to front cover, title and a couple of other pages, otherwise a good copy, uncut in the original printed wrappers, soiled but sound.
Added to your basket:
Tuatamur.
First edition: one of Leonov’s early stories, the tragic, sometimes savage tale of a Tartar khan who shares in the victory over the Russians at Kalka (1224, the first invasion of Russia by the Mongol hordes), only to lose his beloved Ytmar, the doomed warrior daughter of Genghiz Khan. The narrative is notable for its exotic style, larded with Tartar words and phrases.
‘The striking stylistic qualities of [Leonov’s earliest stories] attracted general attention. They certainly indicated that their young author owed a great deal to Leskov, Remizov, Bely, and Zamyatin, but they showed too, that he had his own approach to literary material. The opulence of his language, which was studded with flowery epithets and involved metaphors, was matched by the emotional complexity of his chief characters’ (Slonim, Soviet Russian Literature, p. 194).