Tikhonov, Nikolai Semenovich (1896 - 1979)
Annenkov [Annenkoff], Iurii [Georges] Pavlovich, artist (1889 - 1974)
Braga. Vtoraia kniga stikhov. 1921 - 1922. M. - Peterburg, 1922. 110, [4 p., 2 p.list of Krug Publishers books and almanacs.] €650,00
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8 vo, striking publisher´s lithographed covers and publisher´s logo designed by Iurii Annenkov. 'Krug'´s Press logo printed in two different versions on front cover, flyleaf and back cover. Loose, small fragments of spine are missingslight wear of the time, uncut. Printed on better paper. Both covers preserved. Boxed in a magnificent deluxe acid-free clamshell box executed for EG (previous owner).
The box is signed and numbered by famous Berlin master binder. GOOD TO VERY GOOD.


A unique copy (proof copy?) of poet´s second book with misnumbered pages (p.70, 2 unnumbered pages [proof pages?] with poem 'Pesnia ob otpusknom soldate', 81, 72-80, 'new page 81', with a different text. Covers of few known copies in some major Russian libraries miss covers. Covers were removed by vigilante librarians in academic and public libraries during 1930s through 1950s, due to the fact that many books designed by Iurii Annenkov and all the books written by the artist, were recorded in the Soviet 'Index Librorum Prohibitorum List'.

The book was withdrawn from all academic and Soviet public libraries. Some poems were not reprinted untill early 1970s. A number of poems were reprinted in later 'Collected works' in censored format and/or with omited dedications to 'non-existing persons' (poem 'Dezertir' and others).

Nikolai Semenovich Tikhonov was a member of the Serapion Brothers literary group.The group was named after a literary group, Die Serapionsbrüder (The Serapion Brethren), to which German romantic author E.T.A. Hoffmann belonged and after which he named a collection of his tales. Its members included Nikolai Tikhonov, Veniamin Kaverin, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Viktor Shklovskii, Vsevolod Ivanov, Elizaveta Polonskaia, Ilya Gruzdev, Mikhail Slonimsky, Lev Lunts, Vladimir Pozner, Nikolay Nikitin and Konstantin Fedin.

The group formed during their studies at the seminars of Iuri Tynyanov, Evgenii Zamiatin (whose 1922 essay 'The Serapion Brethren' gives insight into the early style of several members), and at Kornei Chukovskii seminars at the Petrogradski Dom Iskusstv . The group was officially organized at its first meeting on February 1, 1921, and 'as long as their headquarters remained in the House of Arts, met regularly every Saturday.'

The group eventually split: some of them moved to Moscow and became official Soviet writers, while others, like Zoshchenko, remained in Petrograd (Leningrad), or emigrated from the Soviet Russia. Hongor Oulanoff wrote, 'The Serapion Brothers did not found a literary school. In fact - as it appears from the Serapion 'Manifesto' and from Fedin's words - the Brotherhood did not even intend to found one.'
Some writers of the Serapion Brothers' group were under severe criticism and were censored. Tikhonov chose to split from Serapion Brothers and turned to the Soviet official literature and politics.

Born of parents who were petty tradesmen of serf descent, Tikhonov trained as a clerk, graduating from the Petersburg School of Commerce in 1911. He dropped out and became a stenographer at the Office of the Imperial Trade Fleet and Ports of Russia, in St. Petersburg. At that time he wrote his early poems. From 1914-1918 he served as a hussar in the Imperial Russian Army in the First World War. His first literary teacher was poet Nikolai Gumilev. He volunteered for the army at the outbreak of World War I and served in a hussar regiment; he entered the Red Army in 1918 and was demobilized in 1922.

Tikhonov´s first collection, 'Orda' (1922), 'shows startling maturity' and 'contains most of the few short poems which have made him famous.' (Hongor Oulanoff). His first two first books were published the very same year and were sold out almost instantly.

After 1922 he devoted himself to traveling and writing, and his later work, both verse and prose (many adventure stories and the novel Voina [1931]) reflects his delight in what he found in his travels, particularly in Georgia. His cycle of war stories Voennye koni (1927) is 'perceptive and well constructed.'

In 1925 Tikhonov coined the famous propaganda slogan about the Bolshevik Communists and their stubbornness: 'Gvozdi by delat is etikh ludei; krepche b ne bylo v mire gvozdei' (Turn this people to nails; there would be no stronger nails in the world). He wrote a propaganda poem about Lenin and pleased Soviet officials during the ideological struggle of the 1920's. During the 1930's Tikhonov made a fast political career under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. Tikhonov chose to comply with the Soviet official line in literature and served the Soviet propaganda during his first trip abroad.

In 1935 he was a member of the Soviet delegation to Peace Congress in Paris. There he connected with the French communists, such as Louis Aragon and Elsa Triolet. He adopted the methods of 'socialist realism' in his writings.

He served on the Finnish front in the Winter War and was in Leningrad for the Siege as political Comissar. In 1944 he became chair of the Union of Soviet Writers, but was dismissed by Joseph Stalin in 1946 for being too tolerant of Zoshchenko and Akhmatova.

He eventually made an impressive career as a literary administrator, rising to Member of the Board of the Soviet Writers' Union during the Second World War. He was a friend of Andrei Zhdanov. In 1944 he was appointed the Chairman of the Soviet Writer's Union and Moved to Moscow. In 1946 he switched places with his friend Aleksandr Fadeyev, who became the Chairman again, and Tikhonov remained Member of the Board at the Soviet Writer's Union for many more years. He opposed poets of the younger generation of the 60's at the time of 'Thaw' that was initiated by Nikita Khrushchev. During the rule of Leonid Brezhnev he took the side of Mikhail Sholokhov against Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and other dissident writers.

Tikhonov was among the hard-line literary officials in Soviet Russia. He was awarded the Stalin's Prize three times (1942, 1949, 1952), the Lenin's Prize twice (1957 and 1970), and many other Soviet awards and decorations. From 1946-1979 he was continuously elected representative to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Tikhonov was the first chairman of the Soviet Peace Committee, in the years 1949-1979.

See: Victor Terras (1985). Handbook of Russian Literature. p. 474. ; R.R. Milner-Gulland in A.K. Thorlby (ed.), The Penguin Companion to Literature: European (1969), p. 762.
Kovalev, V. A. Tvorchestvo Nikolaia Tikhonova : issledovaniia i soobshcheniia; Vstrechi s Tikhonovym ; Bibliografiia. Leningrad (1973) Institut russkoĭ literatury (Pushkinskiĭ dom)

All books designed by Iurii Annenkov are treasured by bibliophiles and art collectors, especially books designed in early 1920s. His name dissappeared from all books on the history of Russian art already in 1930s and was included in unofficial list of artists banned for open press publications.

In his essay 'On Synthetism' (1922), Yevgeny Zamyatin writes that '[Annenkov] has a keen awareness of the extraordinary rush and dynamism of our epoch. His sense of time is developed to the hundredth of a second. He has the knack--characteristic of Synthetism--of giving only the synthetic essence of things.'

Maxim Gorky's fairy-tale book, Samovar, published in 1917 was his first work as a book designer. His recognition as a book illustrator came in the wake of his most known work — designing Alexander Blok's poem, The Twelve, published in 1918 and gone through three printings within a year. In the next few years Annenkov designed numerous books for Petrograd authors (Mikhail Kuzmin and Aleksey Remizov, to name a few).

Commissioned by the Bolshevik government, Annenkov together with Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, S. Maslovski and A. Kugel, designed and staged the open-air mystery 'Liberated Labour Anthem' on 1 May 1920 in Petrograd. Later that year, Annenkov staged and designed another mass show, The Storming of the Winter Palace, part of the October Revolution anniversary celebrations in Palace Square, Petrograd. In 1919-1920 Annenkov made a series of abstract sculptural assemblages and collages, influenced by the Dada movement.

1922 saw his book 'Portraits'. It contained 80 pictures of the key-figures of Russian art of the time (Gorki, Zamyatin, Remizov, Sologub, Blok, Akhmatova a.o.) made in 1906-1921. The book also included essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin and Mikhail Kuzmin. He joined the Mir Iskusstva. The book also included portrait of Leon Trotzky.It was banned for sale and withdrawn from all libraries after Trotzky was forced to leave the USSR. The possession of a copy of 'Portraits' costed to at least one person a job and ban for profession for many years in the early 1970s (1972?).

Annenkov left Russia in July 1924, first living in Germany and later settling in Paris. He continued to work as an artist and served as a costume designer for motion pictures. He was co-nominated with Rosine Delamare for the Academy Award for Costume Design for their work in the film The Earrings of Madame de... (1953).

Provenace: Nikolai Tikhonov´s library and archive (?), Leningrad-Moscow, (1920s to 1948), Moisei Solomonovich Lesman library and archive, Leningrad (1950s - 1972), Bernhard Blanke Antiquariat and Gallery, Berlin (2002 catalog, sold for 400.00€), Berlin EG Russian poetry library and archive (2004 - 2010), russica-book-and-art.com catalog (2012-2013).

See: Biobibliograficheskii slovar khudozhnikov narodov SSSR [...], vol.1; Not in Leonid Soskin (1995).