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Bernett Penka Rare Books

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Rok-Posevy [Rock harvests]

Rok-Posevy [Rock harvests], no. 3 (October 1989)

[Soviet Union], 1989. Octavo (21 × 15 cm). Original staple-stitched pictorial wrappers; [30] pp. of reduced-size typescript, photographs, and drawings. Very good. Single issue of this samizdat Rock 'n' roll fanzine, published unofficially in the late Soviet Union by NORIS, an acronym for Nezavisimyi Ob"edinennyi Rok-Informatsionnyi Sindikat (Independent United Rock Information Syndicate), founded in late 1987 by Aleksandr Fedorov and Seva Novgorodtsev, a musician and BBC radio broadcaster based in the UK who was a source of information about pop music in the Soviet Union, especially in the 1970s through 1990s. From 1991, his show was called by the title of this periodical, which was also the title of a later book. The NORIS group was a kind of Novgorodtsev fan club that also organized meetings on his birthday. The wide reach of his radio program is evidenced by the list of contributors to the present issue, which includes listeners from Cherepovets, Kursk, Georgiu-Dezh, Brest, and Minsk. The contents focus on bands such as Judas Priest, Deep Purple, King Diamond, Viktor Tsoi, a-ha, and others, as well as reports on activities of NORIS. The final page makes fun of the Komsomol youth organization, with the caption: "Rock against narcomania, bureaucracy, komsomolia and other afflictions of mankind." Scarce; as of October 2023, KVK, OCLC show a single copy of the first issue only, at the Soviet and Russian rock music zine collection held at George Washington University.
  • $300
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Akter amerikanskogo kino [The actor in American cinema]. Artisty ekrana: seriia knig o kino-akterakh i rezhisserakh [Artists of the screen: a series of books about film actors and director; series title]

Leningrad: Academia, 1927. Octavo (18.5 × 14.2 cm). Original photo-illustrated wrappers; 134, [2] pp. About very good; light dust-soiling; text toned; partly uncut and unopened. Published by the Cinema Committee (Kino-Komitet) of the State Institute of Art History and authored by Ilia Z. Trauberg (1905-1948), the younger brother of Soviet cinema director Leonid Trauberg (1902-1990), both of whom were born in Odessa. Trauberg argues that any deep understanding of the history and methods of contemporary cinema must be reached through careful study of the unique "synthesis of decisive factors for the fate of film" which is American cinema. In particular, his work focuses on the art of the American actor, as well as its roots in "everyday social factors and the artistic atmosphere" (p. 9). Nevertheless, the author is often critical of American cinema (as a moralistic reflection of capitalist society) and argues for the need to "determine the chiaroscuro in the work of the American actor and to exploit it in the construction of Soviet cinematography. Through the USA -- to the USSR" (p. 10). The book contains detailed analyses of methods and techniques of various actors, the psychology of the "star", the cinema city of Hollywood, and the actors' background in life and social setting, the American press about film and its actors, and many other aspects of American cinema. Wrappers by Valentina M. Khodasevich (1894-1970), a Soviet painter, stage designer, and graphic artist. The niece of poet Vladislav Khodasevich, she worked in Tatlin's Moscow studio and participated in exhibitions of avant-garde organizations such as "Soiuz molodezhi", "Bubnovyi valet", "Mir iskusstva" and others. Curiously, the present work appears to have been created during her travels through Europe in 1924 to 1928. As of July 2023, KVK, OCLC show three non-microfilm copies in North America.
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Szkoła: Dwutygodnik uczniowski [School: the student biweekly], nr. 9-10 (1988)

Wrocław: n.p., 1987-1988. Octavo (21 × 15 cm). Original staple-stitched wrappers; 8-16 pp of offset-reproduced typescript and photographs in reduced size. Very good. A single issue of an underground student monthly magazine, published by Międzyszkolny Komitet Oporu (Interschool Resistance Committee), a student movement connected to Solidarność, Poland's first independent workers' union. A student-led effort, the Committee sought to supplement school education in Poland which they saw as driven by ideology not knowledge. Humorous in tone and illustrated with caricatures, the issues contain articles on the history of Polish resistance to the Communist government, and the Solidarity movement. Founded by Robert Prus, Rafał Kosmalski, Robert Butwicki, Grzegorz Kondracki, Ryszard Sobolewski, and Wojciech Śliwiński, the group was active in Wrocław 1985-1989. The Committee organized lectures on recent Polish history, created self-education groups and conducted classes for Polish youth, "supplemental" to the classes offered in the schools. The group also printed and distributed informational leaflets and zines such as this one. This magazine is the continuation of Szkoła Podziemna (Underground school) which was published in 1985-1986, until the arrest and detention of the editorial team in 1986. The publication was renamed Szkoła (School) thereafter, eventually becoming a nationally-distributed magazine of the Independent Youth School Union. As of September 2022 KVK, OCLC show copies at two libraries outside of Poland.
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Teatr śmierci [Theater of death]

Warsaw: Biblioteka Galerii Foksal PSP, 1975. Quarto (29.5 × 21 cm). Original printed staple-stitched wrappers; [8] pp. A small closed tear to rear wrapper, else very good. First edition of this manifesto by a seminal figure of the Polish avant-garde and experimental theater, Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990). A painter, set designer, theater director, conceptual artist and theoretician, who had an enormous influence on the development of Polish art of the second half of the twentieth century, Kantor has been called the Andy Warhol of Polish art. As a student in Kraków during the German occupation of Poland in WWII, Kantor created a small underground theater group that performed in private apartments. In 1955 Kantor was one of the key figures in the revival of the Kraków avant-garde group, organizing the experimental Cricot 2 Theater in the same year. Throughout the 1960s his work moved in the direction of performance art, as he organized performances in unusual locations, used inanimate objects as actors, while using actors as props. To document the shifts in his thinking about theater he produced a number of manifestos including The Zero Theater (1963), Theater Happening (1967) and The Impossible Theater (1973). In this late manifesto from the period of his greatest renown, Kantor "articulated his desire to abandon the theater grounded in physical reality for the theater of the mind that embraced an instant double of the Self, the Other, or the Unthought as the new subject constituted by the mental gaze of the Self" (See Michal Kobialka, A Journey Through Other Spaces, Essays and Manifestos, 1944-1990, p. 325). In practice the manifesto resulted in his work "The Dead Class" (1975), which was presented in the same year at Documenta in Kassel, subsequently winning numerous awards. The manifesto was published by Foksal Gallery in Warsaw (est. 1966), one of a handful of galleries that succeeded in showing work with avant-garde and conceptualist leanings throughout the Communist era. As of October 2023, KVK and OCLC show only one copy outside of Poland, at Yale.
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Iisus Khristos superzvezda [Jesus Christ Superstar]. WITH: Evita

Soviet Union, ca. 1976-1980. Original leaves of typescript and carbon copy typescript to rectos and versos, two sets with pagination pp. [3], 33 and [2], 71-133 respectively. Cut and sized to binding, but never bound; 20.8 × 14.8 cm. Very good; occasional corrections using pen and whiteout. Two samizdat translations of Tim Rice's libretti for Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock opera "Evita" (first published 1976 and first performed live in 1978), as well as for "Jesus Christ Superstar" (1971). The translations are credited to Vladimir Bel'skii and N. Sokolova respectively. Both texts stem from the collection of the Ekaterinburg jazz musician and drummer, Valerii Chernavin, a pioneer of Soviet post-war jazz in the Urals. In the 1960-70s, Chernavin performed in underground jazz concerts together with Vladimir Presniakov and Igor' Butman. In addition to the texts of the librettos, both "volumes" contain overall descriptions of the works, a discography of Lloyd Webber, as well as the names of musicians and performers. The first known translation of "Jesus Christ Superstar" into Russian dates to 1989 and was used to record the first 1992 Russian recording. The present translation was apparently prepared from the 1970s studio recording. Although it was not officially released in the Soviet Union, the work was widely known thanks to "magnitizdat" or the duplication of recordings using magnetic tape recorders.
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Maliariia na zakavkazskoi zhelieznoi dorogie v 1889 godu. Mikroskopicheskiia nabliudeniia. S prilozheniem 12 mikrofotogramm maliariinogo parazita i litografirovannoi tablitsy [Malaria on the Transcaucasus Railway in 1889. Microscopical investigations. With 12 microphotograms of the Malaria parasite and a lithographed chart]. WITH: Six other medical works, including offprints, by scientists from Tbilisi, Georgia, including four others by N. A. Sakharov

Tbilisi, 1889. Octavo (23 × 15.6 cm). Original printed wrappers; 18 pp. of text, one folded graph lithographed in black and light blue, and one photographic plate showing twelve microphotographs of Malaria parasites. Good or better; light soil, toning, and moisture staining throughout; some nicks and fraying to spine and wrapper edges. In all likelihood, this offprint contains the first photographic documentation of the malaria parasite, based on the author's investigation of an infamously troublesome region along the Transcaucasus Railway connecting Baku and Batumi. In addition to documenting found specimens, Sakharov also traces the forms of Plasmodium that correspond to various phases of disease in a patient affected by malaria fever. Sakharov was also the first to confirm the third known species, Plasmodium falciparum, and his use of microphotography was presumably also among the earliest applications of this technique, at least in the former Russian Empire, and his approach is described in detail. "N. Sakharov, an army doctor stationed in the Caucasus, wrote a number of articles on his laboratory and clinical research during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Contrary to the belief current at the time that different microscopic forms were phases of growth of one malaria parasite, Sakharov noted "incorrect" parasites with "irregular" amoeboid forms, lack of crescents (P. falciparum gametocytes) or "crescents" of oval, elongated or elliptical shapes, and different sizes of ring stages in malarial blood smears. He concluded that this indicated the existence of different species of parasites. He upheld Golgi's view that the daily paroxysms characteristic of so-called quotidian malaria resulted from schizogony of two broods of parasites, rather than from a new species of parasite. Thus, 'daily' fever was not a separate fever as had been traditionally believed. Sakharov also developed a special apparatus to photograph the microscopic forms of the parasites" (see Mary Schaeffer Conroy, "Malaria in late Tsarist Russia" 1982, p. 47). As of October 2023, KVK, OCLC show only one non-microfilm copy in North America. The other titles include: N. A. Sakharov. Okislenie zhelieza, kak khimicheskaia osnova zhiznennykh iavlenii. Tbilisi, 1917. Octavo. Original printed wrappers; 60 pp. Good; lacking rear wrapper. N. A. Sakharov. K voprosu, chto takoe soznanie? Kratkii ocherk 'kislorodnoi' teorii psikhicheskikh iavlenii. Dopolnitel'naia glava k sochineniiu 'Okislenie zhelieza, kak khimicheskaia osnova zhiznennykh iavlenii." Tbilisi, 1917. Octavo. Original printed wrappers; 15 pp. Very good. Dr. N. S[akharov]. Novyi put' k poznaniiu zhizni (Podrazhanie Liukretsiiu). Nouvelle voie d'investigation de la vie (Imitation de Lucrece). Tbilisi, 1920. Curious elaboration on the preceding works in the form of a long rhymed poem. Octavo. Original printed self-wrappers; 15 pp. Old creases; good. N. A. Sakharov. Ob etiologii nepravil'nykh ili tak nazyvaemykh lietneosennikh bolotnykh likhoradok i ob otnoshenii ikh k drugim bolotnym likhoradkam. Offprint from "Russkii Arkhiv Patologii, Klinicheskoi Meditsiny i Bakteriologii". St. Petersburg, 1896. Octavo. Original printed wrappers; 8 pp. Lacking rear wrapper; else very good. N. Sacharoff. Die Malariaparasiten der Hämatoblasten und die Anwendung der Morphologie dieser Parasiten zur Entscheidung einiger Probleme der Blut- und Pigmentbildung. Abdruck aus dem Centralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde und Infektionskrankheiten. Cassel, 1896. Vol. XX. Octavo. Original printed wrappers; 22. Two plates. Very good. W. Boschowsky. Über primäres Lungensarkom. Sonderabdruck aus der Frankfurter Zeitschrift für Pathologie. Vol. 9, issue no. 2. WiesbadenÖ J. F. Bergmann, 1911. Offprint. Octavo. Original printed orange wrappers; pp. [1], 240-257. Signed and inscribed by the author. Very good.
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Výkladní skříně: jejich význam, úprava a návod, jak se stanou úspěšnějÅ¡ími [Shop window displays: their significance, design and instructions for greater success]

Prague: Nakladatelství Dr. Eduard Grégr a syn pro Reklamní klub v Praze, 1942. Quarto (29.2 × 21.3 cm). Original printed boards; 120 pp. of text with numerous photographs and drawings, followed by [33] pp. of plates, with two images per page, printed to rectos and versos. Lacking the dust jacket; hinges shaken; still good or better. A remarkably well-rounded photo-illustrated anthology of research on all manner of questions related to shop windows and display cases. Preface by Miroslav Sutnar, followed by contributions by Jan Brabec ("On the significance of show windows"), Jaroslav Baborovský ("The history of the shop display"), Bohumil Häckl ("Shop windows and advertising"), Miroslava Horáková ("The consumer and shop displays"), Josef Hesoun ("The architect views a shop window"), Jiří Haller ("The philologist and the shop window"), Jiří Solar ("Toward a psychology of the shop window"), Jindra Vichnar ("An exhibition behind glass or a sales offer?"), and numerous others, on all aspects of shop window display design, photography, lettering, choice of goods, as well as a humorous look at mistakes in window design and better solutions. With many sample photographs and related ads in the back. Published by "Reklub" - short for Reklamný klub československý, or the Czechoslovak advertising club, which was founded to offer a community to various artists, designers, and texters active in the bourgeoning field of commercial advertising. Its aim was to defend the interests of agencies and individuals, and to inform about news of international advertising, and to provide a sense of community. The Club existed until 1949 and was the subject of a recent study by DuÅ¡an PavlÅ . Binding designed by the architect Josef Hesoun, who also contributed to the volume. As of October 2023, KVK, OCLC show one copy in North America.
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Robitnychyy zhurnal [The worker journal]. Nos. 3, 4, 5, 8, 9-10, 11, 12, 13-14, 15, 16, 17 (1928); 1, 13-14, 15-16, 17 (1929)

Khar'kiv: Vydannia "Robitnychoi Hazety Proletar" , 1928-29. Quartos (most issues ca. 37 × 27 cm, smaller issues ca. 31.5 × 23 cm). Original folded self-wrappers; ca. 12-16 pp. per issue. Somewhat fragile, with even toning due to stock; wear to edges, especially of the larger issues; occasional pre-WWII library stamps "P.B-ka Sr. Az." (see below); overall good. Group of nineteen issues (in fifteen fascicles) of this rare and important illustrated workers' journal, published as a free supplement to Robitnycha Hazeta Proletar (Worker Paper "Proletarian"). It contains contributions by leading Ukrainian modernist writers, including the Futurist Heo Shkurupii, Ostap Vyshnia, Mykhail Bondarenko, Yanovsky, Martyn Zadeka (i.e. Iosip Antonenko). With articles on theatre, cinema, arts and literature (e.g. on Kurbas and this theatre on Vasyl Krychevsky), as well as essays, some of them photo-illustrated, about Soviet construction of Ukraine, as well as detailed sketches about Leningrad, Tokyo, and other cities of the world, some authored by the traveler, writer and filmmaker Oleksandr Maryamov (1909-1972), who also contributed to the avant-garde periodical "Nova heneratsiia" (New generation). With illustrations, including photographs and drawings, by M. Glukhov, V. Bryskin, V. Rubenko, and others. Provenance: small 1920s rubber stamps of the State Public Library of Central Asia ("G.P.B-ka Sr. Az." and "GPB Sr.Az."), subsequently renamed the State Public Library of Uzbekistan. As none of the issues feature later stamps following the renaming and restructuring in the early 1930s, the journal was evidently deaccessioned or moved to the exchange fund at this time. A rare and ephemeral document of the brief flowering of Ukrainian cultural life in the 1920s, before Stalin changed his mind in the "national question" and began to suppress the use of Ukrainian as the leading language in the Ukrainian Republic from 1932 onward. As of October 2023, not in KVK, OCLC.
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Szkoła: dwutygodnik uczniowski [School: a student biweekly], no. 12 (1987); nos. 4-10 (1988). With an unnumbered special issue

Wrocław: n.p., 1987-1988. Octavos (21 × 15 cm) and quarto (28.5 × 20.5 cm). 8-16 pp per issue of offset-reproduced typescript and photographs in reduced size. Very good. Eight issues (in seven volumes) plus a special issue of an underground student monthly magazine, published by Międzyszkolny Komitet Oporu (Interschool Resistance Committee), a student movement connected to Solidarność, Poland's first independent workers' union. A student-led effort, the Committee sought to supplement school education in Poland, which they saw as driven by ideology not knowledge. Humorous in tone and illustrated with caricatures, the issues contain articles on the history of Polish resistance to the Communist government, and the Solidarity movement. One special issue in this collection is titled "Welcome to school: a special issue for first graders" and is not numbered and intended for new members of the Committee, providing the background of the organization and encouraging future participation of the newcomers. Founded by Robert Prus, Rafał Kosmalski, Robert Butwicki, Grzegorz Kondracki, Ryszard Sobolewski, and Wojciech Śliwiński, the group was active in Wrocław in 1985-1989. The Committee organized lectures on recent Polish history, created self-education groups and conducted classes for Polish youth, "supplemental" to the classes offered in the schools. The group also printed and distributed informational leaflets and zines such as this one. This magazine is the continuation of Szkoła Podziemna (Underground school) which was published in 1985-1986, until the arrest and detention of the editorial team in 1986. The publication was renamed Szkoła (School) thereafter, eventually becoming a nationally-distributed magazine of the Independent Youth School Union. As of September 2022, KVK, OCLC show copies at two libraries outside of Poland, but none in North America.
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Nauchimsia chitat’ [Let’s learn to count]

[Moscow]: OGIZ - Gosudarstvennoe uchebno-pedagogicheskoe izdatel'stvo, 1931. Oblong octavo (17.2 × 26.5 cm). Original pictorial wrappers; 70 pp. Fraying to lower spine; overall wear to wrappers; else still good or better copy of a book rarely encountered, as it was intended to be cut to pieces in the process of using it. Faina Blekher (1895-1977) was the author of numerous didactic games, as well as the first Soviet instructor manual for teaching mathematics in kindergarten (Matematika v detskom sadu i nulevoi gruppe, 1934). She was a proponent of incrementally and non-invasively instructing children from around 3-4 years, by using toys and counting rhymes to gradually introduce numeric and mathematical concepts. The present work is representative of her approach: she stressed the importance of basic concepts such as "many" and "one", as well as various comparative degrees such as "higher" and "thicker", before introducing counting through images, such as drawings of vegetables and animals with varying numbers of legs. The chromolithographed illustrations also include propagandistic scenes, such as marching Pioneers, the Lenin Mausoleum, factory smokestacks, and "calendar leaves" commemorating such dates as the October Revolution and May 1. Rare, as many of the pages were intended to be cut to pieces for didactic purposes. As of June 2023, KVK, OCLC show a sole copy, in North America (Columbia Teachers College).
Po pravu pamiati: poema [By right of memory: a poem]

Po pravu pamiati: poema [By right of memory: a poem]

[Leningrad, late 1970s]. Original amateur pictorial card binding, with photographs of cats inside wrappers; spine covered with brown tape; 12, [1] leaves of typescript to rectos. About very good. A curious homemade samizdat volume containing the long-form poem "By right of memory" by Aleksandr T. Tvardovskii (1910-1971). Although a party member and editor of a leading official literary magazine, Tvardovsky's poem, written in 1968, was censored for its themes of the forced collectivization. In particular, it takes up the question of Tvardovskii's guilt in the arrest and repression of his father, who was classified as a "kulak" during the collectivization and whom Tvardovsky at one point reported to the police himself. According to our source, the book was described as follows by its former owner, a woman from St. Petersburg: "This item appeared in our family sometime in the late 70s. At the time, our grandmother, an ardent communist, Komsomol member, and simply a beauty (she is now 94 years old), said that such anti-Soviet trash was not going to be kept in her and grandfather's house. And grandfather took the book out into the garage and hid his secret stash of money there from his wife. And since my grandmother considered it beneath her dignity to touch this 'filth', the money was hidden there more securely than in a safe." A delightful example of home-made bindings, made from discarded calendar leaves, cardboard, and other paper remainders that would be recycled given the shortage of more neutral binding materials.
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Khelovneba: sruliad sakartvelos khelovnebis mushakta prop. kavshiris qovelkvireuli organo [Art: a weekly publication of the trade union of Georgian artists]. No. 5 (1925)

Tbilisi: 1925. Quarto (30.5 × 22.5 cm). Original illustrated wrappers; 20, [4] pp. Numerous photographs. Light overall wear; tear to margins of pp. 4-5; inscription to upper front wrapper; still about very good. The fifth issue of the second iteration of the most influential and well-respected Georgian arts journal originally titled "Khelovnebis Drosha" ("The banner of art," 1924, nos. 1-7). The poet Sandro Euli (1890-1965) was the founding editor of the publication. The title aimed to emphasize the breadth of the journal's scope, including articles on the latest developments in the visual arts, literature, theater, opera, and film. Prominent Georgian public figures, critics, writers, directors, actors and composers contributed to the issues, such as Ivane Gomarteli, Titsian Tabidze, Rajden Kaladze, Akaki Vasadze, Sergo Amaghlobeli and Shalva Radiani among others. Starting in 1925 the title of the publication was changed, however the focus remained the same and the journal continued publication for nearly two more years (1925-1926, nos. 1-26) before it ceased publication due to lack of funds. It is unclear who created the drawn wrapper design. This issue with numerous portraits of Georgian actors, photographs of avant-garde stage design and costume designs, as well as original poetry and prose. No. 22 in Chepyzhov (New Georgian Book Design, 1920s-1930s). A different issue is pictured in: Georgian Script & Typography: History, Modern Life (Tbilisi, 2016), p. 50. As of October 2023, not in KVK, OCLC.