AVTAMONOVA, Irina N.; PRUTKOV, Foma Kuzmich [pseudonym]; AVTAMONOV, Igor A.

[SIGNED COPY] Stikhi... Satiry... Poemy... Rasskazy... Kniga I [Verses... Satires... Poems... Stories... Book I]

Item #1639

Graphic design, cover art, and woodcut illustrations by Igor A. Avtamonov. Augsburg: Tipografiya D. Sazhnina / Approved by UNRRA Team 631, 1947. First edition. 15 cm. 192 pp. Illustrated throughout with woodcut headpieces, vignettes, and tailpieces. Original publisher's tan printed paper wrappers with blue and black pictorial cover illustration.

Inscribed and signed presentation copy from the authors in dark fountain pen ink on the front flyleaf and dated April 30, 1947.

A scarce post-World War II Russian Displaced Persons (DP) literary collection published in Augsburg, Germany under the official authorization of UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) Team 631. Authored jointly by members of the literary Avtamonov family—Irina Avtamonova and Igor Avtamonov, the latter writing in part under the satirical pseudonym "Foma Kuzmich Prutkov" in playful homage to Kozma Prutkov—this substantial first volume gathers lyrical verse, satirical parodies, short fiction, and epic cycles composed across Bavarian refugee camps between 1945 and 1946. Among its notable contents is the four-part epic poem Epopeia Augsburga [The Augsburg Epopee], providing a vivid literary portrait of post-war exile life, alongside shorter works written in the Reid and Günzburg DP camps. Printed by the Russian exile press of D. Sazhnin, the volume opens with dual authorial prefaces that discuss orthography and thematic scope, and is enhanced throughout by Igor Avtamonov's expressive linocut illustrations.

Price: $450.00