Kalmytskie Skazki [Kalmyk Tales].

Rare provincial imprint with the original dust jacket.

This collection features 19 tales, each accompanied by detailed notes, such as the source, location, date of recording, first publication information, and additional comments. Seven tales are published in this
collection for the first time: 'The Legend of the Khan and the Russian Peasant', 'The Legend of How Edg Took Over the Kingdom of Khan Dzhanym', 'About Khan Tsetsen and His Wise Daughter-in-Law', 'The Hero Mazan', 'The Seven Hairless and One Short-Haired', 'Kedia', 'Turnta'. The collection also includes the first full version of '71 Tall Tale' and the first Russian
translations of 'Changing Times' and 'The Fox, the Wolf, and the Hare'.

Most of the tales published for the first time were recorded and translated into Russian by Ulumdzhi Dushan (1892–1974), a significant folklorist and physician. He gathered these stories from his mother, who was a performer of fairy tales. The editor Andzhur Purbeev (1904-1938) was a Kalmyk party activist and Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Kalmyk ASSR at the time of book publication. He was later arrested and executed during the Great Purge, partly for his involvement in publishing the Kalmyk 'Jangar epic'.

WorldCat locates seven copies - all in the USA.

First edition, 16mo (15.3 x 12 cm); title page in Kalmyk and Russian, illustrations, vignettes and lettrines by K. Dimitriev, owner's ink inscriptions to title page and rear flyleaf, illustrated endpapers; Soviet bookseller's stamps to lower pastedown and dust-jacket publisher's dark blue cloth blindstamped with Kalmyk design and title in gilt to upper cover, original printed dust-jacket, some loss to spine and corners, a very good copy; 231pp.