Children of the Revolution, part 1

Those of you who have been following Animalarium for a while are aware of my special interest in children's book illustrators of the early Soviet era. In fact, that's part of a larger fascination with Russian art and design of the 1910-30s, including advertising and propaganda, movie posters (I absolutely love the Stenberg brothers), applied arts, etc. Lately I have been collecting favorite pictures of book covers from books and websites, and now it's time to share some. I am trying to keep them in chronological order since it's interesting to see how they tend to change in time. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Kuz’ma Petrov-Vodkin for Koza-dereza (The roguish goat), traditional Ukrainian tale, 1923

Borys Kriukov for Koza-dereza, 1920s

Sergej Cechonin for Gosti (The guests) by E. Polonskaja, 1924

Aleksej Radakov for Strasnyj son (A terrible dream), 1925

Vladimir Lebedev for Azbuka (ABC-book) by Samuil Marshak, 1925

K. Kuznetsov for Teterev-kosach, 1926

Nikolaj Tyrsa for Voennye koni (War horses), 1927

Vladimir Lebedev for Cirk (The circus) by Samuil Marshak, 1928

Lidiia Popova for Kon'ogon' (The fiery horse) by Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1928

Eduard Krimmer for Mena (The exchange) by Rudyard Kipling, 1929

Borys Kriukov for Numo, khto kinets' znajde? by Sofiia Fedorchenko, 1929

Vladimir Konasevic for Pozar (The fire) by Samuil Marshak, 1929

Ivan Efimov for Mena (The exchange), 1929

Lev Judin for Kto? (Who?) by A. Vvedenskij, 1930

Borys Kriukov for Pro svynku-shchetynku, chornesen'ku spynku by A. Kovalens'kyj, 1930

Many thanks to the online archives of the Museum of Rare Books at the National Library of Ukraine for Children, the Soviet Children's Picture Books Collection at the International Institute of Social History, and the virtual exhibition Children's Books of the Early Soviet Era at the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of McGill University Libraries.

The Russian Ark of Yuri Vasnetsov

Keeping with the theme of Russian folklore, I am very glad to share another great illustrator of the Soviet era.

 Yuri Vasnetsov was born in Vyatka in 1900. In 1921 he moved to Petrograd, where he studied at the Higher 

Art Technical Studios (Vhuteina) and later perfected his skills at the State Institute of Artisic Culture (Ginhuke)

under Kasimir Malevich. His paintings of the 1920's–early 30's combine elements of Suprematism and Primitivism.

Still life with chessboard, 1926-28

While still a student, he began to cooperate with the state publishing house Gosizdat

 headed by Vladimir Lebedev. With Charushin, Pachomov and Kurdov, he was part of the group 

of young artists who Lebedev most favored and had high expectations on. 

For this reason, he was often harshly critical of their works, and they in turn were quite afraid 

of showing him their sketches. Vasnetsov started to develop his own peculiar style, 

less stylized than his colleagues and deeply influenced by traditional Russian popular art. 

The resulting artworks are both sweet and bold, popular and refined, traditional and eccentric.

Wax-crayon illustration for Boloto (The bog) by Vitaly Bianki, 1930

The drawings in this book were the result of Vasnetsov's long research into the life of bog inhabitants.

Page from Putanica (Disorder) by Korney Chukovsky, 1934

Cover of Tri medvedja (The three Bears) by Lev Tolstoj, 1935

Illustration from The little humpbacked horse by Piotr Yershov, 1935

Page from Pjat'desjat porosjat (Fifty pigs) by Korney Chukovsky, 1936

Page from Kradenoe solnce (The stolen sun) by Korney Chukovskij, 1936

These early books brought him a reputation as one of Russia's leading artists of children's books. 

In this period he also created lithographies using the same fairy tale themes as the illustrations. 

Due to the war, in 1941 Vasnetsov was evacuated to Perm, where he worked in the puppet theater, 

then in 1943-45 he moved to Zagorsk where he became chief designer at the Institute of toys.

Cover of Russian fairy tales

In the postwar years Vasnetsov continued to be very active as a book illustrator, 

working on children's stories, fairy tales and folklore collections. Among his most famous late works 

are the illustrations for the books Ladushki and Rainbow arc. Vasnetsov was also a painter all his life, 

although he did not show publicly his works for fear of being accused of "formalism". He died in 1973, 

and in 1979 the State Russian Museum held a retrospective exhibition of his art.

Cover of Animal friendships, 1989 edition

Cover of Russian tales, 1974 edition

Two iIllustrations from Ladushki, Russian rhymes and tales for little ones, 1964,

thanks to Flamenconut's amazing flickr collection,

where you can see more artworks from this lovely book.

Cover and illustration from Rainbow arc. Russian folk songs, tales, nursery rhymes, 1969

You can check out Animalarium's other posts on Soviet children's books illustrators

Vera Ermolayeva, Vladimir Lebedev, Yevgeny Charushin and Nikolai Tyrsa.