Lot 263A email save

ZOSCHENKO, Mikhail Mikhailovich (1895-1958). Sots

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Leningrad: "Begemot," 1927. 48 pp., small 8vo (152 x 125 mm). Original illustrated wrappers. Condition: minor rubbing to fold. Provenance: presentation copy to Muza Konstantinovna Pavlova. warmly inscribed by the author in "memory of our long friendship" and dated October 1955. Originally published in the satitrical journal Begemot [Hippopotamus]. [With:] Typed letter signed, and dated 15 February 1950. 1 page on recto, with original envelope addressed and stamped. Condition: letter with usual folds, envelope posted. Provenance: Muza Konstantinovna Pavlova. The author turns down the opportunity to write the libretto of an operetta on a Soviet theme that he sarcastically notes is the wrong medium for so vast and serious a topic. [And:] Izbrannye rasskazy i povesti 1923-1956 [Selected Stories from 1923 to 1956]. 48 pp., 8vo (200 x 130 mm). Publisher's navy blue paper covered boards, spine and cover label lettered in gilt. Condition: some rubbing to covers and extremities, corners bumped, joints neatly repaired. Provenance: presentation copy to Muza Konstantinovna Pavlova. warmly inscribed to"my dear friend" by the author and dated November 23, 1956. Zoschenko is considered to be one of the foremost Russian satirists of the Soviet period. He studied with the famous critic and popular children's poet Kornei Chukovsky and wrote satire in the tradition of Evgenii Zamyatin. His humorous stories about Soviet life entertained Vladimir Nabokov but they did not always amuse the authorties. He was extremely popular with the Russian public until 1946 when the Zhdanov Doctrine devised by the Central Committee secretary Andrei Zhdanov denounced Zoschenko's and Anna Akhmatova's work for being "bourgeois," individualistic and thus apolitical. They were both expelled from the Soviet Writers Union and their work was officially banned. His reputation was somewhat rehabilitated after The Thaw shortly before his death. (3)

*** Zoshenko, Mikhail Autograph letter signed 'Mih. Zoshenko', to Muza Konstantinovna Pavlova, [Moscow/Krivokolennyi per/number 14, apt. 38] Written on the typewriter, signed in ink Envelope: 4 1/2 x 6 inches (11.5 x 15 cm.) Letter: 11 1/2 x 8 inches (29.4 x 20 cm.) Letter to Musa Pavlova about an operetta on a Soviet theme that Zoshenko had failed to write. Sarcastically Zoshenko notes that perhaps an operetta is the wrong medium for such vast and serious topic. .

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