PUSCHKIN, ALEXANDER (SERGEJEWITSCH). - PUSHKIN.

Geschichte des pugatschew'schen Aufruhrs. Aus dem Russischen von H. Brandeis.

Stuttgart, J.F. Cast'schen Buchhandlung, 1840.

Later red hcloth (ca. 1870). Nice copy w. minor traces of use to capitals and faint brownspotting to a few leaves. Corner of front free endpaper cut away.

Rare first German edition (and probably first translation into any foreign language) of one of Pushkin's important prose works. Translated from the Russian Istorija Pugachevskago Bunta, printed in St. Petersburg only six years earlier, in 1834.

Pushkin is probably the most important and beloved Russian of writers and is generally accepted as the founder of modern Russian literature. What Shakespeare is to the English and Goethe to the Germans, Puschkin is to the Russians. He is universally accepted as Russia's greatest writer.
Early prose works by this great writer are scarce. It is exceedingly rare to find translations printed before 1850. This is probably one of the earliest translations of any of Pushkin's prose works.
Pushkin had long been interested in the bloody peasant- and Cossack-rebellion under the surveillance of Pugacóv in the time of Katharina the 2nd. This rebellion was the first organized revolution in the history of Russia and was thus of immense importance to the country and its people. This work is said to be one of the greatest Russian historical novels, as it unites Pushkin's literary abilities with his thorough investigations of the event (he was the emperor's historiographer). Due to the fact that the writing of the novel was so close in time to the actual event, the novel was of high actuality when it appeared. It was thus exceedingly popular on all fronts, as it, apart from it marking the triumph of realism in Russian literature, also clearly reflected the daily life of Russian provinces in the 18th century.

The foreword by the translator is interesting, as it gives phonological reasons for altering the usual way of transcribing Russian letters into Latin ones.

With the ex-libris of Staehlin/ Stæhlin/ Stählin.

Order-nr.: 28527