DESCRIPTION : Here for sale is the ULTRA RARE and MOSTLY SOUGHT AFTER EDITION of the illustrated RUSSIAN POETRY BOOK by ALEXANDER BLOCK  ( Also spelled as ALEKSANDR BLOK ) - "THE TWELVE"  with quite a few FULL PAGE FUTURIST-SYMBOLIST-AVANT GARDE illustrations by the acclaimed RUSSIAN AVANT GARDE ARTIST -  Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov (Russian: Михаи́л Фёдорович Ларио́нов; June 3 [O.S. May 22] 1881 – May 10, 1964) . This 1918 poetry book named "THE TWELVE" ( Двенадцать  ) was published in LONDON in 1920 over 100 years ago and was  translated to English by the British author CARL ERIC BECHHOFER . It is written in ENGLISH . This impressive RARE and SOUGHT AFTER edition contains quite a few FULL PAGE  ILLUSTRATIONS : Futurist , Avant - Garde and symbolists . The book is EXTREMELY RARE and the price of a similar copy if you are lucky enough to put your hands on one is $1500 - $1700.  Original illustrated AVANT GARDE HC ( Front and rear covers ).  10.5 x 8.5 " . 26 PP of Thick paper + chromo illustrated plates . Very good condition. Clean. Tightly bound. Taped spine .( Pls look at scan for  accurate AS IS images ). Book will be sent inside a protective packaging .

 

PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal & All credit cards.

SHIPPMENT : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $ 35 . Book will be sent inside a protective packaging . Will be sent around 5-10 days after payment .

The Russian poet Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok (1880-1921) was a leading figure in the Russian symbolist movement. His strongly rhythmic poetry is characterized by metaphysical imagery, dramatic use of legend, and responsiveness to history and to social life. Aleksandr Blok was born in St. Petersburg on Nov. 28, 1880. His father was a professor of law, and his mother a writer and translator; Blok thus grew up in an upper-class intellectual milieu. Summers were spent at Shakhmatovo, the Bloks' country home near Moscow. There the famous chemist D. I. Mendeleev was a neighbor, and in 1903 Blok married Mendeleev's daughter.Blok had begun to write as a boy. In 1903 some of his poems were published in D. S. Merezhkovski's magazine, the New Way. Blok's first book, the strongly symbolistic Verses about the Beautiful Lady, appeared in 1904. Although most critics ignored the volume, it was greeted enthusiastically by Valery Bryusov, Andrei Bely, and the "older generation" of Russian symbolists, and Blok's poetry and reviews soon appeared regularly in their magazines.Bryusov, the editor of the Balance and a leading symbolist theorist and poet, strongly influenced Blok in the years 1903 and 1904. Under Bryusov's guidance Blok turned to themes of city life and began to use fresh rhythmic patterns and images that expressed the mysterious power of sensual love. Among his notable poems of this period are "The Swamp Demon," "The Unknown Lady," "The Night Violet," "The Snow Mask," "The Factory," and "From the Newspapers." The last two indicate Blok's growing social awareness.By 1906, when he graduated from the philological faculty of St. Petersburg University, Blok was a recognized poet. That year Vsevolod Meyerhold directed and starred in Blok's one-act verse play, The Puppet Show. Though admired in literary circles, the play was never a popular success. Blok wrote several other plays, including the fulllength The Rose and the Cross (1913), which was based on medieval French romances. Although rehearsed by Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theater, this play was not presented.In 1907-1908 Blok was a reviewer for the magazine Golden Fleece. His articles combined evaluations of contemporary literature with a longing for the Russian past and for a vital connection between the intelligentsia and the people. In "Russia" and "On Kulikovo Field" (both 1908), he searched for a way to bring national history to bear on the present.Despite his feelings of personal failure, from 1909 to 1916 Blok wrote poetry of high artistic achievement. "The Terrible World," "In the Restaurant," "Night Hours," and "Dances of Death" are particularly indicative of his spiritual turmoil. Blok and his wife had a stormy marital relationship, but during a temporary reconciliation they traveled in Italy in 1909. This trip inspired Blok's exquisite cycle Italian Poems (1909).During World War I Blok served as a clerk with a forward engineers' company. He greeted the 1917 Revolution sympathetically. Indeed, his poem The Twelve (1918), a combined lyric and narrative about 12 Red Guardsmen on city patrol, synthesizes Christian values and reformist principles. It brought Blok even wider popularity and enduring fame. The revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky remarked that although Blok was not "one of us," The Twelve was "the most significant work of our time." In his long, unfinished, autobiographical poem Retribution, Blok summarized social change at the turn of the century. Under the Soviet government Blok was a member of the directorate of the state theaters and chairman of the Petrograd section of the Poets' Union. Hard times, political bitterness, and his own confused life made him old at 40. In one of his last published works, The Decline of Humanism (1921), he lamented the dissipation of European style and the loss of heroes who could persuade men to act rationally in true self-interest. Blok died in Petrograd on Aug. 7, 1921. Aleksandr Blok’s Twelve When the Russian Symbolist poet Aleksandr Blok (1880-1921) completed his poem Twelve on 29 January 1918, he wrote in his diary notebook: “I hear a terrible noise, growing within me and all around me.” That noise was the sound of Revolution. The noise grew into his poem Twelve. After completing his masterpiece, Blok added to his notebook: “Today I am a genius.” And indeed he was, for in two days and twelve cantos he had captured the essence of the universal upheaval into which he and his country had been cast. Yet Twelve is not a revolutionary poem, although it is about revolution; neither is it a religious poem, although it is about revelation.Twelve reflects the ambivalence and the uneasiness that educated Russians felt during the first months of the Revolution -- a period that fell between Russia’s failures in World War I and the horrors of Civil War that would soon follow. Twelve, which caused great poetic controversy, has no poetic unity. It consists only of flying fragments: bits and pieces from the Orthodox liturgy and revolutionary songs, from vulgar rhymes and popular ditties, from lamentations, the calls of looters, and even prostitutes’ solicitations. Many of these fragments shock the ear in their juxtapositions. The language of Twelve is alternately elevated and vulgar, archaic and modern, serious and mocking. It describes a whirling, topsy-turvy world caught in a cataclysm that is linguistic and historical and philosophical and meteorological. Man and nature and art are bound together in one crucial historical moment, in the storm of Revolution. Blok was a Symbolist poet, and the Symbolists searched this, the real, phenomenal world, for omens, reflections, symbols of transcendent, cosmic events taking place in the spiritual, noumenal world beyond. But could Blok, or can the reader, decipher these symbols? Symbols are by nature ambiguous. They can mean contradictory things at the same time. Blok’s use of symbols creates a poem of depth and ambiguity. It also raises unanswered questions. The real world of Twelve is revolutionary Russia in microcosm and its imagery is ordinary: blizzard, darkness, crossroads, a pathetic love triangle, twelve marching men, murder, a vision of Christ. The color scheme in the work is limited to three powerful, symbolic colors: black (a symbol of night, violence, death), white (representing snow, purity, spirit), and red (the quintessential color of revolution, but also life’s blood, fire, and destruction). The blizzard is the elemental, irrational storm that blinds everyone -- both revolutionaries and the last remnants of the old order -- to what is happening around them. The crossroads become a metaphor for choice -- which way do we go now? The Old World, which has been destroyed by revolution, is reduced to the image of a mangy dog following behind the Red Guards “with its tail between its legs.” Are the twelve men just Red Guards? Or are they “apostles of the revolution”? Missionaries of a new socialist “faith” without God (“yeah, yeah, without the cross”)? The Revolution is a bloody carnival, an extraordinary event that stands outside normal time and space, when things can become the opposite of what they usually are, when traditional laws do not apply. Yury Pavlovich Annenkov (Russian: ****** Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov (Russian: Михаи́л Фёдорович Ларио́нов; June 3 [O.S. May 22] 1881 – May 10, 1964) was a Russian avant-garde painter who worked with radical exhibitors and pioneered the first approach to abstract Russian art. His lifelong partner was fellow avant-garde artist, Natalia Goncharova. Life and work Larionov was born at Tiraspol, in the Kherson Governorate of the Russian Empire. In 1898 he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Isaac Levitan and Valentin Serov. He was suspended three times for his radical outlook. In 1900 he met fellow avant-garde artist Natalia Goncharova and formed a lifelong relationship with her. From 1902 his style was Impressionism. After a visit to Paris in 1906 he moved into Post-Impressionism and then a Neo-primitive style which derived partly from Russian sign painting. In 1908 he staged the Golden Fleece exhibition in Moscow, which included paintings by international avant-garde artists such as Matisse, Derain, Braque, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Other group shows promoted by him included Tatlin, Chagall and Malevich. Larionov was a founding member of two important Russian artistic groups Jack of Diamonds (1909–1911) and the more radical Donkey's Tail (1912–1913). He gave names to both groups. His first solo show was for one day in Moscow in 1911. Larionov was influenced by the Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani. He then became influenced by the Cubo-Futurist art movement, and in 1913, with Natalia Goncharova, he invented Rayonism, which was the first creation of near-abstract art in Russia. He had a one-man show at the Omega Workshops.[1] In 1915 he left Russia and worked with the ballet owner Sergei Diaghilev in Paris on the productions of the Ballets Russes. He spent the rest of his life in France and obtained French citizenship. He died, aged 82, in the Paris suburb of Fontenay-aux-Roses. In 2001, the Central Bank of Transnistria minted a silver coin honoring this native of today's Transnistria, as part of a series of memorable coins called The Outstanding People of Pridnestrovie. The highest price paid for a Larionov painting at auction is 2,200,000 British pounds.[2] He is in the highest category "1A – a world famous artist" in "United Artists Rating". He is buried at Ivry Cemetery, Ivry-sur-Seine. ******Carl Eric Bechhofer Roberts (21 November 1894 – 14 December 1949) was a British author, barrister, and journalist.[1] Biography Roberts was born and raised in London but relocated to Germany to study classics. He worked as a professional writer, producing works on travel, biography, criminology, fiction, paranormal, translation and drama.[2] He contributed to The New Age magazine.[3] During World War I he was a trooper of the 9th Lancers. He met Grigori Rasputin during a visit in Saint Petersburg.[4] Roberts met Gurdjieff in Tiflis in 1919. His book In Denikin's Russia and the Caucasus, 1919-1920 (1921) contained the first description of Gurdjieff published in English.[5] His 1928 novel This Side Idolatry (by the pseudonym "Ephesian") was the first public presentation of the relationship between Charles Dickens and the actress Ellen Ternan.[6] He was private secretary to Lord Birkenhead (1924-1930).[7] His books were recommended by George Orwell.[8] Roberts died in a motor accident in December 1949.[4] Psychical research Roberts took interest in psychical research and spiritualism, but approached these subjects from a mostly skeptical position. He was the author of The Mysterious Madame: A Life of Madame Blavatsky (1931), a highly critical biography of Helena Blavatsky. In his book The Truth about Spiritualism (1932) he came to the conclusion that there is no evidence for the spirit hypothesis in mediumship. According to the research of Roberts all séance and spiritualist phenomena can be explained by "telepathy, self-deception, fraud or neurosis".[9] Roberts was convinced that the medium Helen Duncan was a fraud and wrote a foreword to the book The Trial of Mrs. Duncan (1945) by Helena Normanton.[10] Publications Non-fiction Russia at the Cross-Roads (1916) A Russian Anthology in English (1917) Through Starving Russia (1921) In Denikin's Russia and the Caucasus, 1919-1920 (1921) A Wanderer’s Log (1922) The Literary Renaissance in America (1923) Lord Birkenhead: being an account of the life of F.E. Smith, first earl of Birkenhead (1926) Winston Churchill (1927) Philip Snowden: An Impartial Portrait (1929) The Mysterious Madame: A Life of Madame Blavatsky (1931) The Truth about Spiritualism (1932) Nurse Cavell: A Play in Three Acts (1933) The new world of crime; famous American trials (1933) Sir Travers Humphreys: His Career and Cases (1936) Stanley Baldwin: Man or Miracle (1936) Paul Verlaine (1937) Sir John Simon: Being an Account of the Life And Career of John Allesbrook Simon (1938) Famous American Trials (1947) Fiction This Side Idolatry (1928, as "Ephesian") The Coat of Many Colours (1930, as "Ephesian") The Jury Disagree (1934, with George Goodchild) A. B. C.’s Test Case (1936, as "Ephesian") Bread and Butter. A Novel based on the Life of W. M. Thackeray (1936, as "Ephesian") A. B. C. Investigates (1937, as "Ephesian") A. B. C. Solves Five (1937, as "Ephesian") We Shot an Arrow (1939, with George Goodchild) The Dear Old Gentleman (1940, with George Goodchild) Let’s Begin Again (1940) Danger Abroad (1942) Don Chicago (1944) Sunrise in the West (1945) **** First English translation of Alexander Blok's controversial 1918 long poem "The Twelve," a poetic response to the October Revolution, illustrated by the avant-garde artist Mikhail Larionov. Blok (1880-1921) chose to remain in Russia following the Revolution, while Larionov (1881-1964) settled in Paris, with their trajectories representing the political split within the literary and artistic Russian avant-garde. Blok never saw Larionov's illustrations which were completed in Paris. This was a significant creative departure for Larionov whose graphic work was typically done in close collaboration with the author of the text, in keeping with the principles of Futurist bookmaking. Instead, Larionov who unlike Blok did not witness the Revolution in Russia, was likely drawing on his experience of violence during his service in WWI for his illustrations of the poem. "The Twelve" was first published in France in 1920 by the Russian publisher Mishen` (along with Blok's other poem, The Scythians) with illustrations by the avant-gardist couple Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov. The French translation which appeared in the same year used only Larionov's illustrations. For this English translation, published simultaneously in London, Larionov reinforced the drawings with ink, to make them bolder and more legible than in the French edition. Translated from the Russian with an introduction and notes Carl Eric Bechhofer (1894-1949), author and translator who wrote a number of works on Russia such as "Russia at a Crossroads" (1916) and "Through Starving Russia" (1921). Another English translation, but without Larionov's illustration, appeared the same year in New York, by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky  ebay6188  / 214