Taras Shevchenko

Shevchenko T.G. Kobzar: Facsimile Reproduction of the First Edition of 1840. [Kyiv: Dnipro, 1976]. 1 frontispiece leaf (etching), 114, [2] pp.; 21.5 x 12.5 cm. Complete with the accompanying booklet by V. Borodyn, The First Edition of Taras Shevchenko's Kobzar of 1840 (in Ukrainian; 36 pp.).

A rare bibliographic edition reproducing in facsimile the first published work by Taras Shevchenko, printed in 1840 in St Petersburg by E. Fischer's printing house in an edition of only 1,000 copies. The collection comprises eight works, including Kateryna, The Poplar, Ivan Pidkova, Taras's Night, and the celebrated prologue My Thoughts, My Thoughts...

Of particular artistic merit is the frontispiece etching after a drawing by Vasyl' Shternberg, depicting the kobzar accompanied by a young guide, an image that gave its title to the entire collection. The first Kobzar was a landmark in the history of Ukrainian literature, and only a very few original copies survive worldwide today. This 1976 facsimile edition, published by the Dnipro publishing house in Kyiv, reproduces every detail of the original edition with the utmost fidelity, including the typographic gathering signatures.