Beliavskii, Frants Mikhailovich | With charming lithographs of the indigenous people of Siberia

Beliavskii, Frants Mikhailovich

Poezdka k ledovitomu moriu [title in Cyrillic; trans. Voyage to the Arctic Ocean]. Moscow: Press of the Lazarev Institute of Foreign Languages, 1833

8vo (206 x 124 mm). Handcolored lithographed frontispiece Ostyak Prince Taishin, additional lithographed emblematic-pictorial title-page, three folding handcolored lithographed ethnographic plates and one uncolored folding lithographed plate of snowflake formations; both title-pages with marginal repairs, that on the letterpress affecting the epigraph on the recto and the censor's approval on the verso, minor scattered soiling. Early twentieth-century red calf gilt, smooth spine gilt in six compartments; neatly rebacked.

First edition. Beliavskii's narrative of his journey to Western Siberia, illustrated by charming lithographs, focuses on the customs of the indigenous peoples—Khanty, Ket, and Selkup—formerly called Ostyak and Ostyak-Samoyed and in particular the role of shamanism in their society.

Rare: Rare Book Hub cites just two copies, one from the Diaghilev-Lifar Library in 1975, the other in 2010.

REFERENCES:

Mezhov 14198; Obolyaninov 157