Rechevik : Stikhi (Orator : poems)

Very good condition; repaired ends of the spine, also minor missing pieces of the outer corners of the cover, as well as some small pieces along fore-edge of the cover; internally very slight and small trace of moisture on the bottom outer corner of eight first sheets, bookstore pen marking on the inner side of the back cover. 

The brightest example of Russian leftist avant-garde, the oustanding result of collaboration between poet and artist, the book seemed to become so widely recognized even in the West not so much because of its provocative content, but because of its pulsating cover in red and back, which is considered one of Rodchenko's most famous and dynamic Constructivist designs. According to Sarah Suzuki in her essay published in "Artists & Prints: Masterworks from the Museum of Modern Art" by Deborah Wye, etc. (2004, p. 81): "wraparound cover for Orator : Verse [...] exemplifies the architectural, rationalized, compositional structure of the post-Revolution design aesthetic."

The book contains 37 the best autror’s agitational texts – slogans and songs written in 1920-1927. The priority of the agitational function of poetic language is pointed out in the in the preface to the collection by literary critic Ilya Dukor, in whose opinion the right place for these stanzas is supposed to be on the posters, on the banners, on the plywood boards, carried by the crowd - “Written in arshin letters, they await only a mass reader, only a collective reciter...“ The book was published by the State Publishing House - the most important publisher in the country, indication the political commitment of the collection.

Sergei Tretyakov (1892-1937) was an important Leftist avant-garde poet, writer, one of the founders of the constructivist journal LEF (1923–1925), and its successor Novyi LEF (New LEF)(1927–1928), and of the associated artistic movement, whose main driving force was the poet Mayakovsky. They declared war on 'bourgeois' culture and claimed that the experimental avant garde works they produced were the artistic voice of the Bolshevik revolution. Was shot during the Great Terror under suspicions of espionage.

Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) is perhaps the most important avant-garde artist to have put his art in the service of political revolution. And his commitment to the Russian Revolution subsequently encouraged him to abandon first painting and then fine art in its entirety, and to instead put his skills in the service of industry and the state, designing everything from advertisements and propaganda posters to book covers. Among his most fruitful collaborations was that with poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, who also embraced Rodchenko's goal of reaching out to the Soviet proletariat rather than to the artistic elite.