Flowers of Chinese Poetry. Supplement: Chinese Religious Hymns

Title

Flowers of Chinese Poetry. Supplement: Chinese Religious Hymns

Creator

Date

1938

Format

Description

This book was published by the authors at the Ideal Press typographer's in the Chinese
style: the book case is bound with Chinese brocade and has two bone fasteners; the contents of the book are printed on thin Chinese paper and done in Chinese style binding. The cover of the book displays the photographs of the authors with an inscription by Aleksandra: "Tientsin. December 1938. Dear Lev Nikolaevich Kukuranov, in memory of those Peking days, when this book began to take shape." It is signed by A. Serebrennikova. and I. Serebrennikov. In the forward the authors thank Kukuranov for invaluable help in translating the Chinese poems from various foreign languages. This collection is actually translated from anthologies that were available in English, French, and German provided in the list of sources. In the foreword the authors say that to their
knowledge this is the first anthology of Chinese poetry in Russian. There are five sections with about 200 poems by over 50 poets. The supplement includes religious hymns from the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.) to the Qing Dynasty (1911) that were translated from Leo Wieger's History of the religious beliefs...in China (1927). Ivan and Aleksandra were prominent members of the Russian emigre diaspora in China. Ivan graduated from the Military Medical Academy in Saint Petersburg and was arrested for
participating in a student demonstration. He moved to Irkutsk where he became an active
member of the East Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, a secretary of the Irkutsk City Duma, and a minister in the Siberian government of Admiral Kolchak. In 1920 he and his wife emigrated to China. They lived in Harbin and Peking for several years before moving to Tienstin where he remained until his death in 1953. Aleksandra graduated from the Womens' Gymnasium in Irkutsk in 1902. She worked for the local newspaper Сибирь [Siberia] and in 1906 married Ivan. After the February revolution she was a member of the Irkutsk City Duma. In Tientsin she worked as a teacher of Russian language and literature while contributing articles and poems to various journals. After Ivan's death she left for Oslo, and then settled in the San Francisco Bay area in 1955 where she remained until her death. She donated her husband's personal archives to the Hoover Institution.

Extent (Pages, Duration, Dimensions)

168 pages

Is Part Of

Russian Collection, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library

Page Location

85