Description

4°, 31 pp. text printed in blue with colour wood-cut illustrations within text and two blue vignettes, original wrappers, illustrated with red wood-cuts (Very Good, minor staining, old hand-written dedication on the first page, wrappers with light foxing on the inner side, spine with small loss of paper). 

This unique theatre play, which was meant to be accompanied with music, and illustrated with stunning wood-cuts, was made entirely in a Slavic cultural circle on the Fascist occupied territory of Gorizia and Trieste, by the associations of teachers, one of them being the author of this book Josip Ribičič (1886-1969). Ribičič was a teacher and one of the most famous authors of children’s books in Yugoslavia, especially before the WWII, when he was active in Slovenian language on the Italian occupied territory. After WWII he dedicated himself to children’s magazines, short stories and recording reminiscences of children, who actively participated in WW II.

The dedication note on the first page was made by his wife Roza Ribičič, a teacher in Slovenian school in Trieste and a public figure. In 1925, after the pressure of the Fascists became stronger, the family moved to Rakek in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, just on the other side of the Italian border.

The stunning wood-cuts, including the highly decorative wrappers, printed from eight impressions of the same wood-block, were made by a Slovenian Constructivist artist August Černigoj, who was one of the most famous Yugoslavian artists from the period. Born in Trieste in a Slovenian family, he was influenced by the Avant-garde very early. He was a great admirer of Kandinsky and der Blaue Reiter group, for which he travelled to Munich in 1922. A year later he spent a semester at Bauhaus, studying in Kandinsky’s class.

The illustrations in this book show a strong influence of modern art, such as der Blaue Reiter, which influenced Černigoj’s work in the 1920s.    

The composer of accompanied music was Marijo Kogoj, one of the main names of Yugoslavian classical music of the 1920s. He was school by Arnold Schönberg and Franz Schreker, but was active mostly in Slavic circles in Trieste and Grado, at the time under Fascist occupation. 

This second part was published independently, as a separate story after the first part V kraljestvu palčkov, published a year before.