Irkutsk: Irkutskoe Otdelenie Sibgosizdata, 1923. Octavo (21 × 14.5 cm). Original pictorial wrappers by Dmitrii Boldyrev-Kazarin; 28, [2] pp. With numerous vignettes and smaller illustrations throughout. Spine expertly restored; else very good.

First edition of a scarce regional work on the folk art of Siberia. Born in Bern, Switzerland, the author was active as an anthropologist in St. Petersburg in the 1910s. After the October Revolution, he taught in Irkutsk and worked for the Siberian branch of the Russian Geographical Society. The main focus of Petri's present work is on various forms of folkloric ornamentation, which he studied during expeditions. It also includes information about his methodology, including the collecting of children's and adult drawings, the documentation of children's toys and religious artifacts, as well as the data gathered about each collected artifact. With numerous illustrations by Boldyrev-Kazarin, an artist and researcher of Siberian art from Irkutsk about whom little is known.

Petri (1884-1937) was arrested during the Stalinist Terror of the 1930s, based on charges of espionage and Trotskyite agitation, which he apparently confirmed, stating that he had been recruited by his mentor, the ethnographer and Turkic languages scholar V. V. Radlov, who died in 1918. He refused to name any other accomplices during interrogation and was shot in 1937; he was rehabilitated in 1959.

As of January 2022, KVK, OCLC only show three copies in North America.

Book ID: 51788

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