[Zulu Tales]. Skazki Zulu=Izinganekwane. 

Series Iazyki i literatura Afriki.
Preface, translation and comments by I. Snegirev.
Illustrations by N. Ushin.
Book design by A. Ushin.

Moskva-Leningrad, Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1937.
8vo, [4], 246, [2] pp., 10 l.ill., ill.

In original pictorial red cloth and modern slipcase. Issued without dj.
In good condition, lightly rubbing to spine, minor soiling.

Rare translation of African oral literature into Russian, featuring beautiful illustrations. First edition. One of 10 225 copies printed.

This collection features 40 selected tales from the oral folklore of the Zulu people—the largest ethnic group in South Africa—translated directly from the Zulu language. It represents the first attempt to translate samples of African oral literature into Russian from the original language. The first Russian publication of Zulu tales appeared in 1873 under the title 'Basni i Skazki Dikikh Narodov' ('Fables and Tales of the Wild Peoples'), but it was a translation from English.
This 1937 book is based on 'Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus, in Their Own Words' (1868), which presents the original Zulu text alongside an English translation. It was compiled and translated by Reverend Henry Callaway (1817–1890), an Anglican missionary and Bishop of St John's, Kaffraria, in the Church of the Province of Southern Africa. Callaway recorded these tales from various members of the Zulu community across different clans. Albert Tonas Nzula (1905–1934), a prominent leader in the South African labor and communist movement, a Zulu by nationality, assisted the translator with preparing the commentary and teaching the translator the Zulu language. Nzula was repeatedly persecuted by the authorities, and in the final two years of his life, he worked in Moscow.
The preface, 'The Zulu and Their Folklore', explores Zulu society in the context of its narrative tradition. Both the preface and the translations were done by Igor Snegiryov (1907–1946), a distinguished Egyptologist, historian of the Ancient East, and Africanist-linguist. A student of renowned orientalists Vasily Struve and Nikolai Marr, he joined the Institute of Language and Thought at the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1931 and became part of its Africanist group. He defended his PhD dissertation on 'Loanwords in Modern Zulu' and contributed to the first Soviet Africanist journal 'Africana', which also published the USSR’s first bibliography of African languages. In July 1941, Snegiryov went to the front, was captured, and later arrested by SMERSH counterintelligence. He was sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp, where he died. Many of his manuscripts were lost.
The book’s brilliant cycle of illustrations and its design were created by brothers Nikolay Ushin(1898–1942), a celebrated theater and book illustrator, and Alexey Ushin (1904–1942), a graphic and book artist. Both tragically died during the Siege of Leningrad.
‘Zulu Tales’ was published as the first volume in the planned series 'Languages and Literature of Africa', which, however, remained the only installment.