Ladia (Rook)

Berlin: Izdatelstvo E. A. Gutnova, 1922. First Edition. Very good. First edition; 5 1/2 x 4; pp. [8], 11-58, [4]; light-brown wraps, printed and decorated in purple; several light spots to wraps; scattered foxing, mostly to first and last few leaves; in very good condition.Leonid Ivanovich Strakhovskii, writing under the pseudonym Leonid Chatskii (1898 - 1963) was the son of a Senator and Governor of three provinces in Imperial Russia. In 1918, he joined and became one of the inner circle of revolutionary, founder of "Union of the Reconstruction of Russia," and President of the Provisional Government of the Northern Region Nikolai Tchaikovsky (1851 - 1926) - taking active part in the insurrection against the Bolsheviks. After escaping, first to England, Leonid settled in Berlin, where in 1922 - together with Vladimir Nabokov and Gleb Struve - founded the literary circle "Brotherhood of the Round Table," where he often sketched caricatures of the other members, including two famous ones of Nabokov as a giraffe and a sea-horse, for he claimed the latter seemed to only move his long neck, while reading in public. Chatskii would eventually emigrate to the US and then Canada, where he would continue writing and would teach at Georgetown, University of Maryland, and the University of Toronto. "Rook" was his first published poetry collection.