Vesennii salon poetov (Spring Salon of Poets)

Moskva: Zerna, 1918. First Edition. Good. First edition; 7 1/2 x 5 1/4; pp. [4], 7-190, [1]; color lithographed wraps with a Futurist design by Georgii Yakulov; rebacked, with some repairs to upper left margin of front wrap and corners; ffep a bit brittle along hinge; in good to very good condition.The most important poetry anthology of the Silver Age, it embraced Symbolism, Acmeism, and Futurism, and gathered the works of almost all of the most famous figures of the early twentieth-century Russian poetry. Some of the 48 contributors included Anna Akhmatova, Konstantin Balmont, Aleksandr Blok, Valery Bryusov, Ivan Bunin, David Burliuk, Andrey Belyi, Maximilian Voloshin, Zinaida Gippius, Nikolay Gumilev, Sergey Esenin, Ryurik Ivnev, Vasily Kamensky, Mikhail Kuzmin, Osip Mandelshtam, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Fyodor Sologub, Igor Severyanin, Vladislav Khodasevich, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Ilya Ehrenburg. Of the 184 poems - 50 appeared here for the first time, including several of Pasternak's, Balmont's, Tsvetaeva's, and others. Intended to be published on a regular basis, the almanac was conceived as a review and exhibit of all poetic achievements. However, this first issue would also be the last, as such a tremendous project would prove impossible to sustain under wartime conditions. Arguably, this publication would mark the beginning of the end of the Silver Age. Its editor, also founder of the Zerna publishing house, was Mikhail Tsetlin (1882 - 1945), better known under his pen name Amari. He was a poet, dramatist, revolutionary, and translator, who would be persecuted and eventually would emigrate to the US in 1940. The stunning wraps of the book were designed by Georgii Yakulov (1884 - 1928) - graphic artist, stage designer, and painter, who was closely associated with many of the major art figures of the time and their various artistic movements, however, he maintained his own unique style and was never a member of any of the art groups.