[ABKHAZIAN FAIRY TALES / SUKHUMI IMPRINT] Абхазские сказки / Abkhazinskie skazki [i.e., Abkhazian fairy tales]

BGAZHBA, KH[UKHUT] S[OLOMONOVICH] (1914-2000).

Izdanie Alashara, Sukhumi, 1976.

Original pictorial cloth. Demy 8vo. (21 x 15 cm). In Russian. 314 p., b/w ills.

Early Russian edition of this Abkhazian fairy tales compiled by famous Abkhaz lin
guist Bgazhba. 

“Khutkhutwas born on October 15, 1914, in the village of Gup, Ochamchira district (at that time - Kodor district) in the family of a well-known person in Abzhuy Abkhazia, Saluman (Solomon) Bgazhba and Matia Kapba. There is a heroic song about Saluman that the people composed after Khuhut’s father avenged the murder of his older brother. This folklore and history itself have survived to the present day. After leaving school in Abkhazia, Khukhut Bgazhba entered the historical and philosophical faculty of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, which he graduated in 1937 and returned to Abkhazia as a young writer, who had already written many literary essays and articles by that time.

In Sukhum, at the time of the return of Khukhut Solomonovich, a terrible, oppressive atmosphere reigned. This was the year of the destruction of the Abkhaz intelligentsia, many prominent public figures were repressed.  In 1941, young Khukhut, who was looking for housing in Sukhum, was handed a warrant from the apartment of Samson Chanba, who once helped him in every possible way during his studies, but at that time he was already repressed. Bgazhba refused the apartment - his conscience did not allow him to move into the empty apartment of Chanba, but it was already dangerous to abandon the post of Secretary of the Union of Writers of Abkhazia. And he took this post. Khukhut Bgazhba was also a member of the Soviet Union of Writers and had a certificate signed personally by the writer Maxim Gorky.

In 1942, a young scientist got a job at the Abkhaz Institute of Language, Literature, and History, studied linguistics, and with great passion studied the subtleties of the Abkhaz language. He also wrote critical articles on literature.

At the Abkhaz Institute, he later headed the Department of Language and Literature, from 1943 to 1953 he worked as deputy director for science, and from 1953 to 1966 he headed the institute. At a time when everything Abkhaz was forbidden and the cultivation of national personnel was not welcomed, Khukhut Solomonovich and his deputy Akibey Khonelia did everything in their power so that young talented representatives of science could study at the best universities of the Soviet Union and enter postgraduate programs.” (Source: World Abaza Congress online).

As of December 2024, we couldn’t trace any copies in OCLC.