HOFSTEIN, DOVID. 1889-1952. "Troyer" [Mourning]. Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1922. CHAGALL, MARC, illustrator

Folio. 23 pp. With four inserted black-and-white plates and two other textual illustrations by Chagall. Original decorated green wrappers. All pages removed from binding and in individual sleeves.

Dimensions: 13 5/8 in. high, 9 1/2 in. wide 

Hofstein wrote Troyer in response to the recent pogroms carried out in the Ukraine during the Russian Civil War. Chagall's mystical Cubist designs touch on the sorrow expressed in the poetry.  Hofstein continued to write in Hebrew despite growing Soviet antagonism toward the language. He survived the Purges of the 1930s and joined the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1942. But Stalin's paranoia continued to grow as he convinced himself that groups were plotting his assassination. Hofstein was the first member of the Anti-Fascist League to be arrested for "anti-Soviet activities." On August 12, 1952, he and a dozen others were executed in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow on what became known as the "Night of the Murdered Poets". 

All pages removed from binding and preserved in individual mylar sleeves within a portfolio.  Losses.  Tears, with some restorations.  Yellowing, staining, and discoloration.  Some pages with scattered foxing.