Basov-Verkhoyantsev, S. The Little Galloping Horse (Konek-Skakunok: pouchitel'naya skazka ob Ivanushke-Durachke i tsare Berendee). Tiflis, 1917. In Russian.

Басов-Верхоянцев, Сергей (на титуле: С. Верхоянцев). Конек-Скакунок : поучительная сказка об Иванушке-Дурачке и царе Берендее.
Издательская Комиссия Краевого Совета Кавказской Армии, № 3.
Тифлис : Типография Канцелярии Особого Закавказского комитета, 1917. 63 с. ; 17 см.
Владельческая бумажная обложка с рукописным названием и именем владельца.
Состояние хорошее: обложка потёртая, с пятнами и заломами. Блок полный, края страниц с надрывами.
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Basov-Verkhoyantsev, Sergei (on the title page: S. Verkhoyantsev). The Little Galloping Horse: An Instructive Tale of Ivanushka the Fool and Tsar Berendey.
Publishing Commission of the Regional Soviet of the Caucasian Army, no. 3.
Tiflis: Printing House of the Chancellery of the Special Transcaucasian Committee, 1917. 63 pp. ; 17 cm.
Owner's plain paper wrapper with hand-lettered title and ownership name; original printed wrapper not present.
Wrapper good: rubbed, stained and creased. Text block good: complete, with chipping to the leaf edges.

A Tiflis printing, issued in the year of the Russian Revolution, of one of the most widely circulated works of illegal Russian revolutionary literature. Sergei Aleksandrovich Basov-Verkhoyantsev (1869-1952), a Socialist Revolutionary active in the agrarian movement, wrote "Konek-Skakunok" in 1906 in the aftermath of the defeat of the first Russian revolution, publishing it under the pseudonym Verkhoyantsev. Cast in folk-lubok verse and modelled directly on Pyotr Ershov's beloved children's tale "Konek-Gorbunok," it recounts how the peasant Ivan, mounted on his magical horse, travels to the realm of Tsar Berendey and brings down the autocracy, closing with a village assembly that abolishes the monarchy, declares land and factories common property, and, in a passage remarkable for its date, resolves that women be granted equal rights with men. The book was banned and confiscated in 1907, with a substantial reward offered for the identification of its origins; it nonetheless circulated hand to hand in more than half a million copies through underground and emigre reprints in Russia, Berlin, and New York. The present issue belongs to the short-lived publishing programme of the Regional Soviet of the Caucasian Army, one of the soldiers' soviets formed in Tiflis after the February Revolution, and appears as number three in a series that also included Korolenko on the fall of tsarist power and Dikshtein's popular political economy. Provincial 1917 revolutionary imprints of this kind, printed on poor wartime paper for immediate distribution among soldiers and peasants, survived in very small numbers, and Transcaucasian examples are correspondingly uncommon on the international market.