Lordkipanidze, Konstantine. The Wanderer (Mogzauri). Illustrated by S.N. Ketskhaveli, 1941. In Georgian.

ლორთქიფანიძე, კონსტანტინე (1905-1986). მოგზაური / მხატვ. ს. ნ. კეცხოველი ; საქ. ალcს კ. ც.კ.ის საბავშვო და ახალგაზრდ. ლიტ. გამ.
თბილისი : საბლიტგამი, 1941. 32 გვ. : 2 ჩართ. ფ. ილ. ; 15 სმ.
მაგარი ყდა (ქაღალდით გარეკანი), ფერადი ილ. ყდაზე. ტირაჟი 4 000 ც.
ყდა - დამაკმაყოფილებელი: ძლიერ გაყვითლებული, ლაქებით, კუთხეები ცვეთილი. ბლოკი - კარგი: წინა ფორზაცი სველი ლაქებით; 2 ილ. ფ. სრული, ტექსტი წასაკითხი.
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Lordkipanidze, Konstantine (1905-1986). The Wanderer / illustrated by S.N. Ketskhaveli ; Georgian Komsomol Central Committee Children's and Youth Literature Publishing House.
Tbilisi : Sabalitgami (Detunizdat TsK LKSM G.), 1941. 32 pp. : 2 inserted illustration plates ; 15 cm.
Hardcover (paper-covered boards) with color illustration on front board. Print run of 4,000 copies.
Binding fair: boards heavily yellowed and soiled throughout, corners worn. Text block good: front pastedown with moisture staining; both illustration plates present; text complete and legible throughout.

Konstantine Lordkipanidze (1905-1986) was one of the leading figures of Soviet Georgian prose, the author of the major novels The Dawn of Kolkhida and The Magic Stone, screenwriter of the film Friendship (1941), editor-in-chief of the journal Literaturnaya Gruziya (1956-1962), and a Hero of Socialist Labor (1985). He had been an active figure in the literary-political culture of Stalinist Georgia, including as a participant in the 1937 purges of literary colleagues. The present story, Mogzauri (The Wanderer), was published by the Georgian Komsomol youth press in February 1941, in the months immediately preceding the German invasion of the USSR. Its subject is a real historical episode from the Gori of 1892: the encounter of two traveling poets in the provincial Caucasian town, one of whom is the young Joseb Jughashvili (the future Stalin), a student at the Gori Spiritual Seminary, and the other the wandering young Gorky, who was traveling through the Caucasus and would publish his first story, Makar Chudra, in the Tiflis newspaper Kavkaz that same year. The colophon notes that the young Stalin was greatly taken with this work. The story is thus a piece of the Stalin personality cult in its classic 1940-1941 phase, presenting the intertwined origins of the Soviet Union's two most politically sanctioned cultural figures. The volume is illustrated with two tipped-in halftone plates by the Georgian artist S.N. Ketskhaveli, and carries a color lithographic cover illustration. Small-format Soviet Georgian illustrated booklets of this type, issued by the Komsomol youth press in the 1940s, are fragile survivors of which very few copies in any condition reach the antiquarian market.