Tumansky, A. Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Most Holy Book of the Contemporary Baha'is (Kitabe Akdes: Svyashchenneyshaya kniga sovremennykh Babidov). In Russian and Arabic. First edition.

Туманский, Александр Григорьевич. Китабе Акдес. «Священнейшая книга» современных бабидов : текст, перевод, введение и приложения / А. Г. Туманский, капитан гвардейской стрелковой артиллерийской дивизии.
Записки Императорской Академии наук. VIII серия. По историко-филологическому отделению. Том III, № 6, последний. Санкт-Петербург : Типография Императорской Академии наук, 1899. XLVIII + 124 + 29 с. ; энциклопедический формат.
Мягкая бумажная обложка. Включает общий титульный лист и содержание Тома III.
Посвящение: «Незабвенной памяти Матвея Авелевича Гамазова посвящает его признательный ученик».
Экземпляр списан из несуществующей тифлисской библиотеки.
Переплет - удовлетворительный: передняя обложка сильно загрязнена, влажностные пятна, крупный след удаленной наклейки у верхнего левого угла; края обветшали; задняя обложка отсутствует, заменена листом бумаги. Блок - хороший: экземпляр неразрезан; бумага равномерно пожелтела.
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Tumansky, Aleksandr Grigorievich (1861-1920). Kitabe Akdes: "The Most Holy Book" of the Contemporary Baha'is (Babids). Text, translation, introduction and appendices / by A. G. Tumansky, Captain of the Guard Artillery Division.
Mémoires de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de St.-Pétersbourg. VIIIe Série. Classe Historico-Philologique. Vol. III, No. 6 et dernier. St. Petersburg : Typography of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1899. XLVIII + 124 + 29 pp. ; encyclopedia format.
Paper wrappers. With general title page and table of contents of Vol. III.
Dedication: "To the unforgettable memory of Matvei Avelievich Gamazov, from his grateful student."
Deaccessioned from a now-defunct Tiflis library.
Binding fair: front wrapper heavily soiled, moisture stained, large removed-label mark at upper left corner; spine with losses, edges fraying; rear wrapper absent, replaced by a plain paper sheet. Text block good: entirely uncut; paper evenly age-toned.

This is the editio princeps of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Arabic: الكتاب الأقدس, "The Most Holy Book"), the central scripture of the Baha'i Faith, written by Bahá'u'lláh in Akka around 1873. Aleksandr Grigorievich Tumansky (1861-1920), Imperial Russian Army officer and orientalist who eventually rose to Major General, befriended the Baha'i community in Ashgabat during his Central Asian posting and obtained a canonical manuscript of the text. His translation was presented to the Historico-Philological Section of the Imperial Academy of Sciences on 30 March 1894, and published as the final fascicle of Volume III of the Mémoires in 1899.
This is the first published text and first translation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas into any European language; Russian was the first European language into which Baha'i scriptures of any kind were translated. The publication presents the complete Arabic text alongside a full Russian translation, a 48-page introduction surveying the history of the Babi and Baha'i movements drawing on archival Persian and Russian sources, and three substantial appendices comprising additional lawhs (tablets) addressed to Baha'is of the Caucasus, Persia, and other communities. The Encyclopaedia Iranica notes that Tumansky's edition is "more reliable" than the 1961 Elder and Miller English translation, which with this Russian edition was the only complete Western rendering until the first authorized English translation from the Baha'i World Centre in 1992, meaning this publication served as the primary scholarly reference for nearly one hundred years. The dedication is to Matvei Avelievich Gamazov (1822-1896), Russian Orientalist and Persian-Arabic translator, Tumansky's teacher in Oriental languages.
The copy is entirely uncut - the leaves have never been separated, the book was never read - and came from a now-defunct Tiflis library, providing a remarkable Caucasian institutional provenance for this study of the Baha'i community that was particularly active in the Caucasus.