Franko Ivan (ed.).Akordy: anthology of Ukrainian lyrics.Lviv, 1903

Chords: an anthology of Ukrainian lyrics from the death of Shevchenko / compiled by Ivan Franko; with illustrations by Yulian Pankevych.

Lviv: Published by the Ukrainian-Russian Publishing Society, 1903. — [2] sheets, 316 pp.: ill. — 26 × 19 cm. Printed at the Shevchenko Scientific Society printing house under the supervision of K. Bednarsky.

In a publisher’s decorative half-leather binding with ornamental lettering stamped in gold; gilt edges. Minor rubbing and soiling. Very good condition.

A lifetime edition of Ivan Franko. The book has historical and cultural value, while the publisher’s binding and Yulian Pankevych’s design are of independent artistic interest.

INFORMATION

“Chords” was the first major anthology of Ukrainian poetry to present literature after Shevchenko as a coherent whole. Franko brought together forty years of poetry in a single volume—from Kulish and Rudansky to the then-youngest poets Lesya Ukrainka, Mykola Voronyi, and Volodymyr Samailenko—and gave each the space their work deserved, rather than according to party or camp. For readers in Galicia and along the Dnieper, it was the first common canon printed in a single book.

Ivan Franko (1856–1916) acted here as a compiler and editor—a role in which he did no less for Ukrainian literature than as a poet. The design was by Yulian Pankevych (1863–1933), a painter and graphic artist and one of the first to work consistently on Ukrainian book Art Nouveau. The Ukrainian-Russian Publishing Society, founded in Lviv in 1899, aimed to publish quality Ukrainian and translated literature affordably and with decent typographic design; “Chords,” with its gilt edges, was its flagship edition.