Yurii Rusov.The Soul of the People and the Spirit of the Nation.Philadelphia, 1948

Dr. Yu. Rusov. The Soul of the People and the Spirit of the Nation / [cover and title page design by N. G. Roussow].

Philadelphia: America Publishing House, 1948. — 153 pp.: illus. — Verso of the title page: “America Publishing House, 817 North Franklin Street, Philadelphia 23, Pa. Printed in U. S. A.”

Published in a cream-colored paper softcover with a graphic design repeated on the title page; the text block is stapled. The cover is yellowed, with rubbing and small tears along the edges, and dog-eared corners; the back cover has stains, dark spots, and a small tear at the top. The paper shows natural yellowing, with stains on the outer edges of some pages; the upper corner of the title page is dog-eared. The text contains pencil and ink underlining and marginal notes (pp. 23, 57, etc.). The owner’s signature on the title page has been crossed out with blue ink; on the blank page at the end of the book, the previous owner has added a table of contents with page numbers in ink; the number “450” is written in pencil on the back cover. Condition: good.

Published during the author’s lifetime. The book is of historical and cultural value and is of collector’s interest.

INFORMATION

A philosophical-historical treatise in which the biologist by training describes the Ukrainian temperament through four “racial primaries”—Dinaric, Nordid, Mediterranean, and Ostic—and seeks their traces in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” Cossack dumy, Kotlyarevsky’s “Eneida,” and Shevchenko’s works, which he calls a synthesis of Ukrainian primaries. The book opens with a motto from the words of the Apostle Andrew about the hills of Kyiv and concludes with the motto “Hoc signo vinces!” According to the author, the work is based on his articles and lectures in Samostiyna Dumka (Chernivtsi, 1934), Batavia (Bucharest, 1939), Ukrainska Diialnist (Berlin, 1942), and America (1947).

Yurii Rusov (1898–1961) was a biologist, a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and the son of the statistician and ethnographer Oleksandr Rusov and the educator Sofiia Rusova. He graduated from the universities of Kyiv and Vienna, represented Ukrainian students in the Central Rada in 1917, and taught zoology and ichthyology at the Kamianets-Podilskyi State Ukrainian University. In 1930–1941, he headed the Department of Ichthyology at the National Institute of Zootechnics in Bucharest; in 1941–1946, in Berlin, he was one of the leading figures of the Hetmanate movement; from 1947, he worked at the University of Montreal.

In the afterword, the author thanks the America Publishing House and its editor B. Katamayev and dedicates the book to the memory of his father, timing its publication to the centennial of his birth. The cover and title page were designed by the author’s wife, the set designer and painter Nataliia Gerken-Rusova (1897–1989), a student of Boichuk, Krychevsky, and Narbut: a princely figure and a woman with a sheaf above jewels, a kobza, and a book, with the motto “For faith, for Ukraine, for glory” on ribbons, and the signature “N. G. Roussow” in Latin script.