Shkolyaryk: A Manual for Ukrainian People's Schools. Part 2.Regensburg, 1945

Школярик = A Little School Boy: textbook for Ukrainian folk schools (2nd grade). Part 2, published 1945 / editor L. Poltava.

Regensburg, 1945. — Printed by: Friedrich Pustet, Graphische Großbetriebe, Regensburg. — On the last page, military administration permission: “Permitted by authority of Military Government.”

Original cream-colored publisher’s cover with black print: a drawn title and a cartoon scene with schoolchildren. Even darkening and yellowing of the paper, scuffs and creases along the edges, fold mark. At the top of the cover, the inscription “Ukr. Sat. School” is written in ink, with a sticker bearing inventory number “Part 280” next to it. The block is firm, the text is clean. Condition: good.

The edition has historical and cultural value and is of collector’s interest.

INFORMATION

A children’s reader printed in Bavaria the same year the war ended—for schools that Ukrainians opened simply in displaced persons camps. Inside, there is a poem about Kyiv, the story “Petryk and Ukraine,” “About Two Little Goats,” and drawings of wagons and beehives; the last page is devoted to an appeal to read books. These texts were written for children who had never seen Ukraine and were to learn about it from eight pages on gray paper.

The periodical was edited by Leonid Poltava (1921–1990)—a poet, prose writer, and journalist who worked in the camp press of Germany in the postwar years and later lived in the United States, writing for children, among other things.

The line “Permitted by authority of Military Government” indicates the regime under which this was printed: every Ukrainian publication in the American zone of occupation was issued with the permission of the military authorities. It was printed by the Regensburg firm Friedrich Pustet—one of the few local printing houses that undertook Cyrillic typesetting. Copies of such school booklets were distributed throughout the camps and read by children until they fell apart, so surviving copies are rare. The inscription on the cover indicates that this one belonged to a Ukrainian Saturday school.