035 - MM2
Lidantiu Faram
Lidantiu as a Beacon (Le-Dantyu as a Beacon)
Ilia Zdanevich (Iliazd)
Naum Granovskii (cover by)
41°; Paris, France
1923
192mm
61pp
Edition: #219/530
Notes: With glassine wrappers; in a card chemise and housed in a drop-back box with label: Ledentu as Beacon. This copy has an elaborate inscription on the front endpaper: Donald Emerich, Duncan Black Emrich dated 7/XII/44. Uncut. Bound in original gray wrappers with collage by Naoum Granovsky (Naum Granovskii) on onlaid gold and silver paper, cork and synthetic material. Text includes letterpress typographic designs by Iliazd who published the play shortly after he moved to Paris from Russia. Elizabeth Phillips catalogue remarks state that "while the colophon states that 530 copies were made, only about 150 are said to have been printed. "A masterpiece of the Russian poetic avant-garde" (Johnson:25). "Ilyazd's Lidantiu Faram is the last and most fully-realised of his five dramatic works. The text is remarkable typography, and the stunning collage cover by Granovskiy marks 'a moment of synthesis and a culminating point in his formal experiments' (Isselbacher:37). "Each page of this book offers itself as a picture that is, as pure 'graphism', exhibiting a typographical repertory so vast that it defies inventory. Furthermore, so playful is its organization that some of the pages virtually defy reading, breaking as they do with the linear conception of the text and forcing the reader to adopt a circular contemplation, to decipher in a back-and-forth manner more appropriate for viewing a picture. In Lidantiu Iliazd reached a high point in his development of ludic typography as an integral part of the modern page layout; it was a moment of synthesis and a culminating point in his formal experiments" (Isselbacher:126-27).