Cheglok (Usov), A.A.: My Adventures in the Sahara and Northern Africa

Title

Moi prikliucheniia v Sakhare i Severnoi Afrike, Moskva 1918² (first edition: Simferopol’ 1912)

My Adventures in the Sahara and Northern Africa

Keywords

Summary

The book consists of ten short stories focused on birds and reptiles which can be seen in Northern Africa. They are written in the first person; usually, an encounter/adventure of the narrator, or a story told to him by someone else are the inspiration for talking about a given animal and how the locals deal with it. The volume features many b/w illustrations (the first edition was enriched by four coloured drawings, too), among which photographs, representing the fauna, the locals, and the landscape.

Bio

Aleksandr Usov was a children’s writer, who published under the pen name of “Cheglok ” honouring his passion for birdlife (cheglok is the Russian name of a falcon species). He published several books for children dedicated to Russian and foreign wildlife, which betray his enthusiasm for the natural world coupled with an occasional scientific amateurism. A friend of the bibliographer, writer and editor Nikolai Rubakin – close to the populist movement and keen disseminator of culture to the people –, as well as of Anatolii Lunacharskii, Usov spent some years in Europe following the 1905 revolution, in which he was involved. He travelled to Africa in 1909 and 1910-1911, prior to an extensive trip around the world in 1913-1914. The artist Vasilii Vatagin (1883-1969) frequently accompanied him in his travels, contributing to Usov’s activities by illustrating his books. In addition to their common passion for travels and animals, they were both interested in theosophy and anthroposophy: as a matter of fact, in 1914-1915 Usov founded an ashram near Sochi, attended, among others, by Maksimilian Voloshin. Accused of mysticism and anarchism, he was arrested in 1936 and sent to Kirovsk (Murmansk region). He escaped to die in solitude in 1942.

Sources

“Cheglok, A.”, in Sovetskie detskie pisateli. Bibliograficheskii slovar’ (1917-1957), Moskva 1961, p. 391-392;

 B. Hellman, Fairy Tales and True Stories. The History of Russian Literature for Children and Young People (1574-2010), Leiden-Boston 2013, p. 255-256.

A.F.

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