Lot 206
ALEXEI MIKHAILOVICH REMIZOV (RUSSIAN 1877-1957) AN IMPRESSIVE COLLECTION OF 29 ORIGINAL HANDWRITTEN MANUSCRIPTS AND ARTWORK, CIRCA 1937-1950. Comprising a large leather bound notebook, the outside front cover printed with the name Alexei Remizov containing 29 individual perforated plastic sleeves measuring 14 inches x 11.5 inches (35.5 x 29 cm) and each containing an original manuscript or abstract composition signed or monogramed by Remizov. Each manuscript written in Remizov’s own hand often in a highly stylized Cyrillic script and in some cases repeated in French. The notebook would seem to contain at least two original short stories, one dated 1937 and titled, The Silver Bowl Russian Серебряная чаша or as titled in French La Coupe D'argent together with three (perhaps four) pen and ink corresponding illustrations. The story appears to begin with the introduction of Esege-Malan, the king of heaven (the presiding deity in the mythology of the Mongols and Buryats) and Erlik the king of Hell. Together with another story which would appear to be from the same time period but is undated although signed and titled The Ferocious Beasts and accompanied with seven corresponding pen, ink and watercolor illustrations. Each monogramed and titled. Additionally, four apparently unrelated (to the stories) abstract compositions in pen, ink, watercolor and colored foil on paper, the largest 9.25 inches x 8.75 inches (23.5 x 22 cm) the smallest 6.6 inches x 3.25 inches (17 x 8.5 cm) and each mounted or executed on an approximately 13 inches x 10 inch (33 x 25.5 cm) sheet of paper.
Estimate:  $3,000 - 5,000  

Price Realized: $30,000.00

Alexei Remizov was a Russian modernist writer whose creative imagination veered to the fantastic and bizarre. Apart from literary works, Remizov was an expert calligrapher who sought to revive this medieval art in Russia. Remizov was reared in Moscow. As a student of the Moscow University, he was involved in the radical politics and spent eight years in prison and Siberian exile. At that time, he developed a keen interest in Russian folklore and married a student of ancient Russian art, who brought him in contact with the Roerichs. In 1905, he settled in Saint Petersburg and started to imitate medieval folk tales. Remizov's whimsical stylizations of the saints' lives were ignored at first, but his more traditional works set in the underworld of Russian cities gained him a great deal of publicity. In his satirical novel The Indefatigable Cymbal (1910) he depicted the eccentricities and superstitions of rural sectarians. Another work of this period is The Sacrifice, a Gothic horror story in which "a ghostly double of a father comes to kill his innocent daughter in the mistaken belief that she is a chicken". By the time of the Revolution, Remizov had concentrated on imitating more or less obscure works of medieval Russian literature. He responded to the revolution by the Lay of the Ruin of the Russian Land, a paraphrase of the 13th-century work bemoaning the Mongol invasion of Russia. In 1921 he moved to Berlin, and then in 1923 - to Paris, where he published an account of his attitudes towards the revolution under the title Whirlwind Russia (1927). During his years in exile, Remizov brought out a number of bizarre works, featuring demons and nightmare creatures. The writer also developed a keen interest in dreams and wrote a work on the subject that involved prominent figures of Russian literature (Gogol, Dostoyevsky and others). He was so prolific that many of his works failed to find a publisher (from 1931 to 1952 there was not a single book published). Remizov was also the first Russian modernist author to attract the attention of the luminaries of the Parisian literary world, such as James Joyce. His reputation suffered a decline when, following World War II, he announced his interest in returning to the Soviet Union and even obtained a Soviet passport (which he did not have a chance to use). After that, Remizov was abhorred by the émigré litterateurs, the most famous of whom, Vladimir Nabokov, used to say that the only nice thing about Remizov was that he really lived in the world of literature.