“We have captured a most rare specimen of an extinct insect which was extremely popular at the beginning of the century.”

This second installment of my Soviet-era children’s book series features George Kovenchuk‘s 1974 illustrations for Klop (The Bedbug) by Mayakovsky.

You can read a thorough summary of the famous 1929 play — not originally intended for children! — at SovLit. (And here are some fascinating images from the first staging.) The title of this post quotes from Max Hayward’s translation of the play (see The Bedbug and Selected Poetry).

I used a virtual Cyrillic keyboard to figure out the illustrator’s name. Because this important bit of information was hidden in the book, I had to type about fifty words before finding it — and so I basically learned the Cyrillic alphabet in the process. Good times.

Previously: Mummy was a robot, daddy was a small nonstick kitchen utensil

(detail of 2-page spread)

(detail of 2-page spread)