FIRST TRANSLATION OF HOMER INTO RUSSIAN. HOMER. KOSTROV, EMIL, translator. Gomerova Iliada / per...

FIRST TRANSLATION OF HOMER INTO RUSSIAN. HOMER. KOSTROV, EMIL, translator. Gomerova Iliada / perevedennai͡a Ermilom Kostrovym. [The Iliad of Homer / translated by Emil Kostrov.] St. Petersburg: Imperatorskaia Tipografiia, 1787. 4to (255 x 197 mm). Engraved title page, engraved portrait (bound after title page). 19th-century calf, worn, covers detached, repair to title page, tear to H4, minor staining throughout. EXCEEDINGLY RARE FIRST APPEARANCE OF HOMER IN RUSSIAN. Kostrov's translation of Homer's heroic epic was published in 1787, against the backdrop of Catherine the Great's Crimean tour and the ongoing Russian wars against the Turks. Kostrov's dedication expressly establishes the view of the Russian empire as the ancestor of the Greek: 'In delightful songs with eloquent art / In an age still obscured by gloomy haze / He [Homer] foretold the glory of your days, sovereign! / His living brush, depicting Minerva, / And presenting her shield and helmet to our eyes, / Revealed in truth the Russians' deity / And the triumph of the brave north over the south.' While Kostrov's translation contains only the first six books of Homer's epic, the work was prominent in the Russian nationalist fascination with Hellenistic culture in the late 18th-century. The work is exceedingly rare, with no copy recorded at auction by Rarebookhub, and WorldCat recording just two copies (NYPL, Astor collection, and Dartmouth). See Zorin, By Fables Alone: Literature and State Ideology in Late-Eighteenth—Early-Nineteenth-Century Russia, 2014, pp 98-100. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing