USSR. Antikvare Hebrayisher Bicher [“Antique Hebrew Books.”] Catalogue Number 1.

(SOVIET UNION)

Alfarbandisher Fareynikung / Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga

Moscow

(1930)

Text in Yiddish and Hebrew.

In the late 1920’s the Soviet government urgently required foreign currency to finance the rapid industrialization of Russia ordered in the first Five Year Plan. Hence the government sold off valuable paintings and other prized collections seized from the Russian nobility, wealthy classes and the church. Other sales were made in the same period, notably the Codex Siniaticus from the Russian National Library to the British Museum. This is a highly scarce sales-catalogue organized by the Soviet Foreign Language Bookstore “Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga” offering for sale (and priced in US dollars) 4,494 individually listed Hebrew antiquarian books.