Luka Mudishchev. 1969. (at head: Ivan BARKOV.) 2e Isdanie. "Moskva: Izdatelstvo TSK-KLSS Gospolitizdat" [London School of Economics; Coulsdon, Surrey: Special Service, "Hexton House," Herts.] 80 pp., 32do (11 X 6.7 cm.). Aside from the title page ascription to Barkov (1732-68), this bawdy Russian ballad in the style of the sex-hate recitation "Eskimo Nell" is also attributed to Aleksandr Pushkin and more probably to Pushkin's successor in Byronic poetry, Mikhail Y. LERMONTOV (1814—41), who "wrote a fair quantity of obscene verse privately for his pals at the cadets' school when he was about 18." Text was apparently supplied by the Joint Services School for Linguistics, at Coulsdon, Surrey. Poem is first referred to in SPINKLER 1913, Gross-Russische erotische Volkdichtung. Anthropophytéia 10:353, q.v. The present vest-pocket edition produced as an exhibitionistic joke, to demonstrate the technical ability and matériel of the Allied Subversion and Sabotage propaganda services in London, on their purposeful "blowing of cover" after the Kim Philby espionage defection. It is a remarkable imitation of Soviet Government Printing House typography, using various sorts of Cyrillic type, satirically including phoney reviews from Pravda, Izvestia, etc., and faked publicity photos of high-ranking Russian political leaders and secret-service heads enthusiastically plugging the poem! Compare: Gregory-Boomer-Fouff; also KABRONSKY; KRAUSS; and SPINKLER.
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