Chukokkala is a unique literary work produced by Russian writer Korney Chukovsky

Korney Chukovsky

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky was one of the most popular children's poets in the Russian language. His poems, Doctor Aybolit , The Giant Roach , The Crocodile , and Wash'em'clean have been favourites with many generations of Russophone children...

 of genre difficult to identify. Traditionally described in Russian literary theory

Literary theory

Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of...

  as "handwritten almanac", it is an eclectic mixture of autograph book

Autograph book

An autograph book is a book in which one collects the autographs of others. Traditionally, these books would include small pieces of verse, personal messages, poems, and drawings from one's friends. Yearbooks, friendship books, and guest books are modern derivations...

/diary

Diary

A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...

/scrapbook

Scrapbook

Scrapbook can refer to:* Scrapbooking, the process of making a scrapbook* Scrapbook , a Mac OS application* Scrapbook , a Switchblade Symphony album* Scrapbook * ScrapBook, a Firefox extension...

/guestbook

Guestbook

A guestbook is a paper or electronic means for a visitor to acknowledge their visitation to a site, physical or web-based, and leave their name, postal or electronic address , and a comment or note, if desired...

/memoir

Memoir

A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

, maintained since 1914 to late 1960s and first published in 1979 supplied with Chukovsky's comments. Over the time Chukokkala collected a large number of autographs, literary and drawing sketches, notes, puzzles, etc., of numerous famous people.

As Chukovsky explained himself, the name is the portmanteau of his name and "Kuokkala

Repino

Repino is a municipal settlement in Kurortny District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, and a station of the Saint Petersburg-Vyborg railroad. It was known by its Finnish name Kuokkala until 1948, when it was renamed after its most famous inhabitant, Ilya Repin...

," the name of the place where he lived when he started the autograph book.

The preparation of the first, 1979 print edition, was started by Chukovsky himself; he supplied it with a detailed commentary and archival materials. However it was heavily censored

Censorship in the Soviet Union

Censorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced.Censorship was performed in two main directions:*State secrets were handled by Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press was in charge of censoring all publications and broadcasting for state...

. The second, 1999 edition was still incomplete. The first complete edition was published in 2006.