Tenten 01 - Tintin In The Land Of The Soviets

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets

This first adventure of Tintin, the boy reporter, appeared in 1929 in a children's supplement to a Belgian daily newspaper, Le Vingtième Siècle. Hergé's satire on the Soviet state was very much of its time. Soviet propaganda to persuade the world outside Russia that the economy was booming was a particular target for Hergé, as were the activities of the secret police, the OGPU.

Publication in Le Petit Vingtième began on 10 January 1929. In 1930 the adventure was issued in album form, now a very rare book greatly sought after, the 500 copies being numbered and signed "Tintin et Milou". There were, it is believed, nine subsequent editions, differing only in the layout of the print on the title page.