Printing Houses (entry)

Categories / Economy/Industry
PRINTING HOUSES. In 1711-21, four printing houses were opened in St. Petersburg by order of Tsar Peter the Great: the St. Petersburg Printing House, the Senate Printing House, the Printing House of Alexander Nevsky Monastery and the Printing House of the Naval Academy. The majority of publications were printed with the new Russian script. Most publications during the time of Peter the Great were compilations of laws, next in number were informational materials (Bulletin newspaper, communiques etc.), books on military and naval science, natural sciences and technology (see Book Publishing). In October 1727, the St. Petersburg Printing House and the Printing House of Alexander Nevsky Monastery were closed by the decree of the Highest Secret Council; publishing of secular books was transferred to the Senate Printing House and the New Academic Printing House which soon became the largest printing house of the capital. In the second half of the 18th century, printing houses appeared in various educational and state institutions, such as Noble Infantry Military School (1757), Mining College (1776), the Academy of Fine Arts (1794), the Synod (1764), State Medical Collegium (1795, today Volodarsky Printing House) etc. The first private Printing House of T. I. Gartung (publishing books only in foreign languages) was opened in 1771. In 1776, editors I.Y. Weitbrecht and I. K. Schnor were allowed to publish literature in any language in their printing house. In 1783, the decree On Free Printing Houses was published, allowing any private person to open one. Already in several years there were some 20 private printing houses in St. Petersburg. The Printing House of I. K. Schnor was the largest of them, printing over 230 titles in Russian. Professional editors, booksellers, and literary men became owners of private printing houses (K. V. Muller, I. P. and M. P. Glazunov, brothers P. Bogdanovich and I. Bogdanovich, I. A. Krylov, I. G. Rachmaninov, A. N. Radishchev et al.). Fairy tales, adventure stories, dream interpretation books, books on housekeeping, fortune-telling books, and educational literature were the main categories of printed materials. From 100 to 20,000 copies of each title were published (ABC books had the largest printing run). The equipment was bought abroad; types were partly cast in St. Petersburg. In the early 1790s the number of private printing houses decreased: the printing house of Radishchev was closed in 1790, and by 1796 there were only 6 private printing houses. In the first quarter of the 19th century several new printing houses were opened. In 1817-33, the Printing House of the Main College Administration published educational literature. In 1824-25, it published the first-ever edition of the first chapter of Eugene Onegin by A. S. Pushkin. In 1833, the property of the printing house was transferred to the Academy of Sciences. The printing house of the Biblical Society worked in 1815-26. The printing house printed the first Russian stereotyped edition of the Bible (1816) in 5,000 copies. The horse-driven printing machine constructed by Cooper was used here for the first time. The printing house employed up to 90 people. In 1839, its equipment was given to the printing house of the Synod. In the 1810s, many St. Petersburg printing houses were modernized. Wooden presses were replaced with metal equipment; a part of the equipment was made at Alexandrovskaya Manufactory and at the Petersburg Iron Foundry according to European models. Already in the beginning of the 19th century St. Petersburg became the largest centre of printing industry. In the second half of the 19th century several new printing houses appeared which played a big role in the development of the printing industry. In 1859, the Cartographical Institution of А. А. Ilyin was founded which soon became the largest enterprise of the sector. Prominent publishers M. O. Wolf, А. F. Marx, and А. S. Suvorin founded large printing houses. By 1892 there were 139 printing houses, 124 lithography houses and 4 metallography houses in St. Petersburg, and by 1917 there were 187 printing houses and 117 typolithography houses. After October 1917, all the printing enterprises were nationalized, large printing houses were transferred into the ownership of the state and were assigned numbers, and many small printing houses were closed. The state introduced strict control over the activities of printing houses: on 6 June, 1922, the regulations of the Central Literary Office were approved by the decree of the Soviet People's Commissariat of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which became an organ of Soviet censorship. With the introduction of the New Economic Policy in 1921, it was allowed to rent printing enterprises, their number in the city in 1922-25 increased from 21 to 126, yet in the next years their number again started to decline: at the end of the 1930s, there were only 45 printing houses in Leningrad. The only new one was Pravda printing house at 12 Khersonskaya Street, which was opened in 1935 and belonged to the publishing house of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik). In postwar years the sector saw technical re-equipment, reconstruction of old buildings and construction of new ones, publication of all kinds of literature, and concentration of industrial capacities. Leningrad remained a major centre of polygraphic industry: in the middle of the 1980s, about 1/3 of all polygraphic facilities of the country were located in Leningrad. At the beginning of the 1990s, polygraphic industry appeared to be one of the most dynamically developing branches of St. Petersburg industry in new economic circumstances.

References: Луппов С. П. Книга в России в первой четверти XVIII века. Л., 1973; Его же. Книга в России в послепетровское время, 1725-1740. Л., 1976; Лавров Н. П. Книжный мир Ленинграда: Крат. справ. читателя. Л., 1985; Баренбаум И. Е. Книжный Петербург: Три века истории: Очерки изд. дела и кн. торговли. СПб., 2003.

V. G. Avdeev. Bogdanovich Peter Ivanovich
Gartung T.I.
Glazunov Ivan Petrovich
Glazunov Matvei Petrovich
Krylov Ivan Andreevich
Marx Adolf Fedorovich
Miller K.V.
Peter I, Emperor
Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich
Rachmaninov Ivan Gerasimovich
Radishchev Alexander Nikolaevich
Schnor Johann Karl
Suvorin Alexey Sergeevich
Volodarsky V. (Moisey Markovich Goldstein)
Weitbrecht I.Y.
Wolf Mavriky Osipovich
Khersonskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 12
Луппов С. П. Книга в России в первой четверти XVIII века. Л., 1973
Луппов С. П. Книга в России в послепетровское время, 1725-1740. Л., 1976
Баренбаум И. Е. Книжный Петербург: Три века истории: Очерки изд. дела и кн. торговли. СПб., 2003
Лавров Н. П. Книжный мир Ленинграда: Крат. справ. читателя. Л., 1985 Publishing (general article)
Academic Printing House (see Science, Printing House)
Academy of Arts
Academy of Arts
Synod
Volodarsky Printing House
Russian Academy of Sciences
1711