At the beginning of the twentieth century, the name of Ivan Sytin was known throughout Russia. During his life, he published a total circulation of 500 million books: every home had a Sytin primer; thanks to his publishing house, millions of children learned about the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault; he was the first to print complete works of Russian classics. He was called an “American” for his love of technical innovations, but at home he remained the patriarchal father of a large family.
Common people pictures
Ivan Sytin was born in the village of Gnezdnikovo, Kostroma province, in the family of the volost clerk Dmitry Sytin. He completed only three years of school, and as a teenager began working in one of the shops at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair when the family moved to Galich.
The career of the future publisher began in 1866 in the bookstore of the merchant Sharapov at the Ilyinsky Gate, where Ivan Sytin entered the service as a teenager. He worked there for ten years, after which he borrowed money from a merchant to buy a lithographic machine and opened his own workshop. The machine was French and printed in five colors, which was a real rarity in Russia at that time.
At the same time, Sytin married the merchant’s daughter Evdokia Sokolova. They had 10 children, of whom the four eldest sons, having matured, began to work with their father.
At the end of the 19th century big role The book trade was played by ofeni - merchants-itinerants, who transported simple goods to villages and traded at bazaars and fairs. In the boxes of these merchants, among other goods for the common people, there were books and affordable calendars, dream books and everyone’s favorite popular prints. Sytin provided the officers with goods, and they gave him the most honest feedback from the buyer: they told him what people bought more willingly and what they showed special interest in.
Ivan Sytin. 1916 Photo: ceo.ru
Ivan Sytin. Photo: polit.ru
Ivan Sytin's office. Photo: primepress.ru
The word “popular print” itself began to be used in the 19th century, and before that it was called “amusing sheets” and “common pictures.” These sheets entertained, informed about major events, and were kept by many for home decoration. Sytin personally selected spiritual and secular subjects for paintings, and involved him in the creation of products popular among the people. famous artists, among whom were, for example, Viktor Vasnetsov and Vasily Vereshchagin.
“My publishing experience and my entire life spent among books have confirmed me in the idea that there are only two conditions that ensure the success of a book:
- Very interesting.
- Very accessible.
I have pursued these two goals all my life.”Ivan Sytin
When, in order to conduct trade, ofeni were required to obtain permission from the governor and describe all goods, Sytin began to open shops and compile book catalogs so as not to lose the profitable market. This became the foundation of his future network, which at the beginning of the 20th century already included 19 stores and 600 kiosks at railway stations throughout Russia. “Every year we sold over 50 million paintings, and as people’s literacy and taste developed, the content of the paintings improved. How much this enterprise has grown can be seen from the fact that, starting with one small lithographic machine, it then required the hard work of fifty printing machines., - recalled Sytin.
Awaken the mind
Until 1865, the right to publish calendars belonged exclusively to the Academy of Sciences. For the majority of illiterate people, they were the most accessible printed publication. Sytin compared the calendar to “the only window through which they looked at the world.” He took the release of the first “National Calendar” with particular seriousness - preparation took five years. Sytin wanted to make not just a calendar, but a reference book and a universal reference book for all occasions for many Russian families. In order to publish the calendar “very cheaply, very elegantly, very accessible in content” and, of course, in large quantities, Sytin purchased special rotary machines for the printing house, the mechanism of which significantly increased the rate of production.
Sytin's business quickly became profitable. Understanding what topics aroused the greatest interest among the people, he created popular and in-demand products. Thus, his first big income came from battle sketches and maps with explanations of military actions, which he published during the Russian-Turkish War.
In 1879, Sytin bought a house on Pyatnitskaya Street, where he already installed two lithographic machines, and three years later he registered the I.D. Partnership. Sytin and Co., whose fixed capital was 75 thousand rubles. At the All-Russian Art Exhibition, Sytin’s products were awarded a bronze medal, and by the end of the 1890s, his printing houses produced almost three million pictures and about two million calendars annually.
Ivan Sytin's store in Nizhny Novgorod. Photo: livelib.ru
Ivan Sytin in his office. Photo: rusplt.ru
The building of the Sytinskaya printing house on Pyatnitskaya street, Moscow. Photo: vc.ru
Classics in circulation
In 1884, in St. Petersburg, on the initiative of the writer Leo Tolstoy, the Posrednik publishing house was opened, which was supposed to publish inexpensive books for the people, and Sytin was invited to cooperate. These books cost a little more than popular prints and did not sell as quickly, but for Sytin their publication was a “sacred service.” “Mediator” published spiritual and moral literature, translated fiction, popular and reference books, and art albums. Thanks to his work with The Mediator, Sytin met many significant figures of literary and artistic life Moscow: writers Maxim Gorky and Vladimir Korolenko, artists Vasily Surikov and Ilya Repin.
Sytin made the works of the best writers of the 19th century accessible to a huge number of people. In 1887, he surprised his contemporaries: he risked publishing the collected works of Alexander Pushkin in a circulation of 100 thousand copies. “Alexander Sergeevich” for 80 kopecks in 10 volumes was sold out in a few days, like a similar edition of Gogol. After Tolstoy's death, it was Sytin who agreed to publish the complete collected works of the writer - in an expensive 10,000th edition and a 100,000th edition available to less wealthy people. The proceeds from the sale were used to purchase the lands of Yasnaya Polyana for transfer into ownership of the peasants, as Tolstoy bequeathed. The publisher did not actually earn anything at that time, but his action received a great response in society.
Fourth Estate
Of many writers, Sytin was especially close to Anton Chekhov. The playwright predicted great success for him in the newspaper business. The idea of publishing a popular, publicly accessible newspaper soon became a reality. In 1897, the Partnership I.D. Sytin" bought " Russian word", the circulation of which he managed to increase hundreds of times. The best journalists of that time wrote for the newspaper: Vladimir Gilyarovsky, Vlas Doroshevich, Fyodor Blagov. The record circulation of the publication after February 1917 reached 1.2 million copies. Today we would call Sytin a media tycoon - in addition to “Russian Word”, his partnership owned 9 newspapers and 20 magazines, one of which is still published under its original name - “Around the World”.
Sytin began to carry out various tasks on behalf of the government, for example, organizing an exhibition of Russian paintings in the USA, and negotiating concessions with Germany. In 1928, he was assigned a personal pension, and his family was assigned an apartment on Tverskaya.
On November 23, 1934, Ivan Sytin died and was buried at the Vvedensky cemetery, where a monument with a bas-relief of the publisher was erected. And the apartment on Tverskaya where Sytin lived last years life, became his museum.
At one of the audiences with Finance Minister Sergei Witte, Sytin said: “Our task is broad, almost limitless: we want to eliminate illiteracy in Russia and make textbooks and books a national property.”. He did not have time, as he wanted, to build a paper factory, but he managed to prepare 440 textbooks, 47 “Self-Education Library” books on philosophy, history, economics and natural science, several original encyclopedias: military, children's, folk. Sytin not only made the book accessible - he knew how to awaken in the reader curiosity for new and new knowledge.
Material prepared by Elena Ivanova
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the name of Ivan Sytin was known throughout Russia. During his life, he published a total circulation of 500 million books: every home had a Sytin primer; thanks to his publishing house, millions of children learned about the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault; he was the first to print complete works of Russian classics. He was called an “American” for his love of technical innovations, but at home he remained the patriarchal father of a large family.
Common people pictures
Ivan Sytin was born in the village of Gnezdnikovo, Kostroma province, in the family of the volost clerk Dmitry Sytin. He completed only three years of school, and as a teenager began working in one of the shops at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair when the family moved to Galich.
The career of the future publisher began in 1866 in the bookstore of the merchant Sharapov at the Ilyinsky Gate, where Ivan Sytin entered the service as a teenager. He worked there for ten years, after which he borrowed money from a merchant to buy a lithographic machine and opened his own workshop. The machine was French and printed in five colors, which was a real rarity in Russia at that time.
At the same time, Sytin married the merchant’s daughter Evdokia Sokolova. They had 10 children, of whom the four eldest sons, having matured, began to work with their father.
At the end of the 19th century, a major role in the book trade was played by ofeni - merchants-itinerants, who transported simple goods to villages and traded at bazaars and fairs. In the boxes of these merchants, among other goods for the common people, there were books and affordable calendars, dream books and everyone’s favorite popular prints. Sytin provided the officers with goods, and they gave him the most honest feedback from the buyer: they told him what people bought more willingly and what they showed special interest in.
Ivan Sytin. 1916 Photo: ceo.ru
Ivan Sytin. Photo: polit.ru
Ivan Sytin's office. Photo: primepress.ru
The word “popular print” itself began to be used in the 19th century, and before that it was called “amusing sheets” and “common pictures.” These sheets entertained, informed about major events, and were kept by many for home decoration. Sytin personally selected spiritual and secular subjects for paintings, and attracted famous artists to create popular products among the people, including, for example, Viktor Vasnetsov and Vasily Vereshchagin.
“My publishing experience and my entire life spent among books have confirmed me in the idea that there are only two conditions that ensure the success of a book:
- Very interesting.
- Very accessible.
I have pursued these two goals all my life.”Ivan Sytin
When, in order to conduct trade, ofeni were required to obtain permission from the governor and describe all goods, Sytin began to open shops and compile book catalogs so as not to lose the profitable market. This became the foundation of his future network, which at the beginning of the 20th century already included 19 stores and 600 kiosks at railway stations throughout Russia. “Every year we sold over 50 million paintings, and as people’s literacy and taste developed, the content of the paintings improved. How much this enterprise has grown can be seen from the fact that, starting with one small lithographic machine, it then required the hard work of fifty printing machines., - recalled Sytin.
Awaken the mind
Until 1865, the right to publish calendars belonged exclusively to the Academy of Sciences. For the majority of illiterate people, they were the most accessible printed publication. Sytin compared the calendar to “the only window through which they looked at the world.” He took the release of the first “National Calendar” with particular seriousness - preparation took five years. Sytin wanted to make not just a calendar, but a reference book and a universal reference book for all occasions for many Russian families. In order to publish the calendar “very cheaply, very elegantly, very accessible in content” and, of course, in large quantities, Sytin purchased special rotary machines for the printing house, the mechanism of which significantly increased the rate of production.
Sytin's business quickly became profitable. Understanding what topics aroused the greatest interest among the people, he created popular and in-demand products. Thus, his first big income came from battle sketches and maps with explanations of military actions, which he published during the Russian-Turkish War.
In 1879, Sytin bought a house on Pyatnitskaya Street, where he already installed two lithographic machines, and three years later he registered the I.D. Partnership. Sytin and Co., whose fixed capital was 75 thousand rubles. At the All-Russian Art Exhibition, Sytin’s products were awarded a bronze medal, and by the end of the 1890s, his printing houses produced almost three million pictures and about two million calendars annually.
Ivan Sytin's store in Nizhny Novgorod. Photo: livelib.ru
Ivan Sytin in his office. Photo: rusplt.ru
The building of the Sytinskaya printing house on Pyatnitskaya street, Moscow. Photo: vc.ru
Classics in circulation
In 1884, in St. Petersburg, on the initiative of the writer Leo Tolstoy, the Posrednik publishing house was opened, which was supposed to publish inexpensive books for the people, and Sytin was invited to cooperate. These books cost a little more than popular prints and did not sell as quickly, but for Sytin their publication was a “sacred service.” “Mediator” published spiritual and moral literature, translated fiction, popular and reference books, and art albums. Thanks to his work with the “Mediator”, Sytin met many significant figures in the literary and artistic life of Moscow: writers Maxim Gorky and Vladimir Korolenko, artists Vasily Surikov and Ilya Repin.
Sytin made the works of the best writers of the 19th century accessible to a huge number of people. In 1887, he surprised his contemporaries: he risked publishing the collected works of Alexander Pushkin in a circulation of 100 thousand copies. “Alexander Sergeevich” for 80 kopecks in 10 volumes was sold out in a few days, like a similar edition of Gogol. After Tolstoy's death, it was Sytin who agreed to publish the complete collected works of the writer - in an expensive 10,000th edition and a 100,000th edition available to less wealthy people. The proceeds from the sale were used to purchase the lands of Yasnaya Polyana for transfer into ownership of the peasants, as Tolstoy bequeathed. The publisher did not actually earn anything at that time, but his action received a great response in society.
Fourth Estate
Of many writers, Sytin was especially close to Anton Chekhov. The playwright predicted great success for him in the newspaper business. The idea of publishing a popular, publicly accessible newspaper soon became a reality. In 1897, the Partnership I.D. Sytin" bought "Russian Word", whose circulation he managed to increase hundreds of times. The best journalists of that time wrote for the newspaper: Vladimir Gilyarovsky, Vlas Doroshevich, Fyodor Blagov. The record circulation of the publication after February 1917 reached 1.2 million copies. Today we would call Sytin a media tycoon - in addition to “Russian Word”, his partnership owned 9 newspapers and 20 magazines, one of which is still published under its original name - “Around the World”.
Sytin began to carry out various tasks on behalf of the government, for example, organizing an exhibition of Russian paintings in the USA, and negotiating concessions with Germany. In 1928, he was assigned a personal pension, and his family was assigned an apartment on Tverskaya.
On November 23, 1934, Ivan Sytin died and was buried at the Vvedensky cemetery, where a monument with a bas-relief of the publisher was erected. And the apartment on Tverskaya, where Sytin lived the last years of his life, became his museum.
At one of the audiences with Finance Minister Sergei Witte, Sytin said: “Our task is broad, almost limitless: we want to eliminate illiteracy in Russia and make textbooks and books a national property.”. He did not have time, as he wanted, to build a paper factory, but he managed to prepare 440 textbooks, 47 “Self-Education Library” books on philosophy, history, economics and natural science, several original encyclopedias: military, children's, folk. Sytin not only made the book accessible - he knew how to awaken in the reader curiosity for new and new knowledge.
Material prepared by Elena Ivanova
Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin -
native of Kostroma land -
largest book publisher in Russia.
Throughout my life I have believed and believe in one force that
helps me overcome all the hardships of life...
I believe in the future of Russian enlightenment,
into the Russian person, by virtue of light and knowledge.
I.D.Sytin
In the history of Russian book publishing there was no more popular and better known figure than Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin. Every fourth of the books published in Russia before the October Revolution was associated with his name, as well as the most widespread magazines and newspapers in the country. In total, over the years of his publishing activity, he published at least 500 million books, a huge figure, even by modern standards. Therefore, without exaggeration, we can say that all literate and illiterate Russia knew him. Millions of children learned to read from his alphabets and primers, millions of adults in the farthest corners of Russia, through his cheap editions, first became acquainted with the works of Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol and many other Russian classics.
Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin was born on February 5, 1851 in the village of Gnezdikovo, Soligalichsky district. Ivan was the eldest of four children of Dmitry Gerasimovich and Olga Alexandrovna Sytin.
His father came from economic peasants and, as the best student, was taken from elementary school to the city to train as a volost clerk and all his life he was an exemplary senior clerk in the district. My father’s roots went to the village of Konteevo, Buisky district. He was an intelligent and capable man, so he was terribly burdened by his monotonous position and sometimes drank out of grief. In his memoirs, Sytin writes: “Parents, constantly in need of the basic necessities, paid little attention to us. I studied at rural school, here, under the volost government. The textbooks were the Slavic alphabet, the book of hours, the psalter and elementary arithmetic. The school was one-class, the teaching was completely careless, at times it was strict, including punishments of flogging, kneeling on peas and slaps on the head, and kneeling in the corner for hours. The teacher sometimes showed up to class drunk. The result of all this was complete dissoluteness of the students and neglect of their lessons. I left school lazy and disgusted with science and books...”
During one rather prolonged seizure, Dmitry Sytin found himself fired from his job. The family moved to Galich. Life has gotten better. Ivan's position also changed. He was entrusted to Uncle Vasily, a furrier. Together they went to Nizhny Novgorod to peddle at the fair fur things. Things went well for Ivan: he was energetic, helpful, worked a lot, which served his uncle and the owner from whom they took the goods for sale. By the end of the fair, he received his first salary of 25 rubles, and they wanted to “assign” him to Yelabuga as a “boy for a painter.” But the uncle advised the parents to wait when choosing a place. Vanya stayed at home for a year. And in the next fair season, the merchant for whom Ivan worked noticed that the boy’s business was going well, and took him with him to Kolomna. From there, 15-year-old Ivan Sytin came to Moscow with a letter of recommendation to the merchant Sharapov, who held two trades at the Ilyinsky Gate - furs and books. By a lucky coincidence, Sharapov did not have a place in the fur shop where well-wishers intended Ivan, and on September 14, 1866, Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin began his countdown of serving the book.
It would seem that he is a man with three classes of education, with a complete aversion to science and books. What future awaits him? But thanks to his diligence and hard work, he was able to move to Moscow and prove himself there.
The difficult path to fame begins for Ivan Dmitrievich in the book and art shop of the Moscow merchant Pyotr Sharapov. The merchant dealt mainly with furs and paid little attention to books, entrusting them to his clerks. Book products were mainly popular prints of religious content. Every year, small traders, small traders, came to Sharapov to buy popular prints. Then they distributed the book goods throughout the Russian outback, along with household items and cheap jewelry.
Ivan sold books, and also ran on the water, brought firewood and cleaned his owner’s boots. Sharapov looked closely at Ivan, and from the age of seventeen, Sytin began accompanying carts with popular goods, traded at the Nizhny Novgorod fair, and became better acquainted with the ofeni. Soon he becomes an assistant to the manager of a shop in Nizhny Novgorod. He managed to create a whole network of peddlers, the success exceeded all expectations.
The year 1876 was a turning point in the life of the future book publisher. At twenty-five years old, Sytin married the daughter of a Moscow pastry chef, Evdokia Sokolova, receiving 4 thousand rubles as a dowry.
Ivan Dmitrievich and Evdokia Ivanovna Sytin with their children - Nikolai, Vasily, Vladimir and Maria.
With this money, as well as 3 thousand rubles borrowed from Sharapov, he opened his lithography near the Dorogomilovsky Bridge in December 1876. At first, the enterprise was located in three small rooms and had only one lithographic machine on which popular prints were printed. The apartment was located nearby. Every morning Sytin himself cut the paintings, put them in bundles and took them to Sharapov’s shop, where he continued to work. This lithograph was no different from many others located in the capital.
The opening of a small lithographic workshop is considered the moment of birth of the largest printing enterprise MPO “First Exemplary Printing House”.
The Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878 helped Sytin rise above the level of owners of popular print publishing houses like him. “On the day war was declared,” he later recalled, “I ran to the Kuznetsky Bridge, bought a map of Bessarabia and Romania and told the master to copy part of the map during the night indicating the place where our troops crossed the Prut. At 5 o'clock in the morning the card was ready and put into the machine with the inscription “For newspaper readers. Allowance." The card was instantly sold out. Later, as the troops moved, the card also changed. For three months I traded alone.No one thought to disturb me." Thanks to this successful invention, Sytin’s enterprise began to flourish - already in 1878 he paid off all his debts and became the sole owner of the lithography.
Ivan Dmitrievich fought for the quality of the goods from the first steps. In addition, he had entrepreneurial savvy and responded quickly to customer demand. He knew how to take advantage of any occasion. Lithographic pictures were in great demand. Merchants bargained not on price, but on quantity. There weren't enough goods for everyone.
After six years of hard work and search, Sytin’s products were noticed at the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition in Moscow. Popular prints were exhibited here. Having seen them, the famous academician of painting Mikhail Botkin began to strongly advise Sytin to print copies of paintings by famous artists and start replicating good reproductions. The case was new. Whether it will bring benefits or not is difficult to say. Ivan Dmitrievich took a risk. He felt that such “high-quality products will find their wide buyer.”
Popular publications by I.D. Sytin.
The following year, Sytin purchased his own house on Pyatnitskaya Street, moved his enterprise there and bought another lithographic machine. From that time on, his business began to expand rapidly.
During four years He fulfilled Sharapov's orders under contract in his lithography and delivered printed editions to his bookstore. And on January 1, 1883, Sytin opened his own bookstore of very modest size on Old Square. Trade went briskly.
From here, Sytin's popular prints and books packed into boxes began their journey to remote corners of Russia. Authors of publications often appeared in the shop; L.N. visited several times. Tolstoy, who was talking with the ofenians, looked closely at to the young owner. In February of the same year, the book publishing company “I.D.” was already established. Sytin and Co.” At first the books were not of high taste. Their authors, for the sake of consumers of the Nikolsky market, did not neglect plagiarism and subjected some works of classics to “remakes”.
I.D. Sytin and L.N. Tolstoy.
“With instinct and conjecture, I realized how far we were from real literature, wrote Sytin. “But the traditions of the popular book trade were very tenacious and they had to be broken with patience.”
But in the fall of 1884, a handsome young man walked into a shop on Old Square. “My last name is Chertkov,” he introduced himself and took out three thin books and one manuscript from his pocket. These were the stories of N. Leskov, I. Turgenev and Tolstoy’s “How People Live.” Chertkov represented the interests of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and proposed more meaningful books for the people. They were supposed to replace the vulgar publications that were being published and be extremely cheap, at the same price as the previous ones - 80 kopecks per hundred. This is how the new cultural and educational publishing house “Posrednik” began its activities, because Sytin willingly accepted the offer. In the first four years alone, the Posrednik company released 12 million copies of elegant books with works by famous Russian writers, the covers of which were drawn by artists Repin, Kivshenko, Savitsky and others.
I.D. Sytin, V.G. Chertkov and A.I. Ertel.
Sytin understood that the people needed not only these publications, but also others that directly contributed to the education of the people. In the same 1884, Sytin’s first “General Calendar for 1885” appeared at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair.
“I looked at the calendar as a universal reference book“like an encyclopedia for all occasions,” wrote Ivan Dmitrievich. He placed appeals to readers on calendars and consulted with them about improving these publications.
In 1885, Sytin bought the printing house of the publisher Orlov with five printing presses, type and equipment for publishing calendars, and selected qualified editors. He entrusted the design to first-class artists, and consulted with L.N. about the content of the calendars. Tolstoy. Sytinsky’s “Universal Calendar” reached an unprecedented circulation of six million copies. He also published tear-off “diaries”.
The extraordinary popularity of calendars required a gradual increase in the number of their titles: by 1916, their number reached 21 with a multi-million circulation of each of them. The business expanded, income grew... In 1884, Sytin opened a second bookstore in Moscow on Nikolskaya Street.
In 1885, with the acquisition of its own printing house and the expansion of the lithography on Pyatnitskaya Street, the subjects of Sytin publications were replenished with new directions. In 1889, a book publishing partnership was established under the company I.D. Sytin with a capital of 110 thousand rubles.
The energetic and sociable Sytin became close to progressive figures of Russian culture, learned a lot from them, making up for his lack of education.
Since 1889, he attended meetings of the Moscow Literacy Committee, which paid much attention to the publication of books for the people. Together with figures of public education D. Tikhomirov, L. Polivanov, V. Bekhterev, N. Tulupov and others, Sytin publishes brochures and paintings recommended by the Literacy Committee, publishes a series of folk books under the motto “Truth”, conducts preparations, and then begins publishing with 1895 series “Library for self-education”.
Having become a member of the Russian Bibliographic Society at Moscow University in 1890, Ivan Dmitrievich assumed the costs of publishing the journal “Book Science” in his printing house. The society elected I. D. Sytin as its lifelong member.
Ivan Sytin at his desk in his printing house.
The great merit of I. D. Sytin was not only that he published cheap Russian and foreign publications in mass quantities literary classics, but also in the fact that he published numerous visual aids, educational literature for educational institutions And extracurricular reading, many popular science series designed for a variety of tastes and interests. WITH great love Sytin published colorful books and fairy tales for children, children's magazines. In 1891, together with the printing house, he acquired his first periodical - the magazine “Around the World”.
The annual publication of wholesale and retail catalogues, including thematic ones, often illustrated, enabled the Partnership to widely advertise its publications, ensure their timely and qualified sale through wholesale warehouses and bookstores.
Acquaintance with A.P. Chekhov in 1893 had a beneficial effect on the activities of the book publisher. It was Anton Pavlovich who insisted that Sytin begin publishing a newspaper. In 1897, the Partnership acquired the previously unpopular newspaper “Russian Word”, changed its direction, and in a short time turned this publication into a large enterprise, inviting talented progressive journalists - Blagov, Amfiteatrov, Doroshevich, Gilyarovsky, G. Petrov, Vas. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko and others. The newspaper's circulation at the beginning of the 20th century was close to a million copies.
Zda printing house of the Partnership I.D. Sytin in Moscow.
At the same time, I.D. Sytin improved and expanded his business: he bought paper, new machines, built new buildings of his factory (as he called the printing houses on Pyatnitskaya and Valovaya streets). By 1905, three buildings had already been erected. Sytin, with the help of his associates and members of the Partnership, constantly conceived and implemented new publications. For the first time, the publication of multi-volume encyclopedias was undertaken - Folk, Children's, Military. In 1911, the magnificent publication “The Great Reform” was published, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom. In 1912 - a multi-volume anniversary publication “The Patriotic War of 1612 and Russian society. 1812-1912″.
Patriotic War and Russian society 1812-1912. Anniversary edition of Sytin.
In 1913 - a historical study about the tercentenary of the House of Romanov - “Three Centuries”. At the same time, the Partnership also published the following books: “What does the peasant need?”, “Modern socio-political dictionary” (which explained the concepts of “social democratic party”, “dictatorship of the proletariat”, “capitalism”), as well as “Fantastic truths” “Amphiteatrova - about the pacification of the “rebels” of 1905.
Anniversary edition “Three Centuries”.
Sytin's active publishing activities often aroused dissatisfaction with the authorities. Increasingly, censorship slingshots appeared in the way of many publications, circulations of some books were confiscated, and the distribution of free textbooks and anthologies in schools through the efforts of the publisher was considered as an undermining of state foundations. The police department opened a “case” against Sytin. And it’s not surprising: one of the richest people in Russia did not favor the powers that be. Coming from the people, he warmly sympathized with the working people, his workers, and believed that the level of their talent and resourcefulness was extremely high, but due to the lack of school, technical training was insufficient and weak. “...Oh, if only these workers could be given a real school!” - he wrote. And he created such a school at the printing house. So in 1903, the Partnership established a school of technical drawing and engineering, the first graduation of which took place in 1908. When enrolling in the school, preference was given to the children of employees and workers of the Partnership, as well as residents of villages and hamlets with primary education. General education was supplemented in evening classes. Training and full maintenance of students was carried out at the expense of the Partnership.
School of technical drawing and technical business at the printing house.
The authorities called the Sytin printing house a “hornet’s nest.” This is due to the fact that Sytin workers were active participants in the revolutionary movement. They stood in the first ranks of the rebels in 1905 and published an issue of “Izvestia of the Moscow Council of Workers’ Deputies” announcing a general political strike in Moscow on December 7. And on December 12, at night, retribution followed: by order of the authorities, the Sytin printing house was set on fire. The walls and ceilings of the recently built main building of the factory collapsed, printing equipment, finished editions of publications, paper stocks, art blanks for printing were lost under the rubble... This was a huge loss for an established business. Sytin received sympathetic telegrams, but did not give in to despondency. Within six months, the five-story printing house building was restored. Students art school we restored drawings and cliches, produced originals of new covers, illustrations, and screensavers. New machines were purchased... Work continued.
Sytin's network of bookselling enterprises also expanded. By 1917, Sytin had four stores in Moscow, two in Petrograd, as well as stores in Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, Yekaterinburg, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, Irkutsk, Saratov, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Warsaw and Sofia (together with Suvorin).
Bookstore I.D. Sytin in Yekaterinburg. 1913
Each store, in addition to retail trade, was engaged in wholesale operations. Sytin came up with the idea of delivering books and magazines to factories. Orders for delivery of publications based on published catalogs were completed within two to ten days, since the system for sending literature by cash on delivery was excellent. In 1916, I.D. celebrated 50 years of book publishing. Sytin. The Russian public widely celebrated this anniversary on February 19, 1917. Russian empire lived out her last days. A solemn honoring of Ivan Dmitrievich took place at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow. This event was also marked by the release of a beautifully illustrated literary and artistic collection “Half a Century for the Book (1866 - 1916)”, in the creation of which about 200 authors took part - representatives of science, literature, art, industry, public figures which were highly appreciated extraordinary personality hero of the day and his book publishing and educational activities. Among those who left their autographs along with articles are M. Gorky, A. Kuprin, N. Rubakin, N. Roerich, P. Biryukov and many others wonderful people. The hero of the day received dozens of colorful artistic addresses in luxurious folders, hundreds of greetings and telegrams. They emphasized that the work of I.D. Sytin is driven by a high and bright goal - to give the people the cheapest and most necessary book.
Literary and artistic collection dedicated to the 50th anniversary of I. Sytin’s publishing activity. Printing house of T-va I. D. Sytin, 1916.
Of course, Sytin was not a revolutionary. He was a very rich man, an enterprising businessman who knew how to weigh everything, calculate everything and remain profitable. But his peasant origin, his persistent desire to introduce ordinary people to knowledge and culture contributed to the awakening of national self-awareness. He took the Revolution as an inevitability, for granted, and offered his services Soviet power. “I considered the transition to the faithful master, to the people of the entire factory industry good deed and joined the factory as an unpaid worker,” he wrote in his memoirs. “What made me happy was that the business to which I had devoted a lot of energy in my life was developing well—the book reliably went to the people under the new government.”
First, a free consultant for Gosizdat, then fulfilling various orders of the Soviet government: he negotiated in Germany about a concession for the paper industry for the needs of Soviet book publishing, on instructions from the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, he traveled with a group of cultural figures to the USA to organize an exhibition of paintings by Russian artists, and supervised small printing houses. Books continued to be published under the Sytin publishing house until 1924. In 1918, the first short biography of V.I. was printed under this brand. Lenin. A number of documents and memoirs indicate that Lenin knew Sytin, highly valued his activities and trusted him. It is known that at the beginning of 1918 I.D. Sytin was at a reception with Vladimir Ilyich. Apparently it was then - in Smolny - that the book publisher presented the leader of the revolution with a copy of the anniversary edition “Half a Century for the Book” with the inscription: “Dear Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Iv. Sytin”, which is now kept in Lenin’s personal library in the Kremlin.
"Half a century for the book. 1866-1916 Literary and artistic collection dedicated to the fiftieth anniversary of the publishing activity of I.D. Sytin", Moscow, 1916.
Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin worked until he was 75 years old. The Soviet government recognized Sytin's services to Russian culture and education of the people. In 1928, he was given a personal pension, and an apartment was assigned to him and his family.
It was in the middle of 1928 that I. D. Sytin settled in his last (of four) Moscow apartment at No. 274 on Tverskaya Street in house No. 38 (now Tverskaya St., 12) on the second floor.
Building on Tverskaya. Built by architect A.E. Erichson.
Widowed in 1924, he occupied one small room, in which he lived for seven years, and died here on November 23, 1934. After him, his children and grandchildren continued to live in this apartment. I.D. was buried Sytin at the Vvedensky (German) cemetery.
The memory of Sytin is also captured in the memorial plaque on house number 18 on Tverskaya Street in Moscow, which was installed in 1973 and indicates that the famous book publisher and educator Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin lived here from 1904 to 1928.
Memorial plaque on the house where I.D. Sytin lived (Tverskaya St., 18)
In 1974, at the grave of I.D. Sytin, a monument with a bas-relief of the book publisher was erected at the Vvedensky cemetery (sculptor Y.S. Dines, architect M.M. Volkov).
It is not known with certainty how many publications I.D. published. Sytin throughout his life. However, many Sytin books, albums, calendars, textbooks are stored in libraries, collected by book lovers, and found in used bookstores.
It is also necessary to pay tribute to the fact that the publisher always remembered that he was a native of the Kostroma land. It is known that he sent free periodicals to a number of schools in the Kostroma province, including the newspaper “Russian Word” that he published. In several cities of the province there were bookstores that distributed his books. In 1899, especially for Kostroma, Sytin published a catalog of the Kostromich book warehouse, which provided the province with books, newspapers and magazines. Of the nearly 4,000 items in the catalog, more than 600 were offered by the Sytin Partnership and the Intermediary.
Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin - the largest book publisher in Russia
On December 19, 1876, the largest book publisher in Russia, Ivan Dmitrievich SYTIN, started his own business.
The future book publisher was born under serfdom on January 25 (February 5), 1851 in the small village of Gnezdnikovo, Soligalichsky district, Kostroma province. Ivan was the eldest of four children of Dmitry Gerasimovich and Olga Aleksandrovna Sytin. His father came from economic peasants and served as a volost clerk. The family was constantly in need of the basic necessities and 12-year-old Vanyusha had to go to work. His working life began at the Nizhny Novgorod fair, where a tall, smart and diligent boy beyond his years helped a furrier peddle fur products. He also tried himself as an apprentice painter. Everything changed when, on September 13, 1866, 15-year-old Ivan Sytin arrived in Moscow with a letter of recommendation to the merchant Sharapov, who held two trades at the Ilyinsky Gate - furs and books. By a lucky coincidence, Sharapov did not have a place in the fur shop where well-wishers intended Ivan, and on September 14, 1866, Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin began his countdown of serving the Book.
The patriarchal merchant-Old Believer Pyotr Nikolaevich Sharapov, a well-known publisher of popular prints, song books and dream books at that time, became the first teacher and then the patron of the executive teenager, who did not disdain any menial work, carefully and diligently fulfilling any order of the owner. Only four years later Vanya began to receive a salary - five rubles a month. Tenacity, perseverance, hard work, and the desire to expand knowledge appealed to the elderly owner who had no children. An inquisitive and sociable student of his gradually became Sharapov’s confidant, helped sell books and pictures, and selected simple literature for numerous ofeni - village bookstores, sometimes illiterate and judging the merits of books by their covers. Then the owner began to entrust Ivan with conducting trade at the Nizhny Novgorod fair, accompanying convoys with popular prints to Ukraine and to some cities and villages of Russia.
The year 1876 was a turning point in the life of the future book publisher: having married Evdokia Ivanovna Sokolova, the daughter of a Moscow merchant-confectioner, and having received four thousand rubles as a dowry, he borrowed three thousand from Sharapov and bought his first lithographic machine. On December 7, 1876, I. D. Sytin opened a lithographic workshop on Voronukhina Gora near the Dorogomilovsky Bridge, which gave birth to a huge publishing business.
The opening of a small lithographic workshop is considered the moment of birth of the largest printing enterprise MPO "First Exemplary Printing House". Sytin's first lithograph was more than modest - three rooms. At first, printed publications were not much different from the mass products of the Nikolsky market. But Sytin was very inventive: with the beginning of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, he began to produce maps indicating military operations with an inscription; "For newspaper readers. A manual" and battle paintings. The product sold out instantly, bringing decent income to the publisher. In 1878, the lithography became the property of I. D. Sytin, and the next year he had the opportunity to buy his own house on Pyatnitskaya Street and equip the lithography in a new location, purchasing additional printing equipment.
Participation in the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition of 1882 and receiving a bronze medal (he could not count on more because of his peasant origin) for book exhibits brought Sytin fame. For four years, he fulfilled Sharapov’s orders under contract in his lithography and delivered printed editions to his bookstore. And on January 1, 1883, Sytin opened his own bookstore of very modest size on Old Square. Trade went briskly. From here, Sytin's popular prints and books packed into boxes began their journey to remote corners of Russia. Authors of publications often appeared in the shop, L.N. Tolstoy visited more than once, talking with the ladies and looking closely at the young owner. In February of the same year, the book publishing company I. D. Sytin and Co. was already established. At first the books were not of high taste. Their authors, for the sake of consumers of the Nikolsky market, did not neglect plagiarism and subjected some works of classics to “remakes”.
“With instinct and guesswork, I understood how far we were from real literature,” wrote Sytin. “But the traditions of the popular book trade were very tenacious and they had to be broken with patience.”
But then, in the fall of 1884, a handsome young man walked into a shop on Old Square. “My last name is Chertkov,” he introduced himself and took out three thin books and one manuscript from his pocket. These were the stories of N. Leskov, I. Turgenev and Tolstoy’s “How People Live.” Chertkov represented the interests of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and proposed more meaningful books for the people. They were supposed to replace the vulgar publications that were being published and be extremely cheap, at the same price as the previous ones - 80 kopecks per hundred. This is how the new cultural and educational publishing house “Posrednik” began its activities, because Sytin willingly accepted the offer. In the first four years alone, the Posrednik company released 12 million copies of elegant books with works by famous Russian writers, the covers of which were drawn by artists Repin, Kivshenko, Savitsky and others.
Sytin understood that the people needed not only these publications, but also others that directly contributed to the education of the people. In the same 1884, Sytin’s first “General Calendar for 1885” appeared at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair.
“I looked at the calendar as a universal reference book, as an encyclopedia for all occasions,” wrote Ivan Dmitrievich. He placed appeals to readers on calendars and consulted with them about improving these publications.
In 1885, Sytin bought the printing house of the publisher Orlov with five printing machines, type and equipment for publishing calendars, and selected qualified editors. He entrusted the design to first-class artists, and consulted with L.N. Tolstoy about the content of the calendars. Sytinsky's "Universal Calendar" reached an unprecedented circulation of six million copies. He also published tear-off “diaries”. The extraordinary popularity of calendars required a gradual increase in the number of their titles: by 1916, their number reached 21 with a multi-million circulation of each of them. The business expanded, income grew... In 1884, Sytin opened a second bookstore in Moscow on Nikolskaya Street. In 1885, with the acquisition of its own printing house and the expansion of the lithography on Pyatnitskaya Street, the subjects of Sytin publications were replenished with new directions. In 1889, a book publishing partnership was established under the company I. D. Sytin with a capital of 110 thousand rubles.
The energetic and sociable Sytin became close to progressive figures of Russian culture, learned a lot from them, making up for his lack of education. Since 1889, he attended meetings of the Moscow Literacy Committee, which paid much attention to the publication of books for the people. Together with figures of public education D. Tikhomirov, L. Polivanov, V. Bekhterev, N. Tulupov and others, Sytin publishes brochures and paintings recommended by the Literacy Committee, publishes a series of folk books under the motto "Truth", conducts preparations, and then begins publishing with 1895 series "Library for self-education". Having become a member of the Russian Bibliographic Society at Moscow University in 1890, Ivan Dmitrievich assumed the costs of publishing the journal “Book Science” in his printing house. The society elected I. D. Sytin as its lifelong member.
The great merit of I. D. Sytin was not only that he produced cheap editions of Russian and foreign literary classics in mass editions, but also that he produced numerous visual aids, educational literature for educational institutions and extracurricular reading, many scientific- popular series designed for a variety of tastes and interests. With great love, Sytin published colorful books and fairy tales for children, children's magazines. In 1891, together with the printing house, he acquired his first periodical - the magazine "Around the World".
At the same time, I. D. Sytin improved and expanded his business: he bought paper, new machines, built new buildings of his factory (as he called the printing houses on Pyatnitskaya and Valovaya streets). By 1905, three buildings had already been erected. Sytin, with the help of his associates and members of the Partnership, constantly conceived and implemented new publications. For the first time, the publication of multi-volume encyclopedias - People's, Children's, and Military - was undertaken. In 1911, the magnificent publication “The Great Reform” was published, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom. In 1912, a multi-volume anniversary edition "The Patriotic War of 1612 and Russian Society. 1812-1912" was published. In 1913 - a historical study about the tercentenary of the House of Romanov - "Three Centuries". At the same time, the Partnership also published the following books: “What does the peasant need?”, “Modern socio-political dictionary” (which explained the concepts of “social democratic party”, “dictatorship of the proletariat”, “capitalism”), as well as “Fantastic truths” "Amphiteatrova - about the pacification of the "rebels" of 1905.
Sytin's active publishing activities often aroused dissatisfaction with the authorities. Increasingly, censorship slingshots appeared in the way of many publications, circulations of some books were confiscated, and the distribution of free textbooks and anthologies in schools through the efforts of the publisher was considered as an undermining of state foundations. The police department opened a “case” against Sytin. And it’s not surprising: one of the richest people in Russia did not favor the powers that be. Coming from the people, he warmly sympathized with the working people, his workers, and believed that the level of their talent and resourcefulness was extremely high, but due to the lack of school, technical training was insufficient and weak. "...Oh, if only these workers could be given a real school!" - he wrote. And he created such a school at the printing house. So in 1903, the Partnership established a school of technical drawing and engineering, the first graduation of which took place in 1908. When enrolling in the school, preference was given to the children of employees and workers of the Partnership, as well as residents of villages and hamlets with primary education. General education was supplemented in evening classes. Training and full maintenance of students was carried out at the expense of the Partnership.
The authorities called the Sytin printing house a “hornet’s nest.” This is due to the fact that Sytin workers were active participants in the revolutionary movement. They stood in the first ranks of the rebels in 1905 and published an issue of Izvestia of the Moscow Council of Workers' Deputies announcing a general political strike in Moscow on December 7. And on December 12, at night, retribution followed: by order of the authorities, the Sytin printing house was set on fire. The walls and ceilings of the recently built main building of the factory collapsed, printing equipment, finished editions of publications, paper stocks, art blanks for printing were lost under the rubble... This was a huge loss for an established business. Sytin received sympathetic telegrams, but did not give in to despondency. Within six months, the five-story printing house building was restored. Art school students restored drawings and cliches, and produced originals of new covers, illustrations, and screensavers. New machines were purchased... Work continued.
Sytin's network of bookselling enterprises also expanded. By 1917, Sytin had four stores in Moscow, two in Petrograd, as well as stores in Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, Yekaterinburg, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, Irkutsk, Saratov, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Warsaw and Sofia (together with Suvorin). Each store, in addition to retail trade, was engaged in wholesale operations. Sytin came up with the idea of delivering books and magazines to factories. Orders for delivery of publications based on published catalogs were completed within two to ten days, since the system for sending literature by cash on delivery was excellent. In 1916, I. D. Sytin celebrated his 50th anniversary of book publishing. The Russian public widely celebrated this anniversary on February 19, 1917. The Russian Empire was living its last days. A solemn honoring of Ivan Dmitrievich took place at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow. This event was also marked by the release of a beautifully illustrated literary and artistic collection “Half a Century for the Book (1866 - 1916)”, in the creation of which about 200 authors took part - representatives of science, literature, art, industry, public figures, who highly appreciated the extraordinary personality of the hero of the day and his book publishing and educational activities. Among those who left their autographs along with articles one can name M. Gorky, A. Kuprin, N. Rubakin, N. Roerich, P. Biryukov and many other wonderful people. The hero of the day received dozens of colorful artistic addresses in luxurious folders, hundreds of greetings and telegrams. They emphasized that the work of I. D. Sytin is driven by a high and bright goal - to give the people the cheapest and most necessary book. Of course, Sytin was not a revolutionary. He was a very rich man, an enterprising businessman who knew how to weigh everything, calculate everything and remain profitable. But his peasant origin, his persistent desire to introduce ordinary people to knowledge and culture contributed to the awakening of national self-awareness. He took the Revolution as inevitable, for granted, and offered his services to Soviet power. “I considered the transition to a faithful owner, to the people of the entire factory industry, a good thing and entered the factory as an unpaid worker,” he wrote in his memoirs. “I was glad that the business to which I had devoted a lot of energy in my life was developing well - book under the new government it reliably went to the people."
First, a free consultant for Gosizdat, then fulfilling various orders of the Soviet government: he negotiated in Germany about a concession for the paper industry for the needs of Soviet book publishing, on instructions from the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, he traveled with a group of cultural figures to the USA to organize an exhibition of paintings by Russian artists, and managed small printing houses. Books continued to be published under the Sytin publishing house until 1924. In 1918, the first short biography of V.I. Lenin was printed under this brand. A number of documents and memoirs indicate that Lenin knew Sytin, highly valued his activities and trusted him. It is known that at the beginning of 1918 I. D. Sytin was at a reception with Vladimir Ilyich. Apparently it was then - in Smolny - that the book publisher presented the leader of the revolution with a copy of the anniversary edition “Half a Century for the Book” with the inscription: “Dearly respected Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Iv. Sytin,” which is now kept in Lenin’s personal library in the Kremlin.
Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin worked until he was 75 years old. The Soviet government recognized Sytin's services to Russian culture and education of the people. In 1928, he was given a personal pension, and an apartment was assigned to him and his family.
It was in the middle of 1928 that I. D. Sytin settled in his last (of four) Moscow apartment at No. 274 on Tverskaya Street in house No. 38 (now Tverskaya St., 12) on the second floor. Widowed in 1924, he occupied one small room, in which he lived for seven years, and died here on November 23, 1934. After him, his children and grandchildren continued to live in this apartment. I. D. Sytin was buried at the Vvedensky (German) cemetery.
Great interest is constantly shown in the name and heritage of I. D. Sytin. Articles and books are written about him, dissertations are prepared.
But the most significant source for studying the life and work of the largest Russian book publisher and educator are his own memories and the testimonies of his contemporaries.
Sytin's memoirs first appeared in the already mentioned anniversary edition"Half a century for the book" in 1916. In the early twenties they were continued, but were not published. Only at the end of the fifties, the youngest son of a book publisher, Dmitry Ivanovich, found in family archive father’s manuscript and took it to Politizdat, and already in 1960 the publication “Life for a Book” appeared, printed in 1962. On the basis of this publication and under the same title, I. D. Sytin’s memoirs “Pages of Experience”, together with the memoirs of his contemporaries about him, were published by the Kniga publishing house in 1978 (with the dedication of the First Exemplary Printing House on the 100th anniversary of its founding by Sytin), and in 1985 the second expanded edition of this book. Two editions of K. Konichev’s novel “Russian Nugget” were published: 1966 - Leningrad and 1967 - Yaroslavl. An interesting book-research "I. D. Sytin" in the series "Book Workers" was published by the publishing house "Book" in 1983 (author - E. A. Dinershtein).
In 1990, the American scientist, Professor Charles Ruud published a book in Canada in English, “Russian Entrepreneur: Book Publisher Ivan Sytin from Moscow, 1851 -1934.” "Tsentrnauchfilm" created a color documentary film "Life for a Book. I. D. Sytin" based on the script by Yu. Zakrevsky and E. Osetrova (director Yu. A. Zakrevsky). Millions of television viewers became acquainted with it.
The memory of Sytin is also captured in the memorial plaque on house number 18 on Tverskaya Street in Moscow, which was installed in 1973 and indicates that the famous book publisher and educator Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin lived here from 1904 to 1928. In 1974, a monument with a bas-relief of the book publisher was erected at the grave of I. D. Sytin at the Vvedensky Cemetery (sculptor Yu. S. Dines, architect M. M. Volkov).
It is not known with certainty how many publications I. D. Sytin published during his entire life. However, many Sytin books, albums, calendars, textbooks are stored in libraries, collected by book lovers, and found in used bookstores.
Book publishing house I.D. Sytin as an example of the successful combination of educational and entrepreneurial activities in pre-revolutionary Russia.
Ivan Sytin was born in 1851 in the village
Gnezdnikovo, Kostroma province. His father was the senior clerk in the area, but suffered mental disorder, from time to time he left home, quit his job, wandered, and eventually lost his job. Even when my father worked, his earnings were barely enough to buy food. Ivan studied at a rural primary school, but did not feel any particular desire to study. He recalled: “I left school lazy and disgusted with studying and books - so disgusted was cramming by heart after three years. I knew the entire psalter and book of hours from word to word, and nothing but words remained in my head.”
Sytin never received a university education, he did not even graduate from parish school. However, when certifying him, the famous cadet publicist I.V. Gessen wrote that “he was a genuine genius with a strong self-awareness and great ambition.”
Ivan had an inquisitive, lively mind, practical acumen, and was strong and resilient beyond his years. He began his entrepreneurial activity by helping his furrier uncle sell furs at the Nizhny Novgorod fair. In 1866, Sytin, through an acquaintance, was assigned to the Moscow merchant P.N. Sharapov, the owner of a book, art and furrier's shop on the Nikolsky market. This was the start of his luck, which never left him: Ivan was accepted into the Sharapov family as one of their own.
Until the age of 18, Sytin “lived as a boy, then for seven years he ran a trading business,” which, according to him, provided nothing other than professional skills and physical work.
Sharapov's shop supplied small traders with traditional goods - songbooks, letter books, fairy tales, popular prints, mainly of religious content. However, by selling these widely distributed publications, Sytin sensed the enormous opportunities of the publishing industry in Russia, established relationships with small traders, who over time turned into experienced booksellers, through whom he later distributed huge circulations of books published by his publishing house. At the same time, Ivan Sytin realized that it was extremely unprofitable to act as an intermediary between printers and traders, while in fact being completely dependent on manufacturers of printed materials.
Ivan outlined his arguments in favor of opening his own publishing house to the owner. And he, who did not like innovations, agreed with his arguments and gave him money to acquire his own lithographic workshop. Sytin bought a high-quality lithographic machine in France, and hired a small qualified staff to work in the workshop: two printers, several draftsmen, five workers. So, at the age of twenty-five, with the help of P.N. Sharapova Sytin opened a small lithography in September 1876 in the area of current Kutuzovsky Prospekt. A year later, he moved it to Pyatnitskaya Street and expanded his enterprise. The first products of Sytin's workshop - beautifully executed lithographs and popular print books on the most popular topics among the common people - have already found demand. And later, Sytin sensitively captured the mood of the masses, so, during the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, his workshop produced a whole series of battle paintings and maps of military operations. I.D. Sytin recalled how on the day war was declared, he ran to the Kuznetsky Bridge, bought a map of Bessarabia and Romania and ordered the master to copy part of the map during the night indicating the place where our troops crossed the Prut. At 5 o'clock in the morning the card was ready and put into the machine with the inscription: “For newspaper readers. Allowance." The entire circulation of cards was immediately sold out. Later, as the troops moved, the map changed. However, for three months, only Sytin alone sold them; he had no competitors. There were many orders for printed products, but the amounts of money coming from the sale of cards and paintings were used very rationally.
Over time, Sytin becomes one of the most famous publishers of books for the public reader. In 1882, his publishing house was awarded a bronze medal at the All-Russian Exhibition.
On January 1, 1883, a new bookstore was opened at the Ilyinsky Gate on Old Square in Moscow, its owner was Ivan Sytin. The trade was so successful that within a few months Sytin and three of his employees entered into an agreement with each other to establish the I. Partnership. D. Sytin and Co. with a fixed capital of 75 rubles. It was one of the first Russian joint-stock publishing houses. “The influx of capital,” Sytin wrote, “revived the young business, and the field for enterprise and trade initiative immediately expanded.” Thus, in 1910, the I.D. Sytin Partnership had two well-equipped printing complexes in Moscow alone; more than two thousand people worked in the publishing house.
The partnership annually received a gigantic profit due to the difference between the selling price of the product and the minimum cost, and excess profit due to rapid sales and capital turnover.
E. Dinerstein writes about Sytin: “His biography is also a page in the history of Russian books, for largely thanks to his personal efforts, literature for the people, which was commonly called “Vanka’s literature,” overcame its vacuity and became a phenomenon in the cultural life of the country " Popular publications and all kinds of calendars for a long time brought I.D. Sytin gained wide fame and constant income, which ultimately made it possible to begin publishing popular science, practical, fiction and children's literature. At first the publishing house typically published folk literature, such as “Eruslan Lazarevich”. But later the partnership publishes more serious, high-quality literature. Among the works published by the partnership, the most popular books were the posthumous collected works of L.N. Tolstoy, " Military encyclopedia", "Children's Encyclopedia", works dedicated to Patriotic War 1812, peasant reform of 1861, etc.
Sytin began collaborating with Posrednik, a publishing house created by a small group of people united around L.N. Tolstoy. Thanks to Sytin, the “Mediator” was able to quickly and widely expand its activities, and Ivan Dmitrievich, with the help of the “Mediator”, made acquaintance with the best representatives of the Russian intelligentsia - L. Tolstoy, V. Korolenko and others. In November 1884, the publisher met with the director “The Mediator” V.G. Chertkov, friend L.N. Tolstoy, and since 1928 his editor full meeting works in 90 volumes.
Sytin called the next decade of collaboration with Chertkov the “second stage” of his life. He said that, thanks to cooperation with him, he “understood what literature is and what it means to be a publisher of books for the people.” In large editions, cheap books of “The Mediator” with the works of L.N. Tolstoy, N.S. Leskova, V.M. Garshina, G.I. Uspensky, A.P. Chekhova, V.G. Korolenko, A.I. Ertelya, K.M. Stanyukovich and others spread throughout Russia, despite the opposition of the authorities.
The third stage of Sytin’s life, as he admitted, was establishing contacts with people united around the liberal “Russian Vedomosti” and “Russian Thought”.
A new direction of work for Sytin's publishing house is the publication of mass newspapers and magazines (Around the World, Niva, Iskra, etc.). So, since 1887, Ivan Dmitrievich, with the help of the famous lawyer F.N. Plevako became the publisher of the newspaper “Russian Word”, which at the beginning of 1917 was distributed by only one subscription in the amount of over one million. This success of the publication was ensured due to its position: a sympathetic attitude towards the revolution of 1905, protests against the national policy of autocracy. After the October Revolution, the newspaper was closed and the printing house was nationalized. However, I.D. Sytin accepted the new government and began to actively cooperate with it. The author of the first books and leaflets he published under Soviet rule was M. Gorky.
Partnership I.D. Sytin published books on a wide range of topics: school textbooks, popular science, applied and children's books. The works of classics of Russian literature were printed in large editions: A.S. Pushkina, N.V. Gogol, L.N. Tolstoy. Much attention was paid to anniversary and encyclopedic publications, calendars, colorful posters and posters, paintings spiritual content. Sytin's publishing house also published portraits of the Emperor. Some researchers are inclined to note that among Sytin’s publications there was a lot of low-grade literature such as oracles, dream books, etc. But their publication was largely justified - to end of the 19th century centuries, four-fifths of the Russian population was still illiterate.
E. Dinerstein sees Sytin’s merit in the fact that “he was always guided by the rule: you cannot wait for the peasant to come for the book, the book must be brought to him. Sytin skillfully organized, by providing extensive credit, an entire army of ofeni, peddlers of goods of this kind. Moreover, he reduced the cost of the main type of folk publications - a leaflet (a brochure of one printed sheet) to an unprecedented price: 80 kopecks per hundred, and they sold each of them for no less than a kopeck.”
Employee Sytin A.V. Rumanov recalled that “when the copyright on Gogol expired, his office presented Sytin with a project for publishing the complete collected works of the writer in the amount of 5,000 copies at 2 rubles per copy; Sytin listened, pushed his glasses onto his forehead, began fiddling with his pencil, calculating something on a piece of paper, and firmly declared: “It’s no good. We’ll publish two hundred thousand fifty rubles each.”
It is no coincidence that during the half-century anniversary of Sytin’s publishing house, newspapers wrote about Ivan Dmitrievich that “commerce was a means for him, not a goal.” Since Sytin sold his products at the lowest prices available to the poorest part of the population, in order not to go bankrupt, he purchased modern, high-performance printing equipment abroad, which made it possible to significantly increase the circulation of books.
“Why was my book cheaper? - said Sytin, speaking at a meeting of Moscow book publishers at the end of 1923. - I bought paper and produced it in the cheapest way possible. All our stationery factories that were in Russia offered paper much more expensive than what I had. I bought paper in Finland and was a third part of the paper
a factory that produced paper for my part under the conditions that were made only for me. They gave a 10-15% discount on paper that I used for textbooks. We did the typographic work in the printing houses that we were part of, which we developed thanks to the special machines necessary technical specifications 50-60% cheaper than in other enterprises. In view of this, I received for 2.5-3.5 kopecks. Vakhterov's primer. He gave 30% off to the merchant, 2.5 kopecks. paid the author 2.5 kopecks. left to the publisher."
M.V. Sabashnikov emphasized at the same meeting that “I.D. Sytin created a universal enterprise with its own printing houses and a mass of retail stores. His fixed capital was 3.5 million rubles, annual turnover reached a huge figure - 18 million rubles per year (1915). It is difficult to talk about the average turnover of capital here for such different enterprises as a newspaper or the publication of a special scientific book. Having his own printing houses, Sytin resorted to three types of credit: 1) paper, 2) bank and 3) subscription-reader. Paper mills provided him with credit for up to 6 months. As for subscribers, they gave Sytin significant working capital, arriving at the cash desk before the beginning of the year. As a conclusion regarding the previous forms, we can assume: they were created on credit - paper, printing, banking and subscription-reader."
Sytin managed to achieve unprecedented success in publishing thanks to his constant desire to improve the quality of publications, in particular popular literature. In the early 80s, he released several popular prints - paintings by the sculptor M.O. Mikeshin, the author of the projects for the monuments “Millennium of Russia” in Novgorod, B. Khmelnitsky in Kyiv, etc., although they were not particularly successful. In 1914, he invited a group of artists led by N.K. to work on the popular print. Roerich, but buyers did not accept the modernized popular print (except for Roerich’s work “The Enemy of the Human Race”).
Sytin recruited only the best masters printing business, artists, never haggling with them on price, demanding from them only one thing - High Quality work.
Ivan Dmitrievich tried to be as demanding as possible when it came to publishing literature of any content. So, he was able to turn calendars into authentic " folk encyclopedias" He made educational literature accessible to children of all classes and attracted the best teachers and scientists to write primers and textbooks (for many years he supported business relationship with Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Ertel, Koni, Morozov and other Russian writers, scientists, teachers). Sytin even tried to create the “School and Knowledge” society, which would publish not only affordable books for the common people, but also manuals for rural teachers (the partnership published more than 400 such publications before the October Revolution, some of them were republished later).
I.D. Sytin organized a whole network of wholesale warehouses and bookstores. Brand stores partnerships were located in many large cities: four in Moscow, two in St. Petersburg, one each in Warsaw, Kyiv, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, Odessa, Kharkov, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Nizhny Novgorod. Thanks to such a wide network of stores and warehouses, as well as extensive connections with other booksellers, Sytin not only established sales of his products, but also received fairly complete information about the sale of products and made changes to the publication plan. -
To protect yourself from social conflicts, the entrepreneur tried to create workers good conditions labor. He did a lot to open the publishing house free school drawing and lithographic techniques, in which the most gifted children of workers and office workers studied, were led by Academician N.A. Kasatkin.
A. Lopatkin writes: “Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin created a completely new type of large commercial printing and publishing enterprise for Russia, and put on stream the production of mass literature for the common people. Partnership I.D. Sytin, in terms of the number of titles and circulation of published literature, firmly occupied first place among Russian publishing firms. So, in 1909, he published 900 titles with a circulation of 12.5 million copies. This represents more than 14 percent of everything that was produced on the Russian book market. And during the period from 1881 to 1909, the Partnership’s publications sold about 300 million copies.”
Ivan Dmitrievich set the ultimate goal of his activities to create the first concern in Russia that would print its books on its own paper, on its own machines and sell its products in its stores.
Sytin dreamed of creating the “House of Books,” the first educational and production plant in Russia for the improvement and development of the book business. To implement this idea, he founded the “Society for Promoting the Improvement and Development of the Book Business in Russia.” In a short time, the society collected more than a million rubles and bought an extensive land plot for the construction of a building.
E. Dinerstein notes: “With light hand formerly famous publicist G.S. Petrov and Sytin were often called “Russian nuggets.” Nature, undoubtedly, endowed Ivan Dmitrievich with many talents, but he made himself the Sytin whom not only the whole of Russia, but the whole world knew. Happy fate brought him together with the country's leading writers, scientists, and teachers. He was a son of his time and, in achieving his life's task, followed seemingly the same paths as all his fellow publishers. They were distinguished only by the scale of their thinking, efficiency and the nature of the goal to which Sytin dedicated his life. Speaking about his personal qualities, one should first of all note his characteristic sense of humor, the ability to self-critically evaluate his actions and a certain firmness that was always felt in everything.”
One of his employees, teacher N.V. Tulupov, spoke of the owner as a sympathetic and kind person: “I’m not saying this in relation to myself, no. He was a responsive and generous person in general towards his employees and workers. True, in his manner he was often unrestrained and rude, but at heart, I repeat, he was a wonderful person.” .
Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin continued to work after the October Revolution, as a consultant at Gosizdat. However, the new government did not need either he himself or the books he printed. .
After the revolution, Sytin’s niche for publishing mass literature was immediately occupied by the state; the process of nationalization of book publishing began precisely with this sector of literature. Therefore, the entrepreneur had to abandon the production of his traditional books. The production of textbooks was brought under strict state control. Ivan Dmitrievich was forced to reconsider the entire range of his products.
After the October Revolution, the Moscow Soviet tried to immediately expropriate his newspaper printing house to publish his own newspaper.
Protesting against this decision, People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky wrote: “The confiscation of this printing house deals such a strong blow to Sytin’s publishing house that it will almost certainly lead to its closure, and at the same time to unemployment for 2000 people.” The People's Commissar proposed to the Moscow Soviet to return the enterprise to its owner, who was ready to provide him with a machine for printing a newspaper, and, at cost, to provide the necessary paper for this. However, Lunacharsky's intervention turned out to be useless - soon after the government moved to Moscow, Sytin's printing house was nationalized for the needs of Pravda and Izvestia. True, for some time Ivan Dmitrievich had at his disposal two other printing houses in Moscow and Petrograd.
On October 23, 1918, the Moscow Council issued a decision on the municipalization of the book business. Neither buyers nor publishers were happy with this measure. The People's Commissariat for Education received protests from teachers of provincial schools who purchased textbooks in Moscow stores. Naturally, publishers and booksellers were outraged.
All these petitions had their effect: the People's Commissariat of State Control became interested in the process of municipalization. According to the controllers, the bookstores were unreasonably “expropriated” from Sytin and other publishers. The controllers' conclusions caused outrage in the Moscow City Council. In particular, in the explanatory note of the Moscow Council it was said that with his popular prints Sytin long years“poisoned the Russian people.”
As a result, a resolution was adopted by the Small Council of People's Commissars, according to which the Moscow Soviet was asked to reconsider the decision of the Interdepartmental Commission and withdraw from sale all previous editions of popular print literature former companies Sytin and others, “not meeting the needs and tasks of modern socialist proletarian culture.” On May 19, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars signed by V.I. Lenin confirmed this decision.
The owners of private printing houses, including Sytin, had to seek a compromise with the authorities, since they were completely dependent on government orders. Having suffered huge losses from the confiscated publications, Sytin tried to compensate for the losses by modernizing the range of his products. He turned to Gosizdat with a request to allow him to publish the “People's Economic Calendar for 1920.” Publishes sets of portraits of Russian writers and “Pictures from a Child's Life,” although their release required a carload of paper.
At the end of 1919, after the nationalization of the main printing house on Pyatnitskaya Street, Sytin turned from its owner into a customer. Therefore, he had to ask Gosizdat to print 15 children’s books (with a circulation of 10 thousand copies) in its former printing house and finish printing 16 books by L.N. Tolstoy (in the same edition) for schoolchildren.
He asked to allow him and Rosiner (manager of the publishing house A.F. Marx Partnership) to travel to Finland at their own expense. There he planned to organize the printing of textbooks and other books authorized and approved by the State Publishing House and the People's Commissariat for Food from matrices made from typesetting in Moscow, and also to seek the provision of paper by the Finnish side. However, the Council of Labor and Defense adopted a decree: “Due to the impossibility of buying a large amount of paper, the question of the trip of comrade. Sytin should be considered unnecessary.” Then Ivan Dmitrievich entered into an agreement with the Moscow Department of Public Education to reissue his old textbooks (the publication of new ones was the monopoly of the State Publishing House).
Sytin lost one acquisition after another. On May 10, 1920, by order of the State Publishing House, 45 thousand pounds of paper were confiscated from him without any compensation. In 1922, the publishing house was nationalized under the pretext of a new interpretation of an old, already canceled decree.
The conflict between the publisher and the state was considered by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. As a result, it was decided to retain a significant part of Sytin’s property, but as a publisher he gained little.
There were rumors that Ivan Dmitrievich, after unsuccessful attempts to organize a large publishing house in Soviet Russia moved his publishing house to Berlin. However, the entrepreneur did not have sufficient funds for this, and could not count on partners.
At the end of 1923, a Moscow meeting of book publishers was held, at which they talked about the need to reduce the cost of books and ways to satisfy the needs of the population for books, especially the poor.
Sytin, reminding the seminar participants about the beginning of his activities in the book field, noted that in those years “the majority of the people did not yet know how to read, they looked at the book as a whim. We needed to accustom the reader. The attention of the intelligentsia greatly supported me, wide circles writers and scientists. Of course, there was not enough personal funds for the big undertaking. Banks and a popular newspaper helped. Without funding, the book business will not proceed even now. Significant funding is needed to make the book available.<...>The buyer was penniless. It was difficult to honor the bills of a small buyer. I almost didn’t take into account the buyer’s bills.”
Sytin participated in the work of almost all commissions formed by the meeting. As a result, a draft resolution was prepared on benefits for publishers and booksellers. However, this proposal was protested by the Central Committee Agitprop and was not implemented. „
Without giving in to new difficulties, Ivan Dmitrievich continued to strive for cooperation with the new government. On September 28, 1922, he turned to the leadership of the State Publishing House with a proposal to expand the publication of mass literature. “For 55 years now I have been serving Russian books,” wrote Sytin. - During this time, I managed to create the most powerful book printing factory in Russia and find ways for cheap popular books to the darkest and most distant corners.
With the opportunity opened up for new cultural construction, the book publishing partnership I head again intends to begin publishing folk books, with which it began its activities in 1893 and for which the greatest need is felt among broad sections of the people.
In type, these publications will be similar to the popular print that we published before, but they have been radically reformed, and although the price is still cheap, they are undoubtedly artistic in content and appearance.
Russia is poor and does not like to spend money on a book, therefore a publicly available penny book, one, two, three sheets, as my many years of experience has shown, is the only ray of light.
I hereby present the list of authors and works for the first series and humbly ask for your permission to print them. From it you see that the cycle of folk publications we have conceived includes exclusively classic literature. Equipped with drawings, vignettes and headpieces and typed in large print, these books will be useful for adults and for extracurricular reading for children.”
It was not in vain that Sytin interceded. October 17, 1922. The redsector decided to “start re-issuing popular prints from those previously released by Sytin’s company” - “Khaz-Bulat the daring”, “Song about the merchant Kalashnikov”, “Ukhar-merchant”, “Vanka-key-keeper”, “Oh, my box is full, full ...”, “The sun rises and sets...”, etc.
However, these were all weak concessions to the publisher, who had great authority in the book publishing environment. "Partnership I.D. Sytin" was curtailing its work more and more. Only the Petrograd publishing house, former A.F. Marx, expanded its activities widely (it produced mainly action-packed foreign literature, for example, “Tarzan” by E. Burroughs). On December 11, 1924, the Presidium of the Central Bureau of Soviet Partisan Publishing Houses adopted a resolution “On private publishing houses,” which proposed that the government strengthen control and censorship “in relation to privately published products” and by all means push the private owner out of the book market.
In 1927, the Council of People's Commissars assigned Sytin a personal pension, which was later increased twice.
