Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin (; 5 February 185123 November 1934) was a publisher in the Russian Empire. The son of a

Soligalich Soligalich () is a town and the administrative center of Soligalichsky District in Kostroma Oblast, Russia, located on the right bank of the Kostroma River. Population: History It originated as an important center of saltworks, which suppli ...

peasant, he built the largest publishing house in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. Sytin went from his village to

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

at the age of 13 and opened his own book shop in 1883. He made a fortune through printing millions of

almanac An almanac (also spelled almanack and almanach) is a regularly published listing of a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasting, weather forecasts, farmers' sowing, planting dates ...

-type

calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A calendar date, date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is ...

s containing miscellaneous practical information. They were cheap and attractively illustrated. This venture was followed by the very cheap editions of Pushkin's,

Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; ; (; () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol used the grotesque in his writings, for example, in his works " The Nose", " Viy", "The Overcoat", and " Nevsky Prosp ...

's and

Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using pre-reform Russian orthography. ; ), usually referr ...

's works. After their

authors' rights "Authors' rights" is a term frequently used in connection with Intellectual property, laws about intellectual property. The term is considered as a direct translation of the French language, French term (also German language, German ). It was fi ...

expired, Sytin compressed their entire works into one volume that cost as little as 90 kopecks. He was the first publisher to reach the peasants all over Russia and to shape popular taste in the entire country.

Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...

called Sytin the de facto "minister of people's education" whose calendars and leaflets "cut down at least by half the number of relapses into

illiteracy Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...

". Leo Tolstoy proposed to edit "a cheap, simplified series that would reflect his moral teachings and not be copyrighted". Between 1887 and 1916, Sytin's printing house in Zamoskvorechye brought out more than 400 primers and textbooks. He later expanded into the publication of popular

encyclopaedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...

s such as ''The Military Encyclopaedia'' in eighteen volumes, ''The Encyclopaedia for Children'' in ten volumes, and the ''Napoleonic Wars'' encyclopaedia in seven volumes. By the early 20th century, Sytin dominated the publishing industry in the

. It was he who revived the ''

Vokrug sveta ''Vokrug sveta'' (, literally: "Around the World") is a Russian geographic magazine. It is the longest running magazine in the Russian language. The first issue was printed in Saint Petersburg, in December 1861, almost thirty years before the est ...

'' geographic magazine (still published today). He commissioned numerous translations of adventure fiction by such authors as

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

and

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

. '' Russkoye Slovo'', an obscure conservative newspaper, was transformed by Sytin into Russia's most popular (and cheapest) daily; its circulation surpassed one million copies in 1917. After the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, Sytin's printing house was

nationalized Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

but he decided against emigrating and died in obscurity in his small flat on

Tverskaya Street Tverskaya Street ( rus, Тверская улица, p=tvʲɪrˈskajə ˈulʲɪt͡sə), known between 1935 and 1990 as Gorky Street (), is the main radial road, radial street in Moscow. The street runs Northwest from the central Manezhnaya Squ ...

at the age of 83. This apartment has been designated a national museum since 1989. In 1990, McGill-Queen's University Press published a study by Charles A. Ruud, ''Russian Entrepreneur: Publisher Ivan Sytin of Moscow, 1851-1934''.)

References

External links

*
Sytin Museum in Moscow

List of Sytin publications
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sytin, Ivan Dmitrievich 1851 births 1934 deaths People from Soligalichsky District People from Soligalichsky Uyezd Newspaper publishers (people) from the Russian Empire Book publishers (people) from the Russian Empire Burials at Vvedenskoye Cemetery