Who is and d sytin. Ivan dmitrievich sytin - a native of the kostroma land - the largest book publisher in russia

Common pictures
Awaken the mind
Classic in circulation
Fourth estate
A merchant or a dreamer

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the name of Ivan Sytin was known all over Russia. During his life, he published a total circulation of 500 million books: in every house there was 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 publish the complete works of Russian classics. He was called "American" for his love of technical innovations - at home he remained the patriarchal father of a large family.

Common pictures

Ivan Sytin was born in the village of Gnezdnikovo, Kostroma province, in the family of the volost clerk Dmitry Sytin. He finished only three years of school, and as a teenager began to work in one of the shops of the Nizhny Novgorod fair when the family moved to Galich.

The career of the future publisher began in 1866 in the merchant Sharapov's bookstore at the Ilyinsky Gate, where Ivan Sytin entered the service as a teenager. There he worked for ten years, after which he borrowed funds from a merchant to buy a lithographic press and opened his own workshop. The machine was French, it printed in five colors, which was a real rarity in Russia at that time.

Then 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 big role in the book trade was played by ofeni - itinerant merchants who delivered simple goods to villages, 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 popular popular prints. Sytin provided the women with the goods, and they gave him the most honest feedback with the buyer: they told that people bought more willingly and what they showed special interest in.

Ivan Sytin. 1916 year. Photo: ceo.ru

Ivan Sytin. Photo: polit.ru

Study of Ivan Sytin. Photo: primepress.ru

The word "lubok" 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 the main events, and were preserved by many for home decoration. Sytin personally selected spiritual and secular subjects for his paintings, attracted famous artists to create popular products among the people, including, for example, Viktor Vasnetsov and Vasily Vereshchagin.

“My publishing experience and all my 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 affordable.
I have pursued these two goals all my life. "
Ivan Sytin

When they were obliged to obtain permission from the governor and describe all the goods in order to conduct trade, Sytin began to open shops and compile book catalogs so as not to lose a profitable market. This became the foundation of his future network, which at the beginning of the 20th century already numbered 19 stores and 600 kiosks at railway stations throughout Russia. “Every year we sold over 50 million paintings, and as the people developed literacy and taste, 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 "- Sytin recalled.

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 print 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 - the preparation took five years. Sytin wanted to make not just a calendar, but a handbook 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 a large circulation, Sytin bought special rotary machines for the printing house, the mechanism of which significantly increased the pace of production.

Sytin's business quickly became profitable. Understanding which topics are of greatest interest to the people, he created popular and demanded products. So the first big income was brought to him by battle sketches and maps with explanations for military operations, which he issued during the Russian-Turkish war.

In 1879, Sytin bought a house on Pyatnitskaya Street, where he had already installed two lithographic machines, and three years later he registered the “Association of I.D. Sytin and Co ”, the share capital of which 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, almost three million pictures and about two million calendars were produced annually in his printing houses.

Ivan Sytin's shop 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

Classic in circulation

In 1884 in St. Petersburg, on the initiative of the writer Leo Tolstoy, the publishing house "Posrednik" was opened, which was to publish inexpensive books for the people, and Sytin was invited to cooperate. These books cost a little more than luboks, did not sell so well, but for Sytin their release was a "priesthood". "Mediator" published spiritual and moral literature, translated fiction, popular and reference books, art albums. Thanks to his work with the "Mediator", Sytin got acquainted with many significant figures in the literary and artistic life of Moscow: the writers Maxim Gorky and Vladimir Korolenko, the 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 ventured to publish in a circulation of 100 thousand copies of the collected works of Alexander Pushkin. "Alexander Sergeevich" for 80 kopecks in 10 volumes was sold out in a few days, like a similar edition of Gogol. After the death of Tolstoy, it was Sytin who agreed to publish the complete collected works of the writer - in the expensive 10-thousandth and 100-thousandth circulation available to less wealthy people. The proceeds from the sale were used to buy out the lands of Yasnaya Polyana to be transferred to the ownership of the peasants, as Tolstoy bequeathed. The publisher then actually did not earn anything, but his act received a great response in society.

Fourth estate

Of the many writers, Sytin was especially close to Anton Chekhov. The playwright predicted tremendous success in the newspaper business for him. The idea of \u200b\u200bpublishing a popular, publicly available newspaper soon became a reality. In 1897, the “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 mogul - apart from Russkoye Slovo, 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, he arranged an exhibition of Russian paintings in the United States, negotiated concessions with Germany. In 1928 he was assigned a personal pension, and an apartment on Tverskaya was assigned to his family.

On November 23, 1934, Ivan Sytin died and was buried at the Vvedenskoye 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 the textbook and book public property"... He did not have time, as he wanted, to build a paper mill, but managed to prepare 440 textbooks, 47 books of the "Self-Education Library" on philosophy, history, economics and natural science, several original encyclopedias: military, children's, folk. Sytin did not just make the book accessible - he knew how to awaken curiosity in the reader for new and new knowledge.

The material was prepared by Elena Ivanova

Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin -
a native of the Kostroma land -
the largest book publisher in Russia.

During my life, I have believed and believe in one power that
helps me to overcome all hardships of life ...
I believe in the future of Russian enlightenment,
into a Russian person, by virtue of light and knowledge.

I. D. Sytin

In the history of Russian book-making, there has never been a figure more popular and better known 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 popular 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, it can be said without exaggeration that all literate and illiterate Russia knew him. Millions of children learned to read using his alphabets and primers, millions of adults in the farthest corners of Russia, using his cheap editions, first got 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, Soligalich 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 an elementary school to the city to be trained as a volost clerk and was an exemplary senior clerk in the district all his life. The roots of his father went to the village of Konteyevo, Buysky district. He was an intelligent and capable man, therefore he was terribly burdened by the monotonous position, with grief at times he drank. In his memoirs, Sytin writes: “Parents, constantly in need of the bare essentials, paid little attention to us. I studied in a rural school, here, under the volost government. The textbooks were the Slavic alphabet, a clock book, a psalter, and elementary arithmetic. The school was one-class, the teaching was complete carelessness, at times - rigor with the inclusion of punishments by flogging, kneeling on peas and slapping the head, for hours - kneeling in the corner. The teacher sometimes appeared drunk in the classroom. The result of all this was the complete licentiousness of the students and disregard for the lessons. I left school lazy and got a disgust for science and books ... ".

During one rather prolonged seizure, Dmitry Sytin was 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 a fair in Nizhny Novgorod to sell fur clothes. Ivan's business went well: he was a striker, helpful, worked hard, 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 earnings of 25 rubles, and they wanted to "assign" him to Yelabuga as "boys to a painter". But my uncle advised my parents to wait with 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 was doing well, and took him with him to Kolomna. From there, 15-year-old Ivan Sytin arrived in Moscow with a letter of introduction to the merchant Sharapov, who held two trades at the Ilyinsky Gate - furs and books. By a happy coincidence, Sharapov did not have a place in the fur shop, where Ivan was expected by well-wishers, and from September 14, 1866, Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin began counting down the time of serving the book.

It would seem like a man with three grades of education, with a complete disgust for science and books. What future awaits him? But thanks to his diligence and hard work, he was able to move to Moscow and already there to prove himself.

Not an easy path to fame begins with Ivan Dmitrievich in the bookshop of the Moscow merchant Pyotr Sharapov. The merchant was mainly engaged in furs, paid little attention to books, entrusting them to clerks. The book production consisted mainly of popular prints of religious content. Every year, small traders came to Sharapov to buy popular prints. Then they delivered books to the Russian provinces along with household items and cheap jewelry.

Ivan sold books, and also ran on the water, brought firewood and cleaned the owner's boots. Sharapov looked closely at Ivan, and from the age of seventeen, Sytin began to accompany carts with popular prints, traded at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, and got to know the women better. Soon he became an assistant to the head of a shop in Nizhny Novgorod. He managed to create a whole network of offeni peddlers, the success exceeded all expectations.

1876 \u200b\u200bwas a turning point in the life of the future book publisher. At the age of twenty-five, Sytin married the daughter of a Moscow pastry chef Evdokia Sokolova, receiving 4 thousand rubles for her 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, in December 1876 he opened his lithograph near Dorogomilovsky Bridge. The enterprise was initially housed in three small rooms and had only one lithographic machine on which prints were printed. The apartment was located nearby. Every morning Sytin cut the paintings himself, 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 to be the moment of birth of the largest printing company MPO “First Exemplary Printing House”.

The Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 helped Sytin rise above the level of similar owners of popular print publishing houses. “On the day of the declaration of war,” he later recalled, “I ran to Kuznetsky Most, bought a map of Bessarabia and Romania, and told the master to copy a part of the map during the night, indicating the place where our troops crossed the Prut. At 5 o'clock in the morning, the map was ready and put into the car 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.Nobody thought to interfere with me. " Thanks to this successful invention, Sytin's enterprise began to flourish - already in 1878 he paid off all debts and became the sovereign owner of the lithograph.

Ivan Dmitrievich from the first steps fought for the quality of the goods. He was also entrepreneurial and responsive to customer demand. He knew how to use any occasion. Lithographic pictures were in great demand. The merchants did not bargain in price, but in quantity. There was not enough goods for everyone.

After six years of hard work and search, Sytin's products were spotted at the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition in Moscow. Popular prints were exhibited here. Seeing them, the famous academician of painting Mikhail Botkin began to strongly advise Sytin to print copies of paintings by famous artists, to start replicating good reproductions. The case was new. Whether it will bring benefits or not is difficult to say. Ivan Dmitrievich took a chance. He felt that such "high-quality products will find their wide buyer."

Popular editions of I.D. Sytin.

The following year, Sytin bought his own house on Pyatnitskaya Street, moved his enterprise there and bought another lithographic machine. From that time on, his business expanded rapidly.

For four years, he fulfilled Sharapov's orders in his lithograph under a contract and delivered printed publications to his bookstore. And on January 1, 1883, Sytin had his own bookstore of very modest size on Staraya Square. Trade went briskly.

From here, Sytyn's popular prints and books, packed in boxes, began their journey to remote corners of Russia. Often authors of publications appeared in the shop, L.N. Tolstoy, who was talking with the women, was looking closely at the young owner. In February of the same year, the book-publishing company “I.D. Sytin and Co. ”. At the beginning, the books were not very tasteful. Their authors, in order to please the consumers of the Nikolsky market, did not neglect plagiarism, they subjected some works of the classics to “rework”.

I. D. Sytin and L.N. Tolstoy.

“By 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 had to be broken with patience.”

But in the fall of 1884, a handsome young man entered a shop on the Old Square. “My name is Chertkov,” he introduced himself and took out of his pocket three thin books and one manuscript. These were the stories of N. Leskov, I. Turgenev and Tolstoy's "How People Live". Chertkov represented the interests of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and offered more meaningful books for the people. They were supposed to replace the vulgar editions that were published and be extremely cheap, at the same price as the previous ones - 80 kopecks per hundred. This is how the new publishing house of cultural and educational character "Posrednik" began its activity. Sytin willingly accepted the offer. In the first four years alone, the Posrednik firm issued 12 million copies of elegant books with the works of famous Russian writers, drawings on the covers of which were made 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 contribute to the education of the people. In the same 1884 at the Nizhny Novgorod fair appeared the first Sytinsky "General Calendar for 1885".

“I looked at the calendar as a universal reference book, as an encyclopedia for all occasions,” wrote Ivan Dmitrievich. He placed appeals to readers in calendars, consulted with them on improving these publications.

The extraordinary popularity of calendars demanded a gradual increase in the number of their names: by 1916 their number had reached 21 with a multimillion circulation of each of them. Business expanded, incomes 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 lithography on Pyatnitskaya Street, the themes of Sytyn's publications were replenished with new directions. In 1889, a publishing partnership was established under the firm of 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 the lack of education.

From 1889 he attended meetings of the Moscow Literacy Committee, which devoted much attention to publishing books for the people. Together with public education figures D. Tikhomirov, L. Polivanov, V. Bekhterev, N. Tulupov and others, Sytin publishes brochures and pictures recommended by the Literacy Committee, publishes a series of folk books under the motto "Pravda", prepares, and then begins to publish with 1895 series “Library for self-education”.

Having become a member of the Russian Bibliographic Society at Moscow University in 1890, Ivan Dmitrievich took upon himself the costs of publishing the journal "Knigovedenie" in his printing house. The Society elected ID Sytin as its life member.

Ivan Sytin at his desk in his printing house.

The great merit of I.D.Sytin consisted not only in the fact that he published in mass circulation cheap editions of Russian and foreign literary classics, but also in the fact 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 Vokrug Sveta.

The annual release of wholesale and retail catalogs, including in thematic areas, often illustrated, made it possible for the Partnership to widely advertise its publications, to ensure their timely and qualified sale through wholesale warehouses and bookstores.

Acquaintance in 1893 with A.P. Chekhov had a beneficial effect on the activities of the publisher. It was Anton Pavlovich who insisted that Sytin start publishing a newspaper. In 1897, the Partnership acquired the previously unpopular newspaper Russkoe Slovo, 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 circulation of the newspaper at the beginning of the 20th century was approaching a million copies.

Hda the printing house of the 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 for his factory (as he called the printing houses on Pyatnitskaya and Valovaya streets). By 1905, three buildings had already been erected. Sytin constantly, with the help of associates and members of the Association, conceived and carried out new publications. For the first time, the publication of multivolume encyclopedias was undertaken - People's, Children's, Military. In 1911, an excellent publication “The Great Reform” was published, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom. In 1912 - the multivolume jubilee edition “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 research about the three hundredth anniversary of the House of Romanov - “Three centuries”. At the same time, the Partnership published the following books: “What does a peasant need?”, “A modern socio-political dictionary” (which explained the concepts of “social democratic party”, “dictatorship of the proletariat”, “capitalism”), as well as “Fantastic truth "Amfiteatrova - about the suppression of the" rioters "in 1905.

Anniversary edition "Three centuries".

Sytin's active publishing activities often provoked dissatisfaction with the authorities. Increasingly, censorship slingshots appeared on the way of many publications, the copies of some books were confiscated, and the distribution by the efforts of the publisher of free textbooks and anthologies in schools was seen as undermining the state foundations. A “case” was opened in the police department against Sytin. And it is not surprising: one of the richest people in Russia did not favor those in power. 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 technical training in the absence of school was insufficient and weak. "... Oh, if only these workers were 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 technical affairs, 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 to the inhabitants of villages and villages with primary education. General education was supplemented in evening classes. Education 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 Sytinsk printing house the "hornet's nest". This is due to the fact that the Sytinsk workers were active participants in the revolutionary movement. They stood in the front ranks of the insurgents in 1905 and published the issue of Izvestia of the Moscow Council of Workers' Deputies announcing a general political strike in Moscow on December 7. On December 12, retribution followed at night: by order of the authorities, the Sytinsk printing house was set on fire. The walls and ceilings of the newly built main building of the factory collapsed, printing equipment, ready-made editions of publications, stocks of paper, art blanks for printing were destroyed under the rubble ... This was a huge damage to the established business. Sytin received sympathetic telegrams, but did not succumb to despondency. Six months later, the five-story building of the printing house was restored. Pupils of the art school restored drawings and cliches, made originals of new covers, illustrations, headpieces. New machines were purchased ... The work continued.

Bookstore I. D. Sytin in Yekaterinburg. 1913 g.

Each store, apart from retail, was engaged in wholesale operations. Sytin had the idea to deliver books and magazines to factories and plants. Orders for the delivery of publications on the basis of the published catalogs were carried out within two to ten days, since the system of sending literature by cash on delivery was excellently established. In 1916, the 50th anniversary of I.D. Sytin. The Russian public widely celebrated this anniversary on February 19, 1917. The Russian Empire was living out its last days. A solemn celebration of Ivan Dmitrievich took place at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow. This event was also marked by the release of a perfectly illustrated literary and artistic collection "Half a century for a 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 outstanding personality of the hero of the day and his book publishing, 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 remarkable 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 lofty and bright goal - to give the people the cheapest and most necessary book.

Literary and art 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 stay with a profit. But his peasant origin, his stubborn desire to introduce ordinary people to knowledge, to culture, contributed to the awakening of national self-awareness. He took the Revolution as an inevitability, for granted and offered his services to the Soviet government. “The transition to the faithful owner, to the people of the entire factory industry, I considered a good deed and entered the factory as a free worker,” he wrote in his memoirs. “I was glad that the business, to which he gave a lot of energy in life, received a good development - the book under the new government she reliably went to the people ”.

First, a free consultant to Gosizdat, then the implementation of various instructions from the Soviet government: he negotiated in Germany on the concession of the paper industry for the needs of Soviet publishing, on instructions from the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs traveled with a group of cultural figures to the United States to organize an exhibition of paintings by Russian artists, and managed small printing houses. Under the trademark of Sytin's publishing house, books continued to be published until 1924. In 1918, the first brief biography of V.I. Lenin. A number of documents and memoirs testify that Lenin knew Sytin, highly appreciated his activities and trusted him. It is known that at the beginning of 1918 I.D. Sytin was at the reception of Vladimir Ilyich. Apparently it was then, in Smolny, that the publisher presented the leader of the revolution with a copy of the anniversary edition of Half a Century for a Book with the inscription: “Dear Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Yves. Sytin ”, which is now kept in Lenin's personal library in the Kremlin.

"Half a century for a book. 1866-1916 Literary and artistic collection dedicated to the fiftieth anniversary of the publishing activity of ID Sytin", Moscow, 1916

Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin worked until he was 75 years old. The Soviet government recognized Sytin's merits for 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 ID Sytin settled in his last (of four) Moscow apartment at number 274 on Tverskaya Street in building number 38 (now 12 Tverskaya Street) 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. Buried I. D. Sytin at the Vvedenskoye (German) cemetery.

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 a book publisher (sculptor Yu.S. Dines, architect MM Volkov) was erected at the Vvedenskoye cemetery.

It is not known exactly how many editions I.D. Sytin in his entire life. However, many Sytynsk books, albums, calendars, textbooks are kept in libraries, collected by book lovers, and found in second-hand book stores.

You also need to pay tribute to the fact that the publisher always remembered that he was a native of the Kostroma land. It is known that for a number of schools in the Kostroma province, he sent free periodicals, including the newspaper Russkoye Slovo published by him. 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 4000 items in the catalog, more than 600 were offered by Sytin's Partnership and Mediator.

Born into the family of the volost clerk Dmitry Gerasimovich and Olga Alexandrovna Sytin, the eldest of four children.

Young Ivan finished 3 classes of a rural school. At the age of 12, he began working as a seller from a furrier's tray at the Nizhny Novgorod fair, was a painter's apprentice, and took on any small work. At the age of 13 he moved to Moscow and on September 13, 1866 he got a job in the bookstore of the furrier merchant PN Sharapov as a “boy”. Soon he attracted the attention of the owner for his diligence and ingenuity.

In 1876, Ivan Sytin married Evdokia Ivanovna Sokolova, from a merchant family, taking a dowry of 4,000 rubles. Its former owner P.N. Sharapov gave him another 3,000 rubles in debt. This money was used to purchase a lithographic machine for printing popular prints. On December 7, a lithographic workshop was opened on Voronukhina Gora in Dorogomilov.

The first products of the Sytinsk printing house that brought financial success were maps of military operations during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. The assortment was personally formed by Ivan Sytin and consisted of popular prints painted by such famous artists as V.V. Vereshchagin and V.M. Vasnetsov. More than 50 million titles of very high quality printed matter were produced annually: portraits of kings, nobles, generals, illustrations for fairy tales and songs, religious, everyday, humorous pictures. The price was microscopic, and the main distributors were itinerant traders, who were given long-term loans and good conditions.

In 1889, Sytin bought a house on Pyatnitskaya and equipped a printing house there - the current First Model Printing House.

Fame came to the publisher Sytin in 1882 after being awarded the bronze medal of the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition for his printed products. The first bookstore of the publisher Sytin was opened on January 1, 1883 in Staraya Square, and in February a partnership on the faith “ID Sytin and Co.” was founded with a capital of 75,000 rubles.

In 1884 the Posrednik publishing house was created, which published the works of Leo Tolstoy, IS Turgenev, N.S. Leskov and other Russian writers at very affordable prices for buyers. In the same year, the "General Calendar for 1885" was presented at the Nizhny Novgorod exhibition, which became a family reference manual, and opened a whole series of calendars: "Small General", "Kiev", "Modern", "Old Believers" The circulation exceeded 6 million copies the next year, and in 1916 one type of calendars was published, with a circulation of more than 21 million copies.

Since 1980, ID Sytin began to publish the journal "Book Science". In 1891 he bought the magazine Around the World, which became a favorite reading among young people. Literary supplements to it were published works by M. Reed, J. Verne, A. Dumas, A. Conan-Doyle. In 1897 he began to publish the newspaper "Russkoe Slovo" - a subscription for a year cost only 7 rubles, and by 1917 the circulation was over 1 million copies.

During this period, Ivan Sytin became the largest Russian publisher, producing high-quality and cheap textbooks, children's books, classical essays, and religious literature. Since 1895, he published the "Library of Self-Education" - a total of 47 books on history, philosophy, economics, and natural science were published. Alphabets, fairy tales of different peoples, stories, short stories, collections of poems, author's fairy tales of A.S. Pushkin were published for children. V.A. Zhukovsky, brothers Grimm, C. Perrot. The children's magazines "Friend of Children", "Pchelka", "Mirok" were published. By 1916, more than 440 textbooks and manuals for the elementary grades of the school had been published, and the Primer had been reprinted for 30 years.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, popular encyclopedias were published: "Military Encyclopedia", "People's Encyclopedia of Scientific and Applied Knowledge", "Children's Encyclopedia".

In 1904, a large 4-storey printing house was built according to the design of A.E. Erickson on Pyatnitskaya Street with the latest equipment. The books were distributed through their own bookstores in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Kharkov, Warsaw, Yekaterinburg, Voronezh, Rostov, Irkutsk. A school of technical drawing and lithography was founded at the printing house. Particularly talented students from it moved to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, receiving higher education. In 1911, a "Teacher's House" was built on Malaya Ordynka, with a museum, library, auditorium.

In 1914, Ivan Sytin's printed products accounted for a quarter of the total printed circulation in Russia.

After the establishment of Soviet power, all of Sytin's enterprises were nationalized, and he himself represented the Land of the Soviets abroad: he organized an exhibition of Russian paintings in the United States, negotiated concessions with Germany. He was assigned a personal pension in 1928 and provided with an apartment on ul. Tverskoy.

Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin - the largest book publisher in Russia

On December 19, 1876, the largest book publisher of 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 Alexandrovna Sytin. His father came from economic peasants and served as a volost clerk. The family constantly needed the most necessary things and 12-year-old Vanyusha had to go to work. His working life began at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, where a tall, intelligent and diligent boy, beyond his years, helped a furrier to sell fur products. He tried himself in the role of a painter's apprentice. Everything changed when, on September 13, 1866, 15-year-old Ivan Sytin arrived in Moscow with a letter of introduction to the merchant Sharapov, who held two trade at the Ilyinsky Gate - furs and books. By a happy coincidence, Sharapov did not have a place in the fur shop, where well-wishers expected Ivan, and from September 14, 1866, Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin began his countdown of the time of serving the Book.

The patriarchal merchant-Old Believer Pyotr Nikolayevich Sharapov, a well-known publisher of popular prints, songbooks and dream books at that time, became the first teacher, and then the patron saint of an executive teenager who did not disdain any black work, who neatly and diligently fulfilled any order of the owner. Only four years later Vanya began to receive a salary - five rubles a month. Perseverance, perseverance, hard work, the desire to replenish knowledge impressed the elderly owner, who had no children. His inquisitive and sociable student gradually became Sharapov's confidant, helped to sell books and pictures, and picked up simple literature for numerous ofeni - village booksellers, sometimes illiterate and judging the merits of books by their covers. Then the owner began to instruct Ivan to conduct trade at the Nizhny Novgorod fair, to accompany carts with popular prints to Ukraine and to some cities and villages of Russia.

1876 \u200b\u200bwas a turning point in the life of the future book publisher: having married Evdokia Ivanovna Sokolova, the daughter of a Moscow merchant-pastry chef and receiving four thousand rubles as a dowry, he borrowed three thousand from Sharapov and bought his first lithographic machine. On December 7, 1876, ID Sytin opened a lithographic workshop on Voronukhina Gora near Dorogomilovsky Bridge, which gave birth to a huge publishing business.

The opening of a small lithographic workshop is considered to be the moment of birth of the largest printing company MPO "First Exemplary Printing House". Sytin's first lithograph was more than modest - three rooms. At first, printed publications did not differ much from the mass production of the Nikolsky market. But Sytin was very inventive: so with the beginning of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, he began to issue cards with the designation of military operations with an inscription; "For newspaper readers. Manual" and battle pictures. The product sold out instantly, bringing decent income to the publisher. In 1878, the lithograph 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 lithography at a new location, and purchase additional printing equipment.

Participation in the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition in 1882 and receiving a bronze medal (he could not count on more because of his peasant origin) for book exhibits brought fame to Sytin. For four years, he fulfilled Sharapov's orders in his lithograph under a contract and delivered printed editions to his bookstore. And on January 1, 1883, Sytin had his own bookstore of very modest size on Staraya Square. Trade went briskly. From here, Sytyn's popular prints and books, packed in boxes, began their journey to remote corners of Russia. Often the authors of the publications appeared in the shop, Leo Tolstoy repeatedly visited, who talked with the women, looked closely at the young owner. In February of the same year, the publishing company "ID Sytin and Co." was already established. At the beginning, the books were not very tasteful. Their authors, in order to please the consumers of the Nikolsky market, did not neglect plagiarism; they subjected to "reworking" some works of the classics.

"With a feeling and a guess, I understood how far we were from real literature," wrote Sytin. "But the traditions of the popular print book trade were very tenacious and they had to be broken with patience."

But in the fall of 1884, a handsome young man entered a shop on the Old Square. "My name is Chertkov," he introduced himself and took out of his pocket three thin books and one manuscript. These were the stories of N. Leskov, I. Turgenev and Tolstoy's "How People Live". Chertkov represented the interests of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and offered more meaningful books for the people. They were supposed to replace the vulgar editions that were published and be extremely cheap, at the same price as the previous ones - at 80 kopecks per hundred. This is how the new publishing house of cultural and educational character "Posrednik" began its activity, since Sytin willingly accepted the offer. In the first four years alone, the Posrednik firm issued 12 million copies of elegant books with the works of famous Russian writers, drawings on the covers of which were made by artists Repin, Kivshenko, Savitsky and others.

"I looked at the calendar as a universal reference book, as an encyclopedia for all occasions," wrote Ivan Dmitrievich. He placed appeals to readers in calendars, consulted with them on improving these publications.

In 1885, Sytin bought the publishing house of the publisher Orlov with five printing machines, type and inventory for publishing calendars, and selected qualified editors. He entrusted the design to first-class artists, and consulted Leo Tolstoy about the content of the calendars. Sytinsky's "General Calendar" has reached an unprecedented circulation - six million copies. He also issued tear-off "diaries". The extraordinary popularity of calendars demanded a gradual increase in the number of their names: by 1916 their number had reached 21 with a multimillion circulation of each of them. Business expanded, incomes 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 lithography on Pyatnitskaya Street, the themes of Sytyn's publications were replenished with new directions. In 1889, a book publishing partnership was established under the firm of 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 the lack of education. From 1889 he attended meetings of the Moscow Literacy Committee, which devoted much attention to publishing books for the people. Together with the figures of public education D. Tikhomirov, L. Polivanov, V. Bekhterev, N. Tulupov and others, Sytin publishes brochures and pictures recommended by the Literacy Committee, publishes a series of folk books under the slogan "Pravda", prepares, and then begins to publish with 1895 series "Library for self-education". Having become a member of the Russian Bibliographic Society at Moscow University in 1890, Ivan Dmitrievich took upon himself the costs of publishing the journal "Knigovedenie" in his printing house. The Society elected ID Sytin as its life member.

At the same time, ID Sytin improved and expanded his business: he bought paper, new machines, built new buildings for his factory (as he called the printing houses on Pyatnitskaya and Valovaya streets). By 1905, three buildings had already been erected. Sytin constantly, with the help of associates and members of the Association, conceived and carried out new publications. For the first time, the publication of multivolume encyclopedias was undertaken - People's, Children's, Military. In 1911, the magnificent edition "Great Reform" was published, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom. In 1912, a multivolume jubilee edition "The Patriotic War of 1612 and Russian Society. 1812-1912". In 1913 - a historical research on the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov - "Three centuries". At the same time, the Partnership also published such books: "What does a peasant need?", "A modern socio-political dictionary" (which explained the concepts of "social democratic party", "dictatorship of the proletariat", "capitalism"), as well as "Fantastic truths "Amfitheatrova - about the suppression of the" rebels "in 1905.

Sytin's active publishing activities often provoked dissatisfaction with the authorities. Increasingly, censorship slingshots appeared in the way of many publications, the copies of some books were confiscated, and the distribution by the efforts of the publisher of free textbooks and anthologies in schools was seen as undermining the state foundations. A "case" was opened in the police department against Sytin. And it is not surprising: one of the richest people in Russia did not favor those in power. 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 technical training in the absence of school was insufficient and weak. "... Oh, if only these workers were 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 technical affairs, the first graduation of which took place in 1908. When enrolling in the school, preference was given to the children of the employees and workers of the Partnership, as well as to the inhabitants of villages and villages with primary education. General education was supplemented in evening classes. Education and full maintenance of students was carried out at the expense of the Partnership.

The authorities called the Sytinsk printing house the "hornet's nest". This is due to the fact that the Sytinsk workers were active participants in the revolutionary movement. They stood in the front ranks of the insurgents in 1905 and published an issue of Izvestia of the Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies announcing a general political strike in Moscow on December 7. On December 12, retribution followed at night: by order of the authorities, the Sytinsk printing house was set on fire. The walls and ceilings of the newly built main building of the factory collapsed, printing equipment, ready-made editions of publications, stocks of paper, art blanks for printing were destroyed under the rubble ... This was a huge damage to the established business. Sytin received sympathetic telegrams, but did not succumb to despondency. Six months later, the five-story building of the printing house was restored. Pupils of the art school restored drawings and cliches, made originals of new covers, illustrations, headpieces. New machines were purchased ... The work continued.

The network of Sytin's booksellers 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 (jointly with Suvorin). Each store, apart from retail, was engaged in wholesale operations. Sytin had the idea to deliver books and magazines to factories and plants. Orders for the delivery of publications on the basis of the published catalogs were carried out within two to ten days, since the system of sending literature by cash on delivery was excellently established. 1916 marked the 50th anniversary of ID Sytin's book publishing activity. The Russian public widely celebrated this anniversary on February 19, 1917. The Russian Empire was living out its last days. A solemn celebration of Ivan Dmitrievich took place at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow. This event was also marked by the release of a perfectly illustrated literary and artistic collection "Half a Century for a 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 outstanding personality of the hero of the day and his book publishing, 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 remarkable 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 ID Sytin is driven by a lofty 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 stay with a profit. But his peasant origin, his stubborn desire to introduce ordinary people to knowledge, to culture, contributed to the awakening of national self-awareness. He took the Revolution as an inevitability, for granted and offered his services to the Soviet government. “I considered the transition to a faithful owner, to the people of the entire factory industry as a good thing and entered the factory as a free worker,” he wrote in his memoirs. “I was glad that the business, to which he gave a lot of energy in life, received a good development - the book under the new government, she reliably went to the people. "

First, a free consultant to the State Publishing House, then the implementation of various instructions from the Soviet government: he negotiated in Germany on the concession of the paper industry for the needs of Soviet publishing; on instructions from the People's Commissariat, he traveled with a group of cultural figures to the United States to organize an exhibition of paintings by Russian artists, and managed small printing houses. Under the trademark of Sytin's publishing house, books continued to be published until 1924. In 1918, the first brief biography of V.I.Lenin was printed under this stamp. A number of documents and memoirs testify that Lenin knew Sytin, highly appreciated 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 publisher presented the leader of the revolution with a copy of the anniversary edition "Half a Century for a Book" with the inscription "Dear Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Ivan 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 merits for Russian culture and education of the people. In 1928, a personal pension was established for him, an apartment was assigned to him and his family.

It was in the middle of 1928 that ID Sytin settled in his last (of four) Moscow apartment at number 274 on Tverskaya Street at number 38 (now Tverskaya Street, 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. ID Sytin was buried at the Vvedensky (German) cemetery.

The name and legacy of I.D.Sytin is constantly showing great interest. 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 is his own memories and testimonies of his contemporaries.

For the first time, Sytin's memoirs appeared in the already mentioned anniversary edition of "Half a Century for a 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 the book publisher, Dmitry Ivanovich, found his father's manuscript in the family archive and took it to Politizdat, and already in 1960 the publication "Life for a Book" appeared, reprinted in 1962. On the basis of this publication and under the same title, the memoirs of ID Sytin "Pages of the Experienced", together with the memoirs of him by his contemporaries, were published by the Kniga publishing house in 1978 (with the dedication of the First Model Printing House to the 100th anniversary of its founding by Sytin), and in 1985 the second revised edition of this book. Published two editions of K. Konichev's novel "Russian nugget": 1966 - Leningrad and 1967 - Yaroslavl. An interesting book-research "ID Sytin" in the "Figures of the Book" series was published by the "Kniga" publishing house in 1983 (author - EA Dinershtein).

In 1990, an American scientist, Professor Charles Ruud published in Canada a book in English "Russian Entrepreneur: the book publisher Ivan Sytin from Moscow, 1851-1934". "Tsentrnauchfilm" has created a color documentary film "Life for a Book. ID Sytin" based on a script by Y. Zakrevsky and E. Osetrov (director Y. A. Zakrevsky). Millions of TV viewers got acquainted with it.

The memory of Sytin is also captured in the memorial plaque on the house number 18 on Tverskaya Street in Moscow, which was installed in 1973 and testifies to the fact that from 1904 to 1928 the famous book publisher and educator Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin lived here. In 1974, a monument with a bas-relief of a book publisher (sculptor Yu. S. Dines, architect MM Volkov) was erected on the grave of ID Sytin at the Vvedenskoye cemetery.

It is not known with certainty how many editions ID Sytin published in his entire life. However, many Sytynsk books, albums, calendars, textbooks are kept in libraries, collected by book lovers, and found in second-hand book stores.

The publisher is an educator.

Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin was born on February 5, 1851 in the village of Gnezdnikovo, Soligalichsky district, Kostroma province, into the family of a volost clerk. From the age of 12, he began to travel with his furrier uncle to the Nizhny Novgorod fair in order to earn himself a piece of bread. At the age of 15, Vanya Sytin entered the shop of the Moscow merchant P.N. Sharapova. Over time, I.D. Sytin becomes a confidant of the owner, independently conducts his book trade at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair and does not stop thinking about his own "business".

He bought his first lithograph in 1876 with money received as a dowry for his wife (4 thousand rubles) and borrowed another 3 thousand rubles. The semi-handicraft printing press produced popular prints and maps showing the military actions of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, which were sold through the owner's shop. In 1883 he founded the publishing and bookselling company “I.D. Sytin and Kº ", acting in the old fashioned way as" a partnership on faith. " Ten years later, a new joint-stock company appeared - “The Printing, Publishing and Book Trade Partnership of I.D. Sytin ", whose capital was 350 thousand rubles. (1000 rubles per share).

The first books published by his publishing house were not always distinguished by high taste. With the acquisition of the right to publish books from the Posrednik publishing house, founded on the initiative of L.N. Tolstoy in 1884, the repertoire of Sytin's publications changed radically. There were calendars, teaching aids, books on pedagogy, popular science series, such as "Library for Self-Education" and others. For the first time in Russia he began publishing encyclopedias: "Children's Encyclopedia" (vols. 1-10); "People's Encyclopedia" (vols. 1 - 14); "Military encyclopedia" (18 volumes out of 23 expected). Along with cheap "penny" books, which were in unprecedented demand among the common people, he published many "anniversary" editions, such as "Great Reform", dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom in Russia; “Patriotic War and Russian Society. 1812 - 1912 "; “Three Centuries” is a study about the three hundredth anniversary of the House of Romanovs and others, distinguished by highly artistic design and a rather high price.

In Moscow, the “I.D. Sytin ”owned two of the largest printing houses equipped with first-class technology - a book and a newspaper, 16 bookstores in different cities of the country, a school of technical drawing and lithography. Ivan Dmitrievich died on November 23, 1934 in Moscow.

With the native places of I.D. Sytin kept in touch throughout his life, sending books and gifts for students of rural schools and public libraries of Galich, Soligalich and Buisk districts. With his help a printing house was opened in Soligalich.