Publication by t va i d sytin. Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin, a native of Kostroma, is the largest book publisher in Russia. Book publishing house I.D. Sytin as an example of the successful combination of educational and entrepreneurial activities in pre-revolutionary Russia

Common people pictures
Awaken the mind
Classics in circulation
Fourth Estate
Businessman or Dreamer

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 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. “We sold over 50 million paintings every year, 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., 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 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 arouse the greatest interest among the people, he created popular and in-demand products. So 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 full meeting the writer's works - in an expensive 10-thousand edition and affordable to less wealthy people in a 100-thousand edition. 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

Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin

Born in the village. Gnezdnikovo, Kostroma province, in the family of a volost clerk. In 1866 he began working as a boy in the bookstore of the Old Believer merchant P.N. Sharapova in Moscow, distinguished by his hard work and ingenuity. The owner of the shop raised the boy in a patriarchal manner, protected him from temptations, helped him get on his feet, giving him a loan to open his own business.

In 1876, I. Sytin opened a small lithographic printing press to publish popular prints on religious themes, including portraits of kings, illustrations for fairy tales, songs, and literary works.Having thoroughly studied the demand of visitors to trade shops and fairs, he arranged things in such a way that his cheap books, calendars and pictures sold like hot cakes. “The merchants bargained with me in quantity, not in price,” recalled I. Sytin. “There weren’t enough goods for everyone.” And this despite the fact that his “General Calendar” alone was published in 6 million copies.Since 1877, I. Sytin also began to publish cheap books on the same subject, distributing them through traveling booksellers to all corners of Russia.

In 1883, he opened his own bookstore and established the publishing partnership “I.D. Sytin and Co.” Among the major customers was a company created in 1884 with the participation ofL.N. Tolstoythe publishing house "Posrednik", which printed educational series of books for the people in various fields of knowledge in I. Sytin's printing house. Then, for the same purpose, he published the “Library for Self-Education”, the editors of which were teachersMoscow University.

But it was not just commercial success that distinguished Ivan Sytin from the crowd of his competitors. He was the first to succeed in accustoming the broad masses of the Russian people to reading serious literature. At the same time, I. Sytin took a serious financial risk: for almost two years, the cheap editions of Leo Tolstoy, N. Leskov and other creators of the Russian word that he published did not find wide sales and were frankly unprofitable.

Success came in 1887, the anniversary year of A. Pushkin’s death, when Sytin’s 900-page volume, which included all the works of the great poet, sold an unprecedented circulation - 1 million copies! It was followed by an equally weighty volume of works by N. Gogol, and the matter got off the ground. In total, 64 authors were published in publications accessible to low-income people - classics of Russian and foreign literature. In the first 4 years alone, circulation of these books exceeded 12 million copies. “Now booksellers are good at selling cheap brochures of the works of Pushkin, Tolstoy and others, read them and sell them, but now at least don’t carry various fairy tales about Bova and Eruslan at all,” journalists reported news from the Russian book market.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the printing, publishing and bookselling company of I. Sytin took a leading position in Russia; its trade turnover in 1916 exceeded 17.5 million rubles. I. Sytin published school textbooks, the popular "Universal Calendar" of an encyclopedic reference nature, fiction, scientific and religious literature, encyclopedias ("People's", "Children's", "Military"), thematic series ("Great Reform", "Patriotic War" and Russian society"), collected works A.S. Pushkina, N.V. Gogol, L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov and others. I. Sytin's publishing house absorbed many competing publishing houses and opened bookstores in many cities.

Newspapers and magazines published by I. Sytin were published in large circulations. The magazine "Around the World" had a circulation of 42 thousand. In 1891, the brothers M.A. and E.A. Werner bookselling company Sytin acquired the rights to publish the magazine"Around the world. Journal of travel and adventures on land and sea" . To work in it, I. Sytin invited the best Russian writers (among them K.M. Stanyukovich, D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak and others), famous artists. As supplements to the magazine, a monthly illustrated collection “On Land and at Sea” was published, collected works of Russian and foreign writers(J. Verne, V. Hugo, M.N. Zagoskin, I.S. Nikitin, M. Reed, G. Senkevich, V. Scott, L.N. Tolstoy).

Children's magazines "Bee" and "Children's Friend" were popular. The newspaper "Russkoe Slovo" became especially famous, reaching a circulation of 740 thousand. It was the first Russian newspaper to send its correspondents to all big cities Russia and the capitals of the main countries of the world. According to the newspaper employees, only incidents happened in Moscow, and the events took place in St. Petersburg, so a large editorial office with a staff of one hundred people was organized in the capital. The efficiency of “Russian Word” was amazing at that time. “Even the government doesn’t have such speed in collecting information,” said Finance Minister Count S.Yu. Witte. "Russian Word" was, first of all, a commercial publication. In pursuit of popularity and subscribers, the editors sometimes deliberately resorted to scandal, despite the inevitable troubles with censorship in this case. Sometimes newspaper issues confiscated.

Printing house of I. Sytin

In 1893, the Partnership's turnover reached almost a million rubles, I. Sytin became a merchant of the Second Guild. A new printing house was built on Valovaya Street, stores were opened in Moscow, Kiev, in 1895 in Warsaw, in 1899 in Yekaterinburg and Odessa. Instead of the old one, a new one was formed - “The Highly Approved Partnership for Printing, Publishing and Book Trade I.D. Sytin" with a fixed capital of 350 thousand rubles. There were 896 book titles registered in its catalogue, and their number was growing rapidly. Orders by mail from anywhere Russian Empire were performed within 2-10 days. Ivan Sytin came up with the idea of direct delivery of books and magazines to factories.

Printing house of I. Sytin

He constantly cared about the development of educational book business in Russia, in 1911 he created the “Society for Promoting the Improvement and Development of Book Business in Russia,” which disseminated knowledge about publishing; accepted aspiring publishers for study. In 1903, I. Sytin opened a school of technical drawing and engineering. When enrolling in the school, preference was given to the children of employees and workers of his enterprise, as well as residents of villages and hamlets with primary education. General education replenished in evening classes. Training and full content students were provided at the expense of the Sytin Partnership.

In 1914, the publishing house produced over a quarter of all book production in Russia. In 1916, I. Sytin acquired a controlling stake in the St. PetersburgPartnership for publishing and printing “A.F. Marx" , incl. popular Russian magazine "Niva"; in the same year, the Moscow publishing and printing partnership N.L. bought it. Kazetsky. Sytin's partnership owned a controlling stake in the St. Petersburg Industrial and Trade Partnership "M.O. Wolf " Ivan Dmitrievich was thinking about new plans: he was going to build his own stationery factory near Moscow with a town for printers, schools, hospitals, a theater, a church, a telegraph... The plans were not destined to come true - 1917 was approaching. A few days after that it beganFebruary Revolution, which crossed out that old Russia and soon brought down the publishing empire of Ivan Sytin...

In October 1918, the I. D. Sytin Partnership was nationalized, the activities of the printing house on Valovaya Street were suspended, and in 1919 the printing house was transferredGosizdat . The Sytinsky printing house was called the First Exemplary.

But Ivan Dmitrievich continued to work in the publishing business: he was an authorized representative of his former printing house - using personal connections and authority, he obtained paper abroad. Organized an art exhibition in the USA. He was even offered to headState Publishing House of the RSFSR, but he refused, citing “illiteracy.” However, he agreed to be a consultant to V.V. Vorovsky, who took this position.

In 1928, the government appointed I.D. Sytin personal pension. Until his death in 1934, he lived on Tverskaya and wrote “Memoirs”. They saw the light thanks to the efforts of his son only in the 1960s under the title “Life for a Book,” which perfectly reflects the meaning of Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin’s entire life.

Our library collection contains books published by I. D. Sytin. They are presented at the book exhibition “Books for which time has stood still”, dedicated to the anniversary of Ivan Sytin.

"The Great Reform", an anniversary publication in memory of the liberation of the peasants, was published in 1911 under the editorship of the Historical Commission of the educational department of the Russian Technical Society. More than 60 professors, private assistant professors, writers and teachers took part in the publication. The books were illustrated with portraits and paintings on separate tabs using the mezzotint method and in colors. The publication consisted of six volumes and cost 24 rubles."

“Hundreds of thousands of books have passed through my hands, but none have excited me so much. It may very well be that my peasant origin and that ineradicable memory of painful slavery that lived in my soul had an impact here. I wanted Russian science, 50 years later, to take a closer look at the Russian village and sum up the results: what has been done for the people in 50 years and whether the remnants of slavery have been completely exterminated in Russian life.”.

Memory of Ivan Sytin

23.11.1934

Russian Entrepreneur

Book publisher and educator

Ivan Sytin was born on February 5, 1851 in the village of Gnezdnikovo, Kostroma province. He grew up in the family of a volost clerk. Being the eldest in the family, he began working early as a furrier's assistant and in a bookstore. At the age of twenty-five, he got married and, having bought a machine for lithographic printing, opened his own printing house, which he called the “First Model Printing House.”

The release of maps from the places where the battles took place in the Russian-Turkish war brought him great profit. In 1882, at the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition, Sytin was awarded a bronze medal for printed books. He initiated the opening of a publishing house that would print books at affordable prices. This is how the publishing house “Posrednik” was created, which published works by Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Leskov.

Sytin came up with the idea of publishing annual calendars, which at the same time served as reference guides. The first such “Universal Calendar” was released in 1885; a year later the calendar came out with a circulation of 6 million copies, and in 1916 more than 21 million.

In 1890, Sytin became a member of the Russian Bibliographical Society, published the magazines “Book Science”, “Around the World”, “Fashion Magazine”, “Bulletin of the School” and many others, the newspaper “Russian Word”, publications for children “Pchelka”, “Mirok” ", "Children's Friend". Sytin's major publishing project was the Military Encyclopedia. From 1911 to 1915, 18 volumes were published, but the publication remained unfinished.

Ivan Dmitrievich’s printing house was one of the main ones using “borrowed labor,” that is, almost everything was “contracted” to small owners. These workers were not entitled to any, even small, benefits of “career” employees. However, Sytin did not pamper his workers, as he was very tight-fisted.

I once calculated that punctuation marks make up about 12% of typing, and, after thinking about it, I decided to pay typesetters only for typed letters. Meanwhile, typing at that time was carried out manually, and the worker did not care whether he took a letter or a comma from the cash register; the labor effort in both cases seemed the same, so Sytin’s proposal was met with hostility by the typesetters.

On August 11, 1905, the outraged workers put forward demands to the owner: to reduce the working day to 9 hours and increase wages. Sytin agreed to shorten the working day, but left his order not to pay for punctuation marks in force. And then a strike began, which was picked up by workers from other plants and factories. Afterwards, in St. Petersburg salons they said that the All-Russian strike of 1905 occurred “because of the Sytin comma.”

During the December Uprising of 1905 in Moscow, Sytin's printing house on Valovaya Street was one of the centers of stubborn resistance and burned down as a result of street fighting.

By 1917, Sytin was the owner of a large chain of bookstores in many provinces of the Russian Empire from the city of Warsaw to the city of Irkutsk. In mid-February 1917, the Russian public widely celebrated the 50th anniversary of Sytin’s book publishing activity with the release of the literary and artistic publication “Half a Century for a Book”, in the preparation for the publication of which Maxim Gorky, Alexander Kuprin, Nikolai Rubakin, Nicholas Roerich took part; only about 200 authors.

After the revolution, Ivan Dmitrievich’s enterprises were nationalized, but he himself continued to be active social activities. In 1928 he received a personal pension and a two-room apartment.

Sytin Ivan Dmitrievich died on November 23, 1934 in Moscow. He was buried at the Vvedensky cemetery.

Memory of Ivan Sytin

In Moscow, at house No. 18 on Tverskaya Street, of which he was the owner, a memorial plaque was erected in his memory in 1973, and in 1974 a monument with a bas-relief of the book publisher was erected on his grave.

In 1989, the apartment on Tverskaya, where Sytin lived for the last 7 years, was opened as the museum-apartment of I. D. Sytin.

In the village of Gnezdnikovo, Soligalichsky district, and in Soligalich itself, a street was named in his honor.

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

Young Ivan graduated from the 3rd grade of a rural school. At the age of 12, he began working as a salesman at a furrier’s stall at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, was an apprentice painter, 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 P.N. Sharapov as a “boy.” He soon attracted the owner's attention with his hard work and intelligence.

In 1876, Ivan Sytin married Evdokia Ivanovna Sokolova, from a merchant family, taking a dowry of 4,000 rubles. His former owner P.N. Sharapov lent him another 3,000 rubles. 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 Sytin 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 items of very high quality printed materials were produced per year: 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 Ofeni traders, who were provided with 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.

Publisher Sytin gained fame in 1882 after being awarded a bronze medal at the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition for his printed products. The first bookstore of the publisher Sytin was opened on January 1, 1883 on Old Square, and in February the faith-based partnership “I.D. Sytin and Co.” was founded with a capital of 75,000 rubles.

In 1884, the publishing house “Posrednik” was created, which published the works of L.N. Tolstoy, I.S. Turgenev, N.S. Leskov and other domestic 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 guide and opened a whole series of calendars: “Small Universal”, “Kiev”, “Modern”, “Old Believer”. The circulation exceeded 6 million copies the very next year, and in 1916, 1 type of calendar was published, whose circulation was more than 21 million copies.

Since 1980, I.D. Sytin began publishing the journal “Book Science”. In 1891, he bought the magazine “Around the World,” which became a favorite reading among young people. The works of M. Reed, J. Verne, A. Dumas, and A. Conan-Doyle were published as literary supplements to it. In 1897, he began publishing the newspaper “Russian Word” - a yearly subscription cost only 7 rubles, and by 1917 the circulation was more than 1 million copies.

During this period, Ivan Sytin became the largest Russian publisher, producing high-quality and cheap textbooks, children's books, classical works, and religious literature. Since 1895, he published the “Self-Education Library” - a total of 47 books on history, philosophy, economics, and natural science were published. ABC books, fairy tales of different nations, novels, short stories, collections of poems, and author's fairy tales by A.S. Pushkin were published for children. V.A. Zhukovsky, Brothers Grimm, C. Perrault. Children's magazines "Children's Friend", "Pchelka", "Mirok" were published. By 1916, more than 440 textbooks and manuals for primary school classes had been published, and the Primer was republished 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-story 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, and 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, the “Teacher's House” was built on Malaya Ordynka, with a museum, library, and auditorium.

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

After establishing Soviet power all of I.D. Sytin’s enterprises were nationalized, and he himself represented the Land of the Soviets abroad: he organized an exhibition of Russian paintings in the USA, and negotiated concessions with Germany. He was assigned a personal pension in 1928 and given an apartment on the street. Tverskoy.

Common people pictures
Awaken the mind
Classics in circulation
Fourth Estate
Businessman or Dreamer

Common people pictures

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.

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

Awaken the mind

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”.

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.

Material prepared by Elena Ivanova