The Archive of the Moscow Printing House, 1620-1700

The Russian State Archives of Early Acts (RGADA), Moscow. Fond 1182, opis΄ 1.

The Moscow Printing House (Moskovskīĭ pechatnyĭ dvor) was founded in 1553 during thereign of Ivan the Terrible, but was not built until 1563. Because the first fewbooks it published bore neither the date nor place of publication, the officialbeginning of book printing in Russia is put at 1564 – the year in which Ivan Fedorovand Petr Timofeev Mstislavets printed Russia's first dated book, an edition of the"Apostol". The Pechatnyĭ dvor operated until 1571, when it was destroyed by fire.Ivan the Terrible then ordered the establishment of a new printing press atAleksandrova Sloboda. Rebuilt in 1589 but destroyed during the Time of Troubles, theMoskovskīĭ pechatnyĭ dvor eventually emerged as the State's leading printing house.

In 1611 the Pechatnyĭ dvor was destroyed by fire, but rebuilt in 1620. In the 1630sit employed some 120 people, and by the middle of the century this number had risento 150. The first secular book, "Uchenie i khitrost΄ ratnogo stroeniia pekhotnykhliudeĭ", was printed in 1647. By 1679 the quarters of the Pechatnyĭ dvor had beenenlarged to accommodate its increased activities. In 1708 the first book printedwith "Grazhdanskiĭ shrift", entitled "Geometriia" appeared. In 1712 with theestablishment of a printing press in Saint Petersburg part of the presses of thePechatnyĭ dvor were transferred there. In 1721 the Pechatnyĭ dvor and its buildingsin Moscow became the headquarters of the Sinodal΄naia tipografia, which remained inoperation until 1917.

The Moskovskīĭ pechatnyĭ dvor was a well-organized State institution that enjoyed theinviolable position of a monopolist: it was the only place in Muscovite Rus' whereprinted books were produced. The Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, whose explicitpermission was required for every book, supervised the activities of the Pechatnyĭdvor. Consequently, the title page of each one bore the words: "Ordered by HisImperial Highness the Tsar, blessed by His Holiness the Patriarch." The actualprinting was invariably preceded by a service attended by the Patriarch. Determiningthe price of a book was left to none other than the Tsar, who was solemnly presentedwith the first copy.

The Pechatnyĭ dvor performed a variety of important functions in the cultural life ofseventeenth-century Russia. It helped to spread the official ideology and theliturgical revisions that would lead to the schism of the Orthodox Church. It alsoserved as Russia’s first bookshop, a book repository, and a training school forfuture book printers. In the course of the seventeenth century, the Moskovskīĭpechatnyĭ dvor amassed an enormous library and printed a total of ca. 350,000copies.

An important subsection of the Printing House was the Pravil΄naia palata (CorrectionChamber) – a body of editors and correctors who prepared the manuscripts before theywent to print. Recruited among the monks and servants of Moscow churches, themembers of the Chamber received extensive training before they were entrusted withtheir tasks. Many of these correctors were highly educated men, among them SimeonPolotskiĭ and Sil΄vestr Medvedev. They were appointed by the Partiarch and addedprefaces and afterwords to works that promoted the state doctrine of "Moscow thethird Rome". At a later stage, the Chamber proved instrumental in "amending" thechurch books and liturgical texts traditionally deemed sacred. Supervising thiscontroversial operation was Epiphaniĭ Slavinetskiĭ. His 1655 edition of the"Sluzhebnik" sanctioned the three-fingered cross sign and other changes, therebylaying the foundation for the schism of the Russian Orthodox Church.

This collection consists of receipt books and expenses books of the Moscow PrintingHouse, Russia's first publisher, in the period 1620-1700. The receipt books containinformation regarding the sales of publications, the number of copies printed,dissemination of publications, book prices, etc. The expenses books containinformation regarding the workers' wages, and the amounts paid for equipment andother material.

The materials provide insights into the way in which books were produced and traded,allowing researchers to establish the paper and the typeset used, and theconstruction of certain tools and devices. The collection contains data on bookstocks and the number of books in circulation, on editions that were not kept, theprice of new books, their preparation for printing, the geography of book sales, andthe buyers of different types of an edition. The data on the residence and socialstatus of the buyer were almost always recorded in receipt books. The copybooks caneven be used to trace the history of each individual edition prepared by the MoscowPrinting House. The collection provides materials for scholars studying the social,political, or ecenomic history of seventeenth-century Russia, or more specifically,the history of the Russian Church.

The collection also contains information on the schism of the Russian Church, therestoration of the economy after the Time of Troubles, the uprisings, and epidemicsin the 17th century, and information on merchants, both Russian and foreign, fromwhom these or those goods were bought.

The manuscript books have been arranged chronologically.

The collection was housed at the Moskovskaia sinodal΄naia tipografiia (thatsuperseded the Moskovskiĭ pechatnyĭ dvor in 1721) and for a long time neglected. Inthe second half of the 19th century it was rediscovered by M.I. Giliarov-Platonov indisordered state at the attic of the building. After the revolution in 1917 theMoskovskaia sinodal΄naia tipografiia was closed and the collection was transferredto the Museum of the History of Book Printing. In 1933 the collection wastransferred to the Gosudarstvennyĭ arkhiv feodal΄no-krepostnicheskoĭ ėpokhi, whichwas renamed TSGADA (TSentral΄nyĭ gosudarstvennyĭ arkhiv drevnikh aktov), and now iscalled RGADA (Rossiĭskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ arkhiv drevnikh aktov).

IDC Publishers is considering publication on microfiche of the materials from Fond1182, Opisi 2 and 3.

The following may be of value when using the materials described in the finding aid:
Московский печатный двор - факт и фактор русской культуры, 1618-1652 гг. : отвосставления после гибели в Смутное время до патриарха Никона : исследования ипубликации / И.В. Поздеева, В.П. Пушков, А.В. Дадыкин. Москва, 2001.