The victory of the bourgeois social system over feudalism in a number of European countries facilitated the development of publishing. From the 18th through the mid-19th century, the process of forming publishing houses and their quantitative growth in all countries proceeded with increasing rapidity. The functions and structure of publishing houses became considerably more complex. Editorial, bibliographical and informational, and advertising activity developed, as well as bookselling (in the «publishers’” book trade). In publishing generally, and in book production in particular, machine technology was rapidly introduced. The invention of machinery for paper manufacture in the late 18th century expanded and considerably improved paper production and made it cheaper; the appearance of the cylinder press in the early 19th century, as well as the invention of other typographic machines, considerably expanded the potential of typography. The process of specialization of publishing and typographic enterprises in the publishing business began in the mid-19th century, with the emergence of a new, strong technical base. As the period of monopoly capitalism began (the late 19th to early 20th century), there was massive organization of publishing houses on the model of joint-stock companies, and thereafter book and newspaper-magazine publishing houses were organized into trusts.
Publishing houses are divided into book, book-magazine, and newspaper-magazine types, depending on their products. The nature of the publishing house is determined by the intended readership – scientific, popular, children, or youth; the subject matter of the publications determines the type of the publishing house – general-purpose or specialized.
The production of books intended for distribution was known in Rus’ as early as the turn of the 11th century. Books were copied by special scribes in monasteries and at princes’ courts and by professional artisans in the cities. In the 15th to the mid-16th century, the book business expanded in conjunction with the formation of the centralized Russian state, the development of handicrafts and trade, and the growth of cities and development of urban culture. Multivolume manuscript works, general Russian annals, and many other works appeared. In 1551, at the Stoglav (Hundred Chapters) Council, Ivan IV declared: «Scribes write from inaccurate translations, and having written, do not correct them… and in God’s churches people read, sing, and write from these books.» Printing was able to facilitate the establishment of uniformity in church books.
The first printed Slavic books using Cyrillic characters were published by Szwajpolt Fiol in Kraków at the end of the 15th century. At the beginning of the 16th century, the first Byelorussian printer, Frantsisk Skorin, organized book printing in Slavonic in Wilno (Vilnius).
3. Answer the following questions:
1. What is publishing?
2. What is the genesis of publishing houses associated with?
3. What are publishing houses divided into?
4. Who wrote books before the invention of printed press?
5. Where and when was the printing in Belorussia organized?
6. Who are the prominent figures in Russian printing era beginning?
4. Translate the following sentences into Russian:
1. The level, scope, and orientation of publishing are determined by the material, sociopolitical, and cultural conditions of a society.
