thumb|Ivan Sytin in 1908; portrait by Alexander Moravov (1878-1951) '''Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin''' ({{langx|ru|Ива́н Дми́триевич Сы́тин}}; 5 February 1851{{spaced ndash}}23 November 1934) was a publisher in the Russian Empire. The son of a Soligalich peasant, he built the largest publishing house in the Russian Empire.
Sytin went from his village to Moscow at the age of 13 and opened his own book shop in 1883. He made a fortune through printing millions of almanac-type calendars containing miscellaneous practical information. They were cheap and attractively illustrated.
This venture was followed by the very cheap editions of Pushkin's, Gogol's and Tolstoy's works. After their authors' rights expired, Sytin compressed their entire works into one volume that cost as little as 90 kopecks. He was the first publisher to reach the peasants all over Russia and to shape popular taste in the entire country.<ref>{{cite book |title=Canadian Book Review Annual |publisher=Peter Martin Associates |date=1990 |page=77}}</ref>
Maxim Gorky called Sytin the de facto "minister of people's education" whose calendars and leaflets "cut down at least by half the number of relapses into illiteracy".<ref>{{cite book |first=Maxim |last=Gorky |author-link=Maxim Gorky |title=Untimely thoughts: essays on revolution, culture, and the Bolsheviks, 1917-1918 |publisher=P. S. Eriksson |date=1968 |page=177}}</ref>
Leo Tolstoy proposed to edit "a cheap, simplified series that would reflect his moral teachings and not be copyrighted".<ref>{{cite book |first=Charles A. |last=Ruud |title=Fighting Words: Imperial Censorship and the Russian Press, 1804-1906 |edition=2nd |publisher=University of Toronto Press |date=2009 |page=205}}</ref>
Between 1887 and 1916, Sytin's printing house in Zamoskvorechye brought out more than 400 primers and textbooks. He later expanded into the publication of popular encyclopaedias such as ''The Military Encyclopaedia'' in eighteen volumes, ''The Encyclopaedia for Children'' in ten volumes, and the ''Napoleonic Wars'' encyclopaedia in seven volumes.
By the early 20th century, Sytin dominated the publishing industry in the Russian Empire. It was he who revived the ''Vokrug sveta'' geographic magazine (still published today). He commissioned numerous translations of adventure fiction by such authors as Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. ''Russkoye Slovo'', an obscure conservative newspaper, was transformed by Sytin into Russia's most popular (and cheapest) daily; its circulation surpassed one million copies in 1917.<ref>{{cite book |first=Robert Justin |last=Goldstein |title=The War for the Public Mind: Political Censorship in 19th-century Europe |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-275-96461-0 |page=256}}</ref>
After the Russian Revolution, Sytin's printing house was nationalized but he decided against emigrating and died in obscurity in his small flat on Tverskaya Street at the age of 83. This apartment has been designated a national museum since 1989.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.muzeysitina.ru/?page=history |title=Музей Ивана Дмитриевича Сытина |trans-title=Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin Museum |language=ru}}</ref>
In 1990, McGill-Queen's University Press published a study by Charles A. Ruud, ''Russian Entrepreneur: Publisher Ivan Sytin of Moscow, 1851-1934''.<ref>{{cite book |date=1990 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |first=Charles A. |last=Ruud |title=Russian Entrepreneur: Publisher Ivan Sytin of Moscow, 1851-1934 |isbn=9780773507739 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/russianentrepren0000ruud_y4w7 }})</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == {{Commons category|Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Ivan Sytin}} * [http://www.muzeysitina.ru/ Sytin Museum in Moscow] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210919103855/http://muzeysitina.ru/ |date=2021-09-19 }} * [http://www.zamos.ru/dossier/s/4271/ List of Sytin publications]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sytin, Ivan Dmitrievich}} Category:1851 births Category:1934 deaths Category:People from Soligalichsky District Category:People from Soligalichsky Uyezd
Category:Newspaper publishers (people) from the Russian Empire Category:Book publishers (people) from the Russian Empire Category:Burials at Vvedenskoye Cemetery