Скачать или смотреть The Great Soviet Encyclopedia volume 44 / Relaxing music for sleep

The beginning of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was laid in 1925 by a resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the Presidium of the CEC of the USSR, according to which a mixed joint-stock company "State Scientific Publication "Soviet Encyclopedia"" was created at the Communist Academy, which was entrusted with the publication of the encyclopedia[2].

The first volume was published in 1926. However, the complete edition of the encyclopedia (65 volumes and one additional volume devoted entirely to the USSR) took 21 years and was completed only in 1947 (for comparison: with a comparable volume of text, the second edition took 8 years, the third-9 years). During the publication of the JSC "Soviet Encyclopedia" in 1930, it was transformed into the State Dictionary and Encyclopedia Publishing House, and in 1937 it was renamed the State Scientific Institute "Soviet Encyclopedia".

In total, the first edition of the encyclopedia contains 65 thousand articles, 12 thousand illustrations and over 1 thousand maps. The total volume of the publication was 4.3 thousand author's sheets of text. The average size of the article was 2.7 thousand characters. Each volume contains an average of 8-10 color geographical maps and up to 20 illustrations (partially colored) on separate sheets. In addition to the embedded sheets, drawings and maps are widely used in the text. Most of the illustrations were executed by woodcuts by famous Soviet artists. For the external design of the volumes, lederine bindings with gold embossing and semi-leather spines were used. The circulation of each volume was 50-80 thousand copies.