The history of books is very fascinating. It all started in Mesopotamia about five thousand years ago. The first books had little in common with modern models. These were clay tablets, on which the signs of Babylonian cuneiform were applied with a pointed stick. For the most part, these records were of a domestic nature, but archaeologists were lucky to find descriptions of important historical events, myths, and legends. Our ancestors wrote on each such tablet two or three times, easily erasing what was previously inscribed. The first books in Babylon consisted of dozens, and sometimes hundreds of peculiar clay pages, placed in a wooden box, which served as a binding in those ancient times.
Of particular interest is the huge library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. It was a storage place for tens of thousands of books with information on a variety of industries. Unfortunately, not all unique artifacts have survived to this day.
Egyptian innovations
Currently it is very difficult to find a person who knows absolutely nothing about the culture of Ancient Egypt. Most of us immediately come to mindpapyrus is the prototype of paper. It grew in large numbers along the banks of the great Nile. The stems of the plant were cut into strips, dried and glued together. After all these manipulations, the papyrus was carefully ironed with stones to make it smooth.
Naturally, no one knew about ink then, so the first handwritten books were created using vegetable inks. A thin reed served as a kind of pen. The ancient Egyptians are credited with inventing the first self-writing pen. Craftsmen began pouring ink into a hollow reed, providing a continuous flow of prototype ink.
For the convenience of using a papyrus book, one end of the tape was attached to a stick, and the scroll itself was wound around it. Wooden or leather cases served as binders.
Not Egypt alone…
Naturally, books were created not only in the country of the pharaohs. Hindus, for example, collected the first books from palm leaves, which were then neatly sewn together and bound in wood. Unfortunately, due to numerous fires and natural disasters, not a single copy of those times has survived.
Europeans left their notes on parchment. This prototype paper was a specially treated leather. Before the invention of paper, the Chinese wrote on tablets made from bamboo stalks. According to one hypothesis (it was only partially confirmed), the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire derived hieroglyphs using knots tied in a special way. However, this version has many unspecified facts, so we consider it plausible.not yet.
Most sources state that the creator of the paper - Tsai Lun - lived in the Land of the Rising Sun around 105 BC. Over the next few centuries, the recipe by which paper was made was the strictest secret. For its disclosure threatened a terrible punishment.
The Arabs also excelled in this matter: representatives of this people were among the first to create their own paper samples, most reminiscent of the modern version. Washed wool served as the main material. When gluing individual sheets, long scrolls (up to fifty meters) were obtained.
After the adoption of Christianity and the creation of Slavic writing in Russia, the first handwritten books also began to appear.
Go to the machine
Printing was invented twice: in China and in Europe in the Middle Ages. Historians have not yet come to a consensus about when the first printed book saw the light of day. According to some reports, the ingenious Chinese created the machine in 581 BC. According to other sources, this happened between 936 and 993. At the same time, the first printed book, the date of creation of which is documented, was published in 868. It was an exact woodcut copy of the Diamond Sutra of the Buddha.
Europeans have their own father of printing. This is Johannes Gutenberg. He is the creator of the printing press. In addition, Gutenberg invented typesetting (a significant event took place in 1440). First printed bookwas still very handwritten, with many engravings, richly designed cover and stylized type. Published books were very expensive at first, as they were as difficult to create as handwritten ones.
The second half of the fifteenth century was marked by the spread of printing houses throughout Europe. So, in 1465 a workshop was founded in Italy. In 1468 the first publishing house was opened in Switzerland, and in 1470 in France. After three years - in Poland, Hungary and Belgium, after another three years - in England and the Czech Republic. In 1482 a printing workshop was opened in Denmark and Austria, in 1483 in Sweden, and four years later in Portugal. For two decades, a broad print market has been formed, and with it, there has been competition from publishers.
The most famous printing house of that time belonged to Aldus Manutius, the famous humanist from Venice. The works of such great authors as Aristotle, Herodotus, Plato, Plutarch, Demosthenes and Thucydides were published under his brand.
As the printing process improved, the cost of books decreased. This was also facilitated by the mass distribution of paper.
First tutorial
David the Invincible, a mathematician of the 6th century, first compiled a textbook in which arithmetic rules and formulas were written. Currently, the unique book is in the Matenadaran (repository of ancient manuscripts in Yerevan).
Appearance of birch bark letters
The first book in Russia was a fastened birch bark sheets. It was in this way that in the XI-XV centuries our ancestors exchanged information in writing. Archaeologists were lucky to see birch-bark documents for the first time in 1951 in Novgorod. A. V. Artsikholovsky led that famous archaeological expedition.
Letters were scratched on birch bark using a sharp metal or bone stick (writing). Most of the found birch bark letters are private letters. In these messages, people touch upon economic and domestic issues, give instructions, and describe conflicts. Some of them contain comic texts, protests of peasants against feudal domination, lists of duties, political news, wills.
From 1951 to 1981, about six hundred letters were found (most in Novgorod, a few copies in Vitebsk, Smolensk, Staraya Russa and Pskov).
Works of contemporary masters
The Novosibirsk Institute of History keeps a manuscript called "Poetry". It was handed over by archaeologist Natalya Zolnikova. The basis of the manuscript was silky birch bark of very fine manufacture. However, this is not an ancient artifact, but a modern work. The book was created by the inhabitants of one Old Believer settlement located on the Lower Yenisei. It turns out that nowadays birch bark is also used as paper.
Manuscript in Russia
The first Russian book that came out from the pen of the ancient Slavs was called "Kyiv Glagolitic Sheets". It is alleged that it was created about a thousand years ago. The oldest Russian handwritten book found - "Ostromir Gospel" -dates from the middle of the eleventh century.
The advent of printing shops
The first printed books in Russia began to appear after 1522. It was in this year that the printing house located in Vilna began to function. The initiator of its discovery was Francysk Skaryna, the legendary Belarusian educator. Before that, he already had experience in printing: on August 6, 1517, he published the Ps alter. It happened in Prague, where the great figure lived at that time.
The first Russian printed book
The first dated edition, which was released in Russia, is called "Apostle". This is a church book that was published in the capital in 1564. Its creator is Ivan Fedorov. In addition, Peter Mstislavets took part in the process (at that time he was a student of Fedorov). It was these people who went down in history forever as the creators of the first Russian printed book. The unique edition consisted of 268 sheets measuring 21x14 cm. The circulation at that time was impressive - a little less than two thousand copies. There are currently 61 books discovered.
The first reading textbook - what was it like?
The first Russian printed book, thanks to which our ancestors mastered reading and writing, was also published by master Ivan Fedorov. It happened over four hundred years ago. It contained basic grammar rules, as well as instructive aphorisms, wise sayings and instructions.
The appearance of the primer
Books from which knowledge could be gleaned were the most revered in Russia. These, of course, includedprimers. They were compiled by the editors of the Moscow Printing House. The first children's book was published in 1634. Its name is "The primer of the Slavonic language, that is, the beginning of the teaching of children, if you want to learn to read the scriptures." The author of the work is Vasily Burtsov-Protopopov.
The first Russian illustrated primer was created by Karion Istomin, a monk, educator and poet. He did a great job: each letter was accompanied by a drawing of an object beginning with that letter. The book made it possible to study the Polish, Latin and Greek alphabet, and there were practically no texts on religious topics in it. What was new was the fact that the book was intended for children of both sexes (“youths” and “girls”).
The appearance of bookplates
The first Russian printed book with a special sign indicating belonging to a certain library was published in the eighteenth century. In those days, the associates of Peter the Great, including J. Bruce and D. Golitsyn, could boast of large book collections. All printed copies of their collections were decorated with miniatures in stamps and type.
Mini options
The title of the first printed book measuring 6.5 by 7.5 centimeters is "The Art of Being Funny in Conversations". A unique copy was published in 1788. In 1885, the fables of the author Krylov were printed on the pages of a book the size of a standard postage stamp. For the set, a small print called diamond was chosen. Do you know the name of the first printeda miniature book published during the Soviet era? It was the Constitution of the RSFSR. It was printed in 1921 in Kineshma. The size of the book is three and a half by five centimeters.
Currently, there are more than one hundred miniature editions. The largest collection is Pushkin's works - there are fifty books in it. The real record holder is a volume of 0.064 cubic meters of the poet's poems. mm. Its creator is craftsman M. Maslyuk from Zhmerinka (Vinnitsa region, Ukraine).
Giant specimens
The largest ancient book is a manuscript in Armenian called “Sermons of the Mush Monastery”. It was created over two years - from 1200 to 1202. The weight of the book is twenty-seven and a half kilograms. The size is also impressive - 55.5 by 70.5 cm. The unique copy consists of six hundred and two sheets, each of which was used with one skin of a month-old calf. In 1204 the manuscript was stolen by the Seljuks. More than four thousand drachmas were collected for redemption by the inhabitants of many Armenian villages (for your information: one drachma is equivalent to 4.65 g of silver). For more than seven centuries, the manuscript was in the monastery of the city of Mush, in Western Armenia. In 1915, she moved to the Matenadaran vault in Yerevan. This happened due to the Turkish pogroms, due to which the unique result of manual labor could simply be destroyed.
Stone Bible
The book in an unusual performance can be seen during a visit to the State Museum of Arts, located in Georgia. Once upon a time, the master carved twenty plots from the New and the OldTestaments on slabs of stone. This is the only instance. The artifact was found in the Abkhazian mountain village of Tsebelda.
The current state of affairs
In the nineties of the twentieth century, dynamic transformations were observed in the book business. This was due to the social, political and economic changes taking place in the Russian Federation. Thus, the publishing business turned out to be one of the first industries that began the transition to market relations. The book began to be regarded as an object of entrepreneurial activity. That is why the policy of state protectionism in the field of culture and the book business as its direct component was so important.
In the 1990s, publishing and distributing books was a lucrative business. Everything was explained simply: the country experienced an acute shortage of goods of this kind. However, this did not last long. After about five years, the market saturated. Buyers began to choose books with particular care. As competition intensified, such characteristics as product quality and the reputation of manufacturers and distributors began to play an increasingly important role. This period is characterized by an increase in the share of translated publications. So, in 1993, books by foreign authors accounted for almost fifty percent of all publishers' output.
Today there is a fluctuating readership. If in the Soviet period the works of one author were popular for a long time, then at present the list of bestsellers is changing with a dizzyingspeed. This was facilitated by the burgeoning diversity of opinions, interests and preferences of citizens.
