The story of the books is very exciting. It all started back in Mesopotamia about five thousand years ago. The first books had little in common with modern designs. These were clay tablets, on which the signs of the Babylonian cuneiform were inscribed with the help of a pointed wand. Most of these records were of everyday 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 the previously written. The first books in Babylon represented 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. She was the place of storage of tens of thousands of books with information on a variety of industries. Unfortunately, not all unique artifacts have survived to this day.
Egyptian innovations
It is currently very difficult to find a person who knows absolutely nothing about the culture of Ancient Egypt. Most of us immediately think of papyrus, the prototype of paper. He grew in large quantities along the shores of the great Nile. The stems of the plant were cut into strips, dried and glued. After all these manipulations, the papyrus was carefully stoned to give it smoothness.
Naturally, no one knew about ink then, so the first manuscript books were created using paints of plant origin. A thin reed served as a kind of feather. The ancient Egyptians are credited with the invention of the first pen. Craftsmen began to pour paint into a hollow reed, providing a continuous flow of ink prototype.
For the convenience of using a papyrus book, one end of the tape was attached to a stick, and the scroll itself was wound on it. Wooden or leather cases served as binders.
Not Egypt One ...
Naturally, books were created not only in the land of the pharaohs. The Hindus, for example, collected the first books from palm leaves, which were then carefully stitched together and enclosed in a binding made of wood. Unfortunately, due to numerous fires and natural disasters, not a single instance of those times has been preserved.
Europeans left their notes on parchment. This prototype paper was a specially treated skin. The Chinese, before the invention of the paper, wrote on tablets made of bamboo stems. According to one hypothesis (it is only partially confirmed), the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom derived hieroglyphs using knots tied in a special way. However, this version has many unspecified facts, so we cannot yet consider it plausible.
Most sources claim that the creator of the paper, Cai Lun, lived in the Land of the Rising Sun in about one hundred and fifth year BC. Over the next several centuries, the recipe used to make paper was the strictest secret. For her disclosure threatened terrible punishment.
Arabs also excelled in this matter: representatives of this nation were among the first to create their own paper samples that resemble the modern version as much as possible. The main material was washed wool. When gluing individual sheets, long scrolls were obtained (up to fifty meters).
After the adoption of Christianity and the creation of Slavic writing in Russia, too, the first manuscript books began to appear.
Go to the machine
Typography was invented twice: in China and in Europe in the Middle Ages. Historians still have not come to a consensus about when the first printed book saw the light of day. According to some reports, inventive Chinese created the machine in 581 BC. According to other sources, this happened between the 936th and 993rd year. At the same time, the first printed book, the creation date of which is documented, was published in 868. It was an exact woodcut copy of the Diamond Buddha Sutra.
Europeans have their own typography father. This is Johannes Guttenberg. He is the creator of the printing press. In addition, Guttenberg came up with a typeface (a significant event took place in 1440). The first printed book was still very similar to the manuscript, with many prints, richly designed cover and stylized font. Initially, published books were very expensive, since creating them was as difficult as manuscripts.
The second half of the fifteenth century was marked by the proliferation 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, three years later - 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. Over the course of two decades, a broad print market has been forming, and along with this, publishers are competing.
The most illustrious printing house of the time belonged to Aldo Manucius, the famous humanist from Venice. Under his brand, the works of such great authors as Aristotle, Herodotus, Plato, Plutarch, Demosthenes and Thucydides were published.
As the printing process improved, the cost of books decreased. The mass distribution of paper also contributed to this.
First textbook
David Invincible - a mathematician of the VI century - for the first time compiled a textbook in which arithmetic rules and formulas were written. Currently, a unique book is in Matenadaran (repository of ancient manuscripts in Yerevan).
The appearance of birch bark letters
The first book in Russia was a bonded birch bark sheet. In this way, in the XI-XV centuries, our ancestors exchanged information in writing. Archaeologists for the first time were lucky to see birch bark letters in 1951 in Novgorod. A.V. Artsiholovsky led that famous archaeological expedition.
The letters were scratched on birch bark using a sharp metal or bone stick (writing). Most of the birch bark letters found are private letters. In these messages, people touch on household and household issues, give orders, describe conflicts. Some of them contain comic texts, peasants' protests against feudal dominance, conscription lists, news from the sphere of politics, wills.
From 1951 to 1981, about six hundred letters were found (most in Novgorod, several copies in Vitebsk, Smolensk, Staraya Russa and Pskov).
Works of modern masters
At the Novosibirsk Institute of History, a manuscript called "Poems" is stored. She was transferred by archaeologist Natalia Zolnikova. The basis of the manuscript was a silky birch bark of a very fine finish. However, this is not an old artifact, but a modern work. The book was created by residents of an Old Believer settlement located on the Lower Yenisei. It turns out that these days birch bark is also used as paper.
Manuscript in Russia
The first Russian book, which came out from the pen of the ancient Slavs, was called "Kiev Glagolic Leaves". It is alleged that it was created about a thousand years ago. The oldest Russian manuscript book found, the Ostromir Gospel, dates from the middle of the eleventh century.
The emergence of printing workshops
The first printed books in Russia began to appear after 1522. It was in this year that a printing house located in Vilna began to function. The initiator of her discovery was Francis Skorina - the legendary Belarusian enlightener. Prior to that, he already had experience in typography: on the sixth of August 1517, he published the Psalter. This happened in Prague, where the great leader lived at that time.
The first Russian printed book
The first dated publication to be released in Russia is called the Apostle. This is a church book that was released in the capital in 1564. Its creator is Ivan Fedorov. In addition, Peter Mstislavets participated in the process (at that time he was a student of Fedorov). It is these people who forever went down in history 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. Currently, 61 books have been discovered.
The first reading textbook - what was it like?
The first Russian printed book, thanks to which our ancestors mastered the letter, was also published by the master Ivan Fedorov. It happened more than four hundred years ago. It contained basic grammar rules, as well as instructive aphorisms, wise sayings and instructions.
ABC book
Books from which to draw knowledge were the most revered in Russia. Among them, of course, included primers. They were composed by editors of the Moscow Printing House. The first children's book was published in 1634. Its name is “The Primer of the Slavic language, or, to begin with, the teaching of children, although they are taught to read the scriptures.” The author of the work is Vasily Bursov-Protopopov.
The first Russian illustrated primer was created by Karion Istomin - a monk, enlightener and poet. He worked hard for fame: each letter was accompanied by a drawing of an object starting with that letter. The book made it possible to study Polish, Latin and Greek alphabets, and there were practically no texts on religious subjects in it. The novelty was the fact that the book was intended for children of both sexes ("ladies" and "ladies").
The appearance of bookplates
The first Russian printed book with a special sign indicating belonging to a particular library was published in the eighteenth century. In those days, associates of Peter the Great could boast of large book collections, including J. Bruce and D. Golitsyn. All printed copies of their collections were decorated with miniatures in the stamp and in font design.
Mini options
The name of the first printed book measuring 6.5 by 7.5 centimeters is “The Art of Being Fun in Conversations”. A unique copy was published in 1788. In 1885, the author's fables were printed on the pages of a book the size of a standard postage stamp. A small font called a diamond was chosen for the set. Do you know the name of the first printed book of miniature size, published during the Soviet Union? 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 publications. The largest collection - Pushkin's works - contains fifty books. The real record holder is a volume of poetry poetry volume of 0.064 cubic meters. mm Its creator is the craftsman M. Maslyuk from Zhmerynka (Vinnytsia 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. A unique copy consists of six hundred two sheets, each of which went one month old calf skin. In 1204, the manuscript was stolen by the Seljuks. For redemption by residents of many Armenian villages, more than four thousand drachmas were collected (note: 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 Mushe, in Western Armenia. In 1915, she migrated to the Matenadaran vault in Yerevan. This happened because of the Turkish pogroms, because of which the unique result of manual labor could simply be destroyed.
Stone bible
The book in an unusual performance can be seen while visiting the State Museum of Art, located in Georgia. Once upon a time, the master carved twenty plots from the New and Old Testaments on stone slabs. This is the only instance. The artifact was found in the Abkhaz highland village of Tsebelda.
Current state of affairs
In the nineties of the twentieth century, dynamic transformations were observed in the book industry. This was due to the social, political and economic changes taking place in the Russian Federation. So, publishing 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 book business was so important as its immediate component.
In the 1990s, publishing and distributing books was an extremely profitable business. The explanation was simple: the country experienced an acute shortage of goods of this kind. However, this did not last long. After about five years, the market was saturated. Buyers began to choose books with great care. As competition intensified, characteristics such as product quality and the reputation of manufacturers and distributors began to play an increasing role. The indicated 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' products.
Today there is a volatility of reading interests. If in the Soviet period the works of one author were popular for quite some time, now the list of bestsellers is changing at breakneck speed. This was facilitated by the flourishing variety of opinions, interests and preferences of citizens.