Bookvica

[THE MAIN SOVIET MAGAZINE ON PRINTING] Poligraficheskoe proizvodstvo [i.e. Printing Industry]

Moscow: Tsentr. Komitet Soiuza Rabochikh poligrafproizvodstva: Gosnauchtehizdat: Gizlegprom: Gos. izd. tekhn.-teoret. literatury, 1926-1946. Item #1086

#1, 2, 3, 4, 5/6 for 1926, #2, 6, 9 for 1932, #5, 6, 7, 8/9 for 1933, #2, 4, 5, 10 for 1934, #1, 10 for 1935, #3, 4, 5, 7 for 1936, #5 for 1938, #5/6 for 1946. Overall 23 issues. No back cover (#1, 3 1926, #5 1938), Tears of spines with fragments lost (most issues), the front cover (#4 1926), few pages. Stains and marks occasionally, pale Soviet stamps of Leningrad Printing College. Otherwise very good with some inserts preserved. Print runs varied from 1500 to 3700 copies.
A collection of one bound volume and 18 separate issues of the magazine ‘Printing Industry’, the main periodical for employees of Soviet printing houses.
It was founded as ‘Graficheskoe iskusstvo’ [Graphic Art] in 1924 and came out under this title just one year. Then it became ‘Poligraficheskoe proizvodstvo’ [Printing Industry] for a long period of time (1925-1963). Since 1964, it has been published as ‘Poligrafiia’ [Printing Business].
Covering various issues of printing, the edition itself was well made. It attracted masters of the book design and engraving: Solomon Telingater, Nikolai Sedel’nikov, Meer Akselrod, Iosif Shpinel, et al. contributed to the periodical. In particular, Akselrod and Shpinel produced the constructivist cover design of the early 1926 issues. Rest issues of the year were entirely designed by students of the Printing Department of an industrial institute. For instance, red covers of #4, title page and headpieces were designed by a student of the 4th year, N. Spirov; typesetting, layout and printing were implemented by students of different years. Also, L. Kaplan produced the general montage of the issue.
The magazine was richly illustrated: pictures on typesetting and bookbinding processes, book decoration, photographs and schemes of printing machines, advertising designs, etc. Some issues contained inserts with model imprints and bindings or materials used in printing shops and mock-ups of front covers for various journals. A large number of advertisements of machines, inks and workshops are printed as well.
Throughout the Soviet period, this magazine published important news of the industry, reviews of exhibitions, statistics and plans, brief manuals on how to work with certain printing machines, how to type title pages and other elements of editions, what printing inks were made of, what order documents were filled in at printing houses, specialized bibliography and many other topics.
Interesting articles were dedicated to buildings related to this industry. Among them were printing houses or complexes in Kazan, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Stalinabad (Dushanbe), Chardzhou (Turkmenabat) (issue #5 1933). An issue #10 (1935) features a scale model of a factory called after G. Yagoda and located in Rybinsk town. In the period of the 2nd five-year plan, it was the most influential enterprise that produced the Soviet printing machines.
A book was “a weapon of the proletariat” and this periodical explained how it had to be made.

Worldcat doesn’t track these issues.

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