Inventor: Johannes Gutenberg
The country: Germany
Time of invention: 1440

The idea of ​​printing books, most likely, was given by stamps. Already in the 7th-8th centuries, fabric with embossed decorations was being produced in Europe. When printing many repeating figures, stamps were used here. Medieval scribes in the thirteenth century also resorted to initial stamps (large, decorated letters placed at the beginning of a paragraph).

The reason for this is understandable - if the text was written relatively quickly, then it took a lot of time to draw large initials. It was very convenient for the scribe to resort to a stamp, especially since in large manuscripts the same miniatures were repeated several times.

Impressions were widely used in the manufacture playing cards and cheap paintings (in particular, with images of saints). These engravings at first were only pictures, but then they began to be accompanied by several lines of text. From engravings there was only a step to the production of books. Apparently the evolution here was the same. At first, only pictures were printed from the boards, and the text was written by hand. Then we moved on to cutting on the board (in reverse) and text explaining the figure. In the future, it came to cutting out one text without illustrations.

The first books printed in this way were small in size (we would call them pamphlets) and aimed at a poor buyer who did not have enough money to buy a real book. However, the circulation of such cheap editions was apparently large enough to justify the initial cost of cutting out the text on the boards.

Among the first printed books was, for example, the "Bible of the Poor", containing several dozen sheets from the Old and New Testaments with pictures. Or the "Mirror of Human Salvation" with engravings depicting the fall of Adam and Eve, as well as some excerpts from the New Testament relating to the salvation of the soul. The third book, which had great popularity, is The Life and Passion of Christ. Along with these soul-saving writings, small educational books were popular: the Latin grammar of Elius Donatus, the grammar of Alexander Gallus and others.

The technique of making all these first works of printing was as follows. Rectangular was taken a plate of hard wood - walnut, pear or palm - about 2 cm thick. After careful grinding and checking the correctness of the plane, a picture and text drawn on paper were drawn or pasted on it, similar to a handwritten one.

At first, they drew with rough strokes - to facilitate the work, - later the technique improved, and the drawings began to come out more beautiful and elegant. Then, with sharp at the end and hard knives, all those parts that are not needed were cut deep into. As a result of this work, a convex drawing was obtained, lying all on the same plane, which remained to be smeared with paint (it was a mixture of soot with vegetable oil, for example, drying oil).

The paint was applied with a tampon made of leather or strong, dense material stuffed with wool. A wet (so that the paint adheres better) sheet was applied to the surface covered with paint. When the sheet took the entire design from the wooden block, it was carefully removed and hung up to dry. Then the board was again smeared with paint, and the process was repeated. At first they printed only on one side of the sheet. Then the technique improved, and both sides began to be used.

The cheapness of new books created a steady demand for them, and this led to the fact that more artisans began to turn to printing. It is obvious that carving the text on the board was a laborious and painstaking undertaking. In addition, each board could only be used to print one particular book. Many craftsmen who were engaged in this difficult task probably had an idea: is it possible to speed up and simplify the printing process?

Meanwhile, there was only one way to facilitate the work - the creation of movable letters that could serve for many years for the typesetting of completely different books. This idea was first brought to life by Johannes Gutenberg. He was born in Mainz and descended from the old noble family of Gonzfleisch. In 1420, Johann left Mainz, became a craftsman and adopted his mother's surname, Gutenberg. Around 1440, while living in Strasbourg, Gutenberg made his first printing press. In 1448 he returned to his native Mainz and devoted himself entirely to printing. He died in 1468.

Gutenberg himself carefully concealed the essence of his invention, so the way in which he came to him can only be restored tentatively. There are reports that the first Gutenberg set was made of wood. They assure that at the beginning of the 16th century they saw the remains of his first wooden type. Moreover, he made a hole in the body of each letter and tied the typed lines with a rope threaded through the holes.

However, wood is not a suitable material for cutting individual small letters. In addition, it swells, dries up - and individual words turn out to be unequal in height and width. It interfered with printing. Trying to overcome this shortcoming, Gutenberg, apparently, began to carve letters from soft metal - lead or tin. Obviously, soon (if not immediately) the idea came that the letters can be cast - it will be both faster and easier.

Ultimately, the process of manufacturing letters took the following form: from solid metal() mirrored punches ( exact models) of all used letters. Then, hitting them with a hammer, received prints of letters on a copper plate (matrix). In this form, the number of letters that was needed was cast. Such letters could be used repeatedly, and for printing a variety of books. The cast letters were typed into a ruler with sides (workbench), which was a finished line.

The first books of Gutenberg were the calendars and grammar of Donat (in total, he published 13 such editions). But in 1455, he ventured on a more difficult task - he published the first printed Bible with a total volume of 1286 pages (3,400,000 printed characters). In this edition, only the main text was typed in ink. Capital letters and drawings were drawn by hand by the artist.

The method of printing discovered by Gutenberg remained virtually unchanged until the end of the 18th century. Rarely has a discovery come in handy as an invention printing press. The extent to which printing corresponded to the urgent needs of mankind was shown already in the first years after the discovery of the secret of Gutenberg. Hundreds of printing houses, one after another, appeared in different cities of Europe.

By 1500, up to 30 thousand were produced throughout Europe. various titles books. Trying to make their publications more attractive, the masters supplied their books with illustrations - first in black and white, and then in color (Gutenberg himself printed books without illustrations), decorated them with beautiful title pages.

In 1516, the Venetian artist Hugo da Carpi perfected the way of printing color illustrations. He decomposed the picture into several tones (usually 3-4), for each tone he made a separate board and cut out on it only those places that should have been printed on paper with these colors. First, places of one color were printed on a sheet, then another. Hugo da Carpi himself was an excellent copyist and printed in this way copies of many paintings, mainly Raphael.

The texts were printed in the following way. First, the typesetter typed text from lead letters. The lines, as already mentioned, were special rulers - workbenches. They were an oblong box, open at the top and one side. When one row of the required length was typed, the typesetter aligned the line with the help of a conclusion - reduced or increased spaces between words by removing or inserting spaces - thin pieces of type-cast metal without letters, which had a certain width. After filling the workbench, it was installed on a typesetting board.

When the set of the page was over, the board was taken into a frame so that the letters would not crumble. The printing press was a massive structure, attached with bars to the floor and ceiling. Its main part was a press with a lever, under which there was a flat table - a thaler. This thaler was designed in such a way that it could move out from under the press. A set of two or more pages (up to 32) was put on the thaler, how many of them fit, depending on the size.

All convex parts of the set were smeared with paint. To prevent the paper from slipping off the set during printing, a special device was used - a deckle equipped with two or three points (graphs). It was attached to the front of the taler on hinges. Before starting printing, the master took several sheets of paper (10-20), carefully aligned them along the edges and strung them on graphics.

From above, these sheets were covered with a frame (racket), which was also hinged to the deckle. The raskette covered the margins of the paper and the middle of the sheet, that is, all the parts that were supposed to remain clean. After that, the deckle was lowered onto the set, so that the bottom sheet was pressed tightly against the set. The thaler was moved under the press and, with the help of a lever, the pian (top board) was pressed against the deckle.

Then the press was raised, the entire apparatus with paper was pulled out, the rack was raised and the printed sheet was removed from the graphs. In order to get the best print, the paper was lightly moistened with water. Therefore, the finished sheets were dried on a rope. After drying, an impression was made on the other side of the sheet. Then the sheets went to the binder.

Books have existed long before the invention of printing. But before they were written by hand, and then repeatedly rewritten, making right amount copies. This technology was extremely imperfect, took a lot of time and effort. In addition, when rewriting books, errors and distortions almost always crept in. Handwritten were very expensive, and therefore could not find a wide.

The first printed books appear to have appeared in China and Korea as early as the ninth century BC. new era. For these purposes, special printed ones were used. The text that needed to be reproduced on paper was drawn in a mirror image, and then cut out on the surface of a flat piece of wood with a sharp tool. The resulting relief image was smeared with paint and pressed tightly against the sheet. In the result was a print that repeated the original text.

However, this method was not found in China. widespread, because every time it took a long time to cut out the entire text on the printed board. Some craftsmen already tried to make a form from movable ones, but the number of hieroglyphs in Chinese writing was so large that this method was very laborious and did not justify itself.

The invention of printing by Johannes Gutenberg

In more modern form Printing appeared in Europe in the first half of the 15th century. It was during these times that there was an urgent need for cheap and affordable books. Handwritten editions could no longer satisfy the developing society. The printing method that came from the East was inefficient and rather laborious. An invention was required that could allow the printing of books in huge quantities.

Inventor original way The German master Johannes Gutenberg, who lived in the middle of the 15th century, is rightfully considered to be the printing press. Today it is very difficult with high accuracy, in what year he first printed the first text using the movable typesetting letters invented by him. It is believed that the first printing press came from the Gutenberg press in 1450.

The method of printing books developed and implemented by Gutenberg was very ingenious and practical. At first, he made a matrix from soft metal, in which he squeezed out depressions that looked like letters. Lead was poured into this mold, resulting in the required number of letters. These lead signs were sorted and stacked in special type-setting cash desks.

A printing press was designed to make books. In essence, he was a press with a manual drive, which had two planes. A frame with a font was installed on one plane, blank sheets of paper were applied to the other plane. The typed matrix was covered with a special coloring composition, the basis of which was soot and linseed oil. The productivity of the printing press was at that time very high - up to hundreds of pages per hour.

The method of printing invented by Gutenberg gradually spread throughout Europe. Thanks to the printing press, it became possible to print books in relatively large quantities. Now the book has ceased to be a luxury item available only to the elite, but has become widespread among the masses.

Computer technology is pervasive in all areas human activity. The electronic media born by them are increasingly crowding positions printed word. And yet, even in the 21st century, it is difficult to imagine our life without all that is dryly called "printed products."

It can be said without exaggeration that the invention of printing rightly takes its place among the real breakthroughs of human thought among such significant discoveries as the invention of the compass, gunpowder and paper. Being essentially a purely technical invention, or rather even technological, printing became a catalyst for human progress that determined the development of civilizations in the second half of the past millennium.

Mankind went to the invention of the printing press a long way, and the history of creation printed book was not cloudless and different reasons was torn apart by five centuries of oblivion.

For a long time, human memory was the only means of preserving and transmitting social experience, information about events and people. The immortal poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are known to have been written down in Athens on scrolls around 510 BC. Prior to this time, for centuries, poems had been circulated orally. The invention of writing can probably be considered the first information revolution in the history of mankind, which advanced the peoples that made it far. However, the possession of writing did not guarantee the peoples either global leadership or historical longevity. This is evidenced by the fate of the disappeared peoples who once had their own written language (for example, the Sumerians).

Currently, there are about 8,000 alphabets and their variants in the world, adapted to different languages and dialects. The most common alphabets are based on the Latin alphabet.

Typography (translated from Greek - polywriting) is the reproduction in a large number of copies of the same text or drawing.

The idea of ​​printing was laid down in the brand or brand, with which cattle breeders marked their horses or cows. The stamping principle was already known in the cuneiform cultures of the Ancient East (the Sumerians, Babylon, Egypt). Symbols were applied spirally on the clay disc with the help of stamps. In fact, this disk was the first example of printing related text. The next stage is the printing of coins. Then "stone" books and books on clay tablets appeared, later - papyrus scrolls, and from the 2nd century BC. - books on parchment (parchment). Then, in the era of Aristotle and Plato, manuscripts were revealed to the world.

We can say that printing was invented twice: in the 900s AD. in China (China) and then in XV | century in Western Europe. Chinese book printing originally used a technology in which a board was used as a printing plate, on which texts and symbols were cut. Around 725. The world's first newspaper Di-bao (Messenger) was published. In 770. At the behest of Empress Shotoku, a million spells were printed in this way, which were embedded in miniature pagodas. Then comes the stamping.

Estampage is a technique for obtaining a direct impression of a relief image. The first experiments of such a peculiar method of printing date back to the period practically coinciding with the time of the invention of paper in China (2nd century AD). The method consists in obtaining impressions from flat stone reliefs; a slightly moistened paper is applied to the relief, which is rubbed with special brushes and pressed into the recesses with a light tap; after that, water-based paint is applied to the surface of the dried paper, which has taken on relief forms, with a large flat brush and swabs.

Then in the Buddhist monasteries of China, approximately in 618-907. woodcut technology, or edged woodcut engraving, appeared. The first woodcut book was called the Diamond Sutra. It was made in 868 and first discovered in 1900. in the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas in Donghuang ( Western China). In Europe, the woodcut book, as such, appeared during the Middle Ages after crusades. One of the famous woodcut publications was the "Bible of the Poor".

During the Renaissance in Europe, printing was reborn. In the 1440s, the woodcut method was perfected by the German Hans Gensfleisch or Johannes Gutenberg (1394/1399 - 1468).

The invention of book printing by I. Gutenberg marked a major turning point in the history of book culture - the end of the medieval book and the birth of the book of modern times. This invention was prepared and inspired by the entire development of the culture of the late Middle Ages, which created both the technical and general cultural prerequisites for it, and determined the urgent need for a new type of book.

It was in his printing house in the German city of Mainz that printed books first saw the light, typed using metal movable letters cut into mirror reflection The book printing technology he developed proved to be the most productive for that time. Gutenberg came to the conclusion that it was necessary to quickly cast any amount of type - a word-casting process. This process was thought out by him to the smallest detail and for its implementation were developed: a method for making a printing plate by typing in separate letters, a manual type-casting device, a manual printing press for obtaining an imprint from a type-casting form.

The invention of the printing press led to further development book production techniques and had a strong impact on the typology and art of the book, having received general cultural significance - the path for the formation of megacivilizations, such as Western European, Chinese, Islamic, was determined. We can say with confidence that the history of world culture is inseparable from the history of the printed book.

If a handwritten book was a very expensive item, and therefore, their largest collections, as a rule, were located in monasteries and universities, then the era of I. Gutenberg turned the book into a public domain, which means that it became necessary element in the process of cognition, education, the formation of aesthetic taste, a means of influencing the masses and even an information weapon. Already at that distant time, kings, emperors, clergymen and those in power in the era of the New Age began to use the book to promote their ideas, form this or that ideology, and strengthen their power. For example, Henry VIII and his Prime Minister Thomas Cromwell published pamphlets to establish the Church of England.

The first half of the 15th century is the time of great geographical and scientific discoveries, the transition to new socio-economic and political relations, the birth of a new worldview and attitude, the birth of new cities and new states, the era of the Reformation, when the Bible was translated into German Martin Luther and published in large numbers. The ongoing changes have led to a high demand for the book, resulting in the need for printing. By the end of the century, more than a thousand printing houses had been founded, which had already produced about 40 thousand publications with a circulation of approximately 12 million copies. Simultaneously with the triumphal procession of printing in Europe, the printing press was born and quickly asserted itself. new form books, and with it a new book aesthetic.

The presence of a book market, the simultaneous demand for a large number of copies, at least of some of the most common and important books, raised the issue of circulation for printing houses, especially since printing technology is primarily a circulation technique, moreover, it is economically profitable as a result of the ability to produce a large number of copies from one set. the number of equal impressions. Thus, another practical problem, which was becoming more and more urgent, was also solved: careful verification of the text before its reproduction, without exposing the book to the danger of distortion during repeated rewriting. But in order for these tasks to be consciously set, it is necessary, on the one hand, the development of scientific criticism of texts, and on the other hand, the emergence of the very idea of ​​circulation as a specific, predetermined form of a book subject to technical reproduction.

In 1494 The Montenegrin Printing House, located in a monastery in the city of Cetinje, founded by the monk Macarius, began its activities. The first book was published on Old Church Slavonic"Okhtoih the First Voice".

In 1517-1519. in Prague, Francis Skorina, a Belarusian pioneer printer and educator, printed the book “Psalter” in Cyrillic in Church Slavonic.

Typography in Russia originates in the 50s XVI century in the Moscow printing house, located in the house of the priest Sylvester (author of "Domostroy"). Here were published in Church Slavonic: three Four Gospels, two Psalms and two Triodion. A feature of Russian fonts was the use of superscripts with line crossings separately from other letters. This made it possible to skillfully imitate the appearance of a handwritten book page. Tin was used for casting fonts, so the letters could not withstand large print runs.

In 1563 The first state printing house began its activity, known for the fact that Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Timofeev Mstislavets worked in it. It was there that the first dated book, The Apostle, was produced. The work on its publication lasted almost a year - from April 19, 1563 to March 1, 1564.

In the fifteenth century AD, there lived in Strasbourg an artisan named Johann. Johann was born in Mainz, but his family was expelled from this city for political reasons after 1420. For unknown reasons, the craftsman changed his father's patrician surname Gensfleisch to his mother's - Gutenberg.

In 1434, in Strasbourg, Johannes Gutenberg was awarded the title of master.

He went down in history thanks to the invention of printing with the help of movable metal characters. That is, typesetting fonts from metal movable bars, on which letters were cut in a mirror image. From such bars, lines were typed on the boards, which were subsequently transferred special paint on paper. This invention is considered technical basis polygraphy.

Type-setting boards with movable type (wooden on the left, metal on the right)

The first book printed using a set of letters, which has survived to this day, was released in 1456. This is a large-format 42-line Latin Mazarin Bible, also called the Gutenberg Bible. Moreover, the master himself only prepared a set of boards for this book, and Johann Fust, together with Peter Schaeffer, released the Bible. The book was printed on a machine, which Gutenberg was forced to give to Fust for debts.

The honor of the invention of printing was disputed by historians of almost all Western European peoples. The Italians defended their position most convincingly. They believe that movable letters were invented by Pamfilio Castaldi, and, without giving much importance to this invention, gave it to Johann Fust, who established the first printing house. However, no confirmation of this fact has survived to this day.

So at present, Johannes Gutenberg is considered to be the inventor of movable type printing and the founder of printing, although the first typesetting appeared 400 years before his birth. The Chinese Bi Sheng invented to make them from baked clay. However, such an invention in China did not really take root due to the huge number of complex hieroglyphs that made up their writing. The production of such letters turned out to be very laborious, and the Chinese continued to use woodcuts (printing from wood prints in which inscriptions were cut) until the beginning of the 20th century.

The method of printing invented by Gutenberg lasted almost unchanged until the nineteenth century. And, although long before him, such methods as woodcuts and screen printing were invented, it is printing with the help of movable metal characters that is considered to be the technical basis of printing.

Typography in Russia

In Russia, the art of printing in the thirties of the sixteenth century brought Ivan Fedorov - Deacon of the Moscow Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Gostunsky. Ivan received his education at the University of Krakow, graduating in 1532.

The first accurately dated Russian printed edition was issued by him and his assistant, Peter Mstislavets, in 1564 in Moscow. This work was called "Apostle". The second edition, The Clockworker, came out a year later. And it turned out to be the last book printed in Fedorov's Moscow printing house.

Unpleased with the appearance of printing, the census takers staged mass persecution of printers. During one of the rebellions, Federov's printing house burned to the ground. After this story, Ivan and Peter Mstislavets fled from Moscow to the Principality of Lithuania. In Lithuania, they were received with great hospitality by Hetman Khodkevich, who founded a printing house on his estate Zabludovo. There, in Zabludovo, Fedorov worked until the seventies, after which, without Mstislavets, he moved to Lvov, where he continued printing in the printing house he founded.

The famous Ostrog Bible, the first complete Bible in the Slavic language in the history of printing, was released by the pioneer printer in the city of Ostrog (where he lived for three years before returning to Lviv) on behalf of Prince Konstantin Ostrogsky in the late seventies of the sixteenth century.

By the way, history remembers Ivan Fedorov not only as the first Russian printer. Having a versatile education, he cast guns well and became the inventor of a multi-barreled mortar with interchangeable parts.



An important milestone in the development of writing and literature was book printing in Russia. With the development of statehood, the issue of the lack of books became acute. There were written samples, but their creation took a long time.

In Europe during this period (mid-16th century) printing presses already existed. understood the invaluable role of the book in the process of the formation of the state. He contributed to the foundation of the first printing house in Moscow.

The most educated people of that time were involved in the work on the first printed edition. The goal of the young king was to unite a large number Orthodox peoples in one territory and in one state. There was a need for universal ecclesiastical and secular education, therefore, the priesthood and educators needed a quality printed publication.

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The first Russian printed book - the history of creation

Preparation for printing the original source of knowledge took total a whole decade. The creation of the first copy of printed art was preceded by a long construction and arrangement of the printing house.

In 1563, the book printer and inventor Ivan Fedorov and his faithful friend and student Pyotr Mstislavets set about printing a unique book that had no analogues at that time, which was called "The Apostle".

Over the first edition, book printers pored over as much as 12 months. Printer Ivan Fedorov put into his brainchild all the knowledge and skills that he acquired throughout his life. The first non-handwritten copy turned out to be truly a masterpiece.

The weighty volume was in a frame made of wood, which the creators covered with thin leather with amazing gold embossing. Large capital letters were decorated with unprecedented herbs and flowers.

The first edition was dated March 1, 1564. Later, this date began to be considered the year of foundation of the Russian book press. IN modern history The Russian State Day of the Orthodox Book is celebrated on March 14. "Apostle" has survived until the 21st century unchanged, and is in the Moscow Historical Museum.

Beginning of book printing in Russia

As soon as the first book of the Moscow printing house "Apostol" ("Acts and Epistles of the Apostles") saw the light of day, the early Russian printers set about creating a new church publication called "Chasovnik". Not a year was spent on this work of printed art, but only a few weeks.

In parallel with the creation of church books, work was underway on the first Russian textbook "ABC". A children's book appeared in 1574.

Thus, in the 16th century, book printing was born and established in Russia, and the first non-manuscript church books appeared. The creation of a children's textbook was very milestone in the development of Slavic writing and literature.

Who printed the first books in Russia

The founder of book printing in Russia was the inventor Ivan Fedorov. The man, even by modern standards, was very educated and enthusiastic. The man was educated at the university in the city of Krakow (now the territory of modern Poland). In addition to his native language, he spoke two more languages ​​- Latin and ancient Greek.

The man was well versed in carpentry, painting, foundry crafts. He himself cut and melted matrices for letters, made bindings for his books. These skills helped him fully master the process of book printing. Nowadays, the mention of the first Russian book printing is often associated with the name of Ivan Fedorov.

The first printing house in Russia - its creation and development

In 1553, the first printing house was founded in Moscow by order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. The printing house, as the printing house was called in ancient times, was located next to the Kremlin, not far from the Nikolsky Monastery, and was built on donations from the ruler himself.

The deacon of the church, Ivan Fedorov, was placed at the head of the printing house. It took 10 years to equip the building of the ancient printing house and create printing equipment. The room of the book printer was made of stone, and was popularly referred to as the “hut-printing house”.

Here the first printed edition "Apostle" was created, later the first "ABC" and "Hourmaker" were printed. Already in the 17th century, more than 18 titles of books were printed.

Later, the printer Ivan Fedorov and his assistant, on the slander of ill-wishers, will be forced to flee from Moscow, fleeing the wrath of the tsar. But the pioneer printers will be able to save the equipment and take it with them outside the principality of Moscow. The first printing house on Nikolskaya Street will be burned down by the book fighters.

Soon Ivan Fedorov will open a new printing house in Lvov, where he will publish several more editions of the Apostle, in the introduction to which the printer will tell about the persecution of ill-wishers and envious people.

The first printing press of Ivan Fedorov

The first equipment for typography was extremely unpretentious: a machine and several typesetting cash desks. The basis of the ancient printing press was a screw press. Ivan Fedorov's machine has survived to this day.

You can see this value, touch the history, breathe in the hoary antiquity in the Lviv Historical Museum. The weight of the machine is about 104 kg. The typeface was constructed in such a way as to resemble written letters. It was close to the handwriting that was understandable to a simple Russian person. The slope to the right is observed, the letters are even, the same size. Margins and spacing between lines are clearly observed. title and capital letters printed in red ink, and the main text in black.

The use of two-color printing is an invention of Ivan Fedorov himself. Before him, no one in the world used several colors on one printed page. The quality of printing and materials is so impeccable that the first printed book "The Apostle" has survived to this day and is in the Moscow Historical Museum.

In the 16th century there were two significant events for the history of Moscow, and later for the history of Russia - the construction of the Cathedral of Ivan the Blessed in the capital and the creation of a printing press by Ivan Fedorov.

The first textbooks in Russia

The development of education was an important matter for the formation of the Russian state. Books transcribed by hand were different big amount errors and distortions. Their authors were not always well educated themselves. Therefore, for teaching children to read and write, well-read, understandable, non-manuscript textbooks were needed.

The first book for teaching children to read and write was Ivan Fedorov's printed volume The Clockworker. For quite a long time, children learned to read from this book. Two copies of this edition have survived to this day. One volume is in Belgium, the other is in the Leningrad Library. Later, the Azbuka, which became the first textbook for children, will be printed in Moscow. Today, this rare copy of ancient printing is located in the United States.

Tsar Ivan the Terrible, with all the ambiguous attitude towards him, understood that it was impossible to build a strong developed state without smart, educated people. It is necessary to keep up with the times and keep up with the advanced states. The source of true truthful knowledge at all times has been and will be a book. Only reading, literate, educated people will be able to build an advanced power and introduce technologies, according to the requirements of the time.

The founder of book printing in Russia, Ivan Fedorov, is a genius of his time, who was able to move Russia from the point of ignorance and stupidity, to direct it along the path of enlightenment and development. Despite the disgrace and persecution that befell him, Ivan Fedorov did not leave his life's work and continued to work in a foreign land. His first printed editions became the basis of writing and literature of the 16th and 17th centuries.