Publishers, Books and Headers

from an interview given by Boris STUKALIN, chairman of the State Committee for Printing, Publishing and Book Trade of the USSR Council of Ministers, to a correspondent of the weekly NEDELYA

According to sociological surveys, 95 Soviet families out of 100 buy books and keep libraries.

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Every sixth new Soviet book is intended for children. In our country, books for youngsters and youths are brought out by more than 100 publishing houses, the total annual circulation of children's books reaching 50,000,000 copies.

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The Soviet Union has 236 publishing houses. Some are owned by the state, others by Party and trade union organisations and a large number by associations of writers.

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CORRESPONDENT: The Soviet Union is the world's largest publisher. How many books have been published since the Great October Socialist Revolution? What is the annual book output?
STUKALIN: Our country has for a long time led the world in annual numbers of printed publications and their total impressions. How many books and booklets have been published? More than 2.5 million titles. Their print run is close to 40,000 million copies. In 1972, for instance, 81,000 titles with a total number of almost 1,500 million copies were brought out.

Literature is being published in 89 Soviet languages, including 43 languages of nationalities that did not have a written language before the revolution, and in 56 foreign languages.

CORRESPONDENT: What is the structure of this mass of books?
STUKALIN: You see, the structure has been in a constant state of flux, it is influenced by developments in economics, science, culture, changing demand. In recent years the most pronounced trend has been toward a significant growth in output of books on socio-political topics and economic problems.

There has been an annual increase in the output of scientific literature, manuals of all kinds and books for children. In 1972 the number of research publications (monographs, collections of articles, other scientific material and classics of science) rose by 36,5 per cent and the impressions almost doubled over the level of 1965. The average circulation of each schoolbook went up by some 10,000 copies and that of a children's book by close to 51,000.

CORRESPONDENT: Is it true that the Soviet Union has the world's lowest book prices?
STUKALIN: It is. Judge for yourself: in 1972 the average price of a book was 45 kopecks. The lowest prices are for children's books (26 kopecks) and political publications for the general reader (35 kopecks).

CORRESPONDENT: What can you say about the cooperation between Soviet publishing houses and their counterparts in other socialist countries ?
STUKALIN: There is regular production of joint editions. Soviet and Czechoslovak researchers are preparing for publication a monograph entitled The Present Scientific and Technological Revolution and Socialism. Using interesting factual material, the authors disclose new features marking the social development of the present revolution in science and technology, its impact upon all aspects of the life of society and the activities and makeup of the individual. A team of authors of the Institute of the Theory, History and Future Problems of Soviet Architecture and the Polish Institute of Art History is working on a monograph Town and Time.

CORRESPONDENT: Please tell us something about the publication of fiction.
STUKALIN: In 1973 all Soviet publishing houses issued around 4,500 titles, roughly half of them new. Novels and stories by Vadim Kozhevnikov, Sergei Sartakov, Yuri Rytheu and other authors centre around the working-class theme. The Soviet countryside is featured by Sergei Krutilin, Nikolai Virta, Sergei Voronin and Mikhail Stelmakh, to mention but four authors. Alexander Chakovsky, Yevgeni Vorobyov, Nikoiai Gorbachov and several other writers have chosen as their subject the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.

CORRESPONDENT: What about works by foreign authors?
STUKALIN: The Soviet Union regularly publishes many series and individual editions of foreign classics. A particular place among them is held by a 200-volume Library of World Literature. In the course of this year another 20 volumes in this series will come off the press.

An interesting novelty is books of foreign poetry in two languages. 100 Sonnets, by the Czech poet J. Kollar, in Czech and Russian, is about to appear We are preparing for publication a collection of poems by Soviet and Polish poets and a multi lingual edition of Poetry of 19th-20th Century Europe. Each poem in its two volumes will be printed in Russian and the source language.

CORRESPONDENT Will there be any changes in the wake of the Soviet Union joining the Universal (Geneva) Copyright Convention?
STUKALIN: According to UNESCO data, our country holds first place in the world for output of translations. Works by many foreign authors have been published in much larger circulations in the Soviet Union than in their own countries and are translated into all Soviet languages. With the Soviet Union joining the Copyright Convention, the rights of authors of signatory states will be protected in our country as well as those of Soviet authors abroad.

Every sixth book in the world is Soviet: 90 per cent of Soviet publications are sold within the year they are brought out Books from the Soviet Union are now sold in 93 countries. In recent years many non-Russian Soviet authors have become known abroad. Books by the Ukrainian novelist Oles Conchar, for instance, are read in 67 countries, by the Latvian writer Vilis Lacis in 63 countries, by the Lithuanian poet Eduardas Miezelaitis in 30, by the Turkmenian prose writer Berdy Kerbabayev in 22.

The Soviet Union has been publishing a unique series. The Lives of Remarkable People. According to the concept of its founder, Maxim Gorky, these books highlight great personalities and their endeavours. The opening volume in this series, Heinrich Heine, came out in 1933. Subsequent works in this collection included books about Pushkin, Moliere, Joliot-Curie, Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy, Bernard Shaw, Pericles, Saint-Exupery — more than 500 titles in all.

May 5, Soviet Press Day
Sputnik. №5 May 1974