Publications of science journals and books describing the latest achievements of individual scientists and whole research centers of the Russian Academy are not just factual accounts of the latest findings of academic institutes and of the level of their progress and achievements. What they amount to, in fact, can be described as the concluding stage of these studies and the first step towards their practical implementation. To use a common expression of members of our scientific community-our fundamental science begins with the Academy and its fruits are brought to the public by the NAUKA Publishing House- the academic "assembly shop". Pages. 41 By Vladimir VASILYEV, Dr. Sc. (Philology), Deputy Chairman, RAS Scientific- Publishing Council The beginning of science books publication depended on the rules of the evolution of the dissemination of information which, in its turn, was linked with improvements in the organization and essence of scientific research in the latter quarter of the 18th century. Reforms of Peter the Great promoted the progress of our science without which innovations in industry and farming, reforms of the Russian army and the navy, would have been impossible. The appearance of scientific publications-which promoted the successful construction of shipyards, mining factories, textile mills, geological prospecting, studies of the vegetable and animal world-was prompted by urgent practical demands of the time. It was in these socio-economic circumstances that academic book publishing got its start. Its starting point was October 4, 1727 (Old Style) when the opening of the Academy of Sciences was followed by that of the Academic Printing House. Proclaimed on that day was a decree of the Supreme Privy Council on the establishment of a printing house "... for books on history, translations into the Russian language, which were to be approved by the Synod and the Academy." In the following years, and up to the establishment of a specialized acade ... Читать далее