The 1st State Typo-lithography Workshop began as the Sharapov-Sytin Partnership in the era before the Russian Revolution. Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin (1851-1934) was the son of a peasant from the Kostroma region northeast of Moscow. In the 1860s, Sytin worked in Moscow as an apprentice and then as the manager for a printing shop owned by Peter Nikolaevich Sharapov. In 1879, Sytin opened his own printing shop in Moscow using a single press. By the start of ...

The State Publishing House had its origins in Imperial Russia as the Royal Print Yard of St. Petersburg. In 1917, the Soviets nationalized the print yard and requisitioned its presses. From requisitioning emerged the Publishing House of the Petrograd Soviet that was formed in the winter of 1917 by the Literary and Publishing Department of People's Commissariat for Education. In 1919, the State Publishing House in St. Petersburg changed its name to Petrogosizdat (Petrograd State Publishing) and in 1924, ...