1909 - 2009
The Moscow publishing house
“Musaget” (1909-1917) was founded by
musical and literary critic Emil Medtner, and poets Andrei
Bely and Ellis
(pen-name L.L.Kobylinskiy). At initial stage it was funded by German
sponsor
Hedvig Friedrich.
“Musaget” had published 44 books of Russian and foreign symbolists:
poems,
philosophical, mystical and religious works, and a few translations of
ancient
writers.
Among “Musaget”’s authors were Alexander Blok, A. Bely, V.
Ivanov, E. Medtner, Ellis, S. Bobrov, B. Sadovskoy, Z. Gippius, S. Soloviev.
However
“Musaget” was not only a publishing house, it
was a society of people united by common ideas, literary and aesthetic
preferences. They were mostly influenced by Germanophile.
The “Musaget”'s activity was
featured by:
- non-profit
making;
- selection of
books for publishing was based only on personal attitudes and tastes of
editors who were under an idea to serve to Culture;
- dilettantism
in business;
- high
standard in editing;
- high quality
of design and polygraphy.
The number of “Musaget” editions
in 1910-1917
Mean edition of a “Musaget”
book was about 1460 (minimal -
201 and maximal - 3000 copies) with mean price 1.90 rubles (slightly
higher
than usual price for similar books).
The former building of the
publishing house “Musaget” 1910-1917 (Prechistenskiy
buld., 31, Moscow)
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Vikenty Pashukanis
1879-1920
Vikenty V. Pashukanis was a
secretary of “Musaget” and a
publisher of "V.V. Pashukanis publishing".
Vikenty Pashukanis was born in 1879
in Moscow.
In 1902 after
graduation from the mathematical department of Moscow University
he worked as an exciseman. In 1914 he started his work as a
secretary and
a commercial director of “Musaget”. On February 7, 1915 he went to St. Petersburg
to
negotiate the publication of poems with Alexander Blok. In his diary A.
Blok
mentioned that during 1915-17 he wrote 14 letters to V. Pashukanis, but
all
letters were lost. “Musaget” experienced permanent financial problems
and in
May 1915 V. Pashukanis made a proposal to editor-in-chief E. Medtner how to reorganize the
“Musaget” to make it more
profitable. However E. Medtner rejected his proposal and V. Pashukanis
started his
own publishers with logotype "V.V. Pashukanis publishing":
V. Pashukanis was one of the
main publishers of popular poet Igor Severyanin, and also K.
Balmont, A. Bely,
V. Gofman. Last books of "V.V. Pashukanis publishing" were issued in
1918. In October 1918 he found a job in Museum Department of
Educational
Ministry. As "an emissary" of Museum Department he run between
country estates of nobles searching and transferring their treasures to
Moscow.
This was the only
way to save the treasures from pillage. In
January 1920 he was arrested because of false denunciation and executed.
The well-known Marxist legal
theorist
Evgeny B. Pashukanis was a cousin of Vikenty V. Pashukanis.
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