Middle Volga Cooperative Publishing House in 1918—1919 (Based on the Documents of the Central State Archive of Samara Region)

The history of book publishing in Russia during the Civil War is studied extremely insufficiently, especially in the territories that left the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the summer of 1918. Among the “white spots” there are activities of the Middle Volga Cooperative Publishing House, opened in Samara in July 1918 after the capture of the city by the parts of the Czechoslovak Corps. The article, for the first time on the basis of the analysis of documents of the Central State Archive of the Samara Region (CGASO) and published sources, attempts the reconstruction of the history of this institution, shows the main stages of its formation and development in the context of confrontation of two models of statehood: Bolsheviks and SR-Mensheviks. The author provides materials showing that the Middle Volga Cooperative Publishing House was created from the very beginning as an interregional one, since it was supposed to serve schools in four provinces (Samara, Simbirsk, Ufa and Orenburg) and the Ural Region, controlled by the government of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly. In the face of shortage of textbooks, that publishing house, being isolated from Moscow and Petrograd, became a temporary centre for supplying educational institutions in the Volga region and the Cis-Urals with textbooks and writing accessories. Analysing the documents preserved in the CGASO, the author shows the self-sacrificing activity of board member Nikolay Andreevich Kalugin, who, after the return of Soviet power to Samara, was able to defend the publishing and bookselling base of the city’s cooperative associations from the encroachments of the Provincial Department of public education. The article reveals the repertoire of books published by the Middle Volga Cooperative Publishing House in 1918—1919 and estimates the degree of rarity of individual publications, not all of which are revealed in the collections of modern Russian libraries.

organization of book business, Russian Democratic Federal Republic, Komuch, Middle Volga Cooperative Publishing House, regional book publishing, Samara book publishing, educational literature, White Guard press, N.A. Kalugin

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