According to the annual vote on the website of the National Academy of Philately (NAF) the stamp “450 Years of Printing in Russia”, published by the FSUE “Marka” Publishing and Trading Centre supervised by the Federal Communications Agency was recognized as the best stamp release 2014.
The stamp was to be released into circulation September 3, 2014 for the opening of the 27th Moscow International Book Fair.
The appearance of book-printing in Russia (Rus') was a result of the need to provide churches with liturgical literature containing rectified canonical texts, and the necessity of preventing the spread of cheap Western popular print to the masses.
Russian printed books appeared in 1553 with the establishment of the State Print Yard in Moscow. In 1563, on the order of Tsar Ivan Vasilievich IV, construction of the State Print Yard began on Nikolskiy krestets what is now Nikolskaya street (close to the Kremlin). Before the reforms of the Patriarch Nikon in 1650—1660 which led to a schism in the Russian Orthodox Church and the appearance of Old-Rite movements, the typography had published about 250 000 books.
The first mass-produced printed book from Moscow is considered to be “Apostle”, printed in 1564 by Ivan Fyodorov and Petr Mstislavets. This was the first dated publication in Russia, typeset and printed in accordance with the highest standards of publishing of the time, and containing illustrations, colorful vignettes in the upper part of the page, initials, and a data-out.
The stamp depicts a reversal of the book “Apostle” (1564) from the holdings of the State Public Historical Library of Russia, the Cyrillic letters in the background.
Design: A. Fedulov.
Face value: 15 RUB
Circulation: 360 thousand stamps (30 thousand sheets).
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