Russia's Past Republished

The long-awaited first of five volumes of National History: The History of Russia From Ancient Times to 1917 has just been published by the Rossiiskaya Entsiklopediya state publishing house. Only 45,000 copies of the 688-page volume were printed, and are available to subscribers only. The second printing is expected later this month.Mysl publishers are continuing to publish the complete text of Sergei Solovyov's 29-volume History of Russia, which was written more than a century ago but is still considered one of the most authoritative works of its kind. For those who are not prepared to take on the entire text, Prosvescheniye publishers have prepared a two-volume digest. The second volume, On the History of Modern Russia, was published in May and was put on sale for 6,000 rubles a copy. Among other recent publications on Russian history are:?A revised version of Nikolai Pavlenko's biography of Peter the Great, also issued by Mysl and on sale for 6,500 rubles. ?The first volume of Sketches of the History of Russian Culture, the famous three-volume work by Pavel Milyukov, a major political figure during the last years of imperial rule in Russia. Published by Progress, it is available for around 3,500 rubles.?Black Legend: Friends and Foes of the Great Steppe, by the late historian Lev Gumilyov, the only son of poets Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov, who spent much of his life in the gulag. Although he worked as a history professor during the Brezhnev era, his many books were rarely published. They are currently enjoying great popularity with the general public.