В 1925 г. было учреждено Акционерное общество «Советская энциклопедия»

Even ancient Greeks knew notion encyclopedia, i.e., classified directory. Disciple of Aristotle Eudemus of Rhodes took care to compose the collection of opinions in history, science and philosophy back in the second half of 4th century B.C. Science knows Roman encyclopedias too – for instance a specialized encyclopedia in agriculture. The period of multivolume universal encyclopedias was opened by Britannica which came out in 1768 in Edinburgh. By the way, do you know that Britannica had been published in the USA for many dozens of years already? The baton of Britannica was taken up by Brockhaus and Meyer Encyclopedic Dictionary, both of German origin, Larousse in France, and Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron in Russia. This is probably the full list of great encyclopedias of 19th century. The 20th century kept safe almost all of these positions. The only exclusion is Russian Brockhaus and Efron. The vacant place was occupied by the USA with Encyclopedia Americana, but Russia would not be left without its own encyclopedia either. On February 13, 1925, Joint-Stock Company Soviet Encyclopedia was founded. This was the time our ancestors lived in. The roots of future state-owned publishing house can be traced to businessmen and bourgeois form of property. Great Soviet Encyclopedia started coming out right on the next year. The last of three editions was published in 1978. Now the publishing house bears the name of Great Russian Encyclopedia and has begun preparing the issue of same-name edition. All in all, over 100 million copies of various guides and encyclopedias have been printed by the publishing house for the past 80 years. заняли США со своей «Американой», но и Россия не осталась без своей энциклопедии. 13 февраля 1925 года было учреждено Акционерное общество «Советская энциклопедия».  Такие были времена – будущее государственное издательство имеет в предках нэпманов и их буржуйскую форму собственности. «Большая советская  энциклопедия» начала выходить уже на следующий год. Последнее из трех изданий БСЭ  вышло в 1978 году. Нынче издательство переименовано в Большую Российскую энциклопедию, и начало выпуск одноименного издания. А всего за 80 с лишком лет существования издательства из-под печатного станка  вышло более ста миллионов экземпляров разных справочников и энциклопедий.