Ivan Sytin

After their authors' rights expired, Sytin compressed their entire works into one volume that cost as little as 90 kopecks.

[1] Maxim Gorky called Sytin the de facto "minister of people's education" whose calendars and leaflets "cut down at least by half the number of relapses into illiteracy".

[2] Leo Tolstoy proposed to edit "a cheap, simplified series that would reflect his moral teachings and not be copyrighted".

Russkoye Slovo, an obscure conservative newspaper, was transformed by Sytin into Russia's most popular (and cheapest) daily; its circulation surpassed one million copies in 1917.

[4] After the Russian Revolution, Sytin's printing house was nationalized but he decided against emigrating and died in obscurity in his small flat on Tverskaya Street at the age of 83.