Pavlenkov's Encyclopedic Dictionary

a one-volume Russian illustrated encyclopedic dictionary published by F. F. Pavlenkov and containing about 34,000 terms. The first edition came out in St. Petersburg in 1899.

After Pavlenkov’s death in 1900, his successors issued four editions of the dictionary (2nd ed., 1905 and 1907; 3rd ed., 1909; 4th ed., 1910; 5th ed., 1913). Part of the second edition published in 1907 included a “Supplement” containing such articles on topical political subjects as “The Agrarian Movement,” “Unemployment,” and “Punitive Expeditions,” in addition to articles on Russian revolutionary figures. The “Supplement” was banned by the tsarist censorship, and the publishers were compelled to delete it. Some of the articles of the “Supplement,” in a “smoothed-out” version, were included in the fourth edition.

Intended for a general readership in terms of both presentation and price, Pavlenkov’s Encyclopedic Dictionary was widely popular among such readers as workers, pupils, and rural teachers. More than 100,000 copies were printed in all, a figure unprecedented for prerevolutionary encyclopedias.