Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia (also rendered ''Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia''; , ''Haykakan sovetakan hanragitaran''; ASE) is the first general encyclopedia in the

Armenian language Armenian (endonym: , , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language and the sole member of the independent branch of the Armenian language family. It is the native language of the Armenians, Armenian people and the official language of ...

. It was published in 1974-1987 by the main editorial office of the Armenian Encyclopedia. It consists of 12+1 volumes, published under the direction of the President of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR Viktor Ambartsumian. In 2011, it was licensed under the

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

BY-SA 3.0 free license. Although it reflected the government's Marxist–Leninist viewpoint, is in the most comprehensive encyclopedia in the Armenian language to this day. Each volume was published in 100,000 copies.

History

In 1964, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia issued a resolution on the publication of the Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia. In 1965, the Council of Ministers of the Armenian SSR issued a resolution on the creation of a special editorial office for this purpose. In 1967, the main editorial board of the Armenian Encyclopedia (now the

Armenian Encyclopedia Publishing House The Armenian Encyclopedia Publishing House (), formerly the main editorial office of the Armenian Encyclopedia () is a publishing house in Yerevan that was established in 1967 and published the Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia in 1974–1986 and other ...

) was established. It was created under the auspices of the President of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR Viktor Ambartsumian. The ASE was published in 1974-1987, one volume per year. The chairman of the editorial board of the ASE was Viktor Ambartsumian, the chief editors were Viktor Ambartsumian (volume 1), (volumes 2-4) and (volumes 5-13). 7200 authors participated in the creation of the ASE. It was printed by the . In 2011, the state non-profit

, which owns the rights to the ASE, allowed its distribution under the

BY-SA 3.0 free license.

Structure

The ASE consists of 12 main volumes and a supplementary volume about

Armenian SSR The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (ArSSR), also known as Soviet Armenia, or simply Armenia, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union, located in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Soviet Armenia bordered the Soviet republics ...

. It includes 38,767 articles, 15,263 images and 858 maps. The ASE was published using a special encyclopedic font created for it.

References

{{reflist Armenian-language encyclopedias Soviet encyclopedias 20th-century encyclopedias