RIAN archive 744802 House-museum of underground printing-office Nina

Nina was a

Samizdat Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual rep ...

secret underground

printing house In publishing, printers are both companies providing printing services and individuals who directly operate printing presses. Origins of printing The history of printers in publishing in Western Europe dates back to the mid-15th century wit ...

Baku Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, established in July 1901 by the Baku ''

Iskra ''Iskra'' (, , ''the Spark'') was a fortnightly political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). History ''Iskra'' was published in exile and then smuggl ...

ist'' group, consisting of

Lado Ketskhoveli Lado Ketskhoveli ( ka, ლადო კეცხოველი; 14 January 1877, in Gori – 30 August 1903, in Tiflis) was a Georgian writer and revolutionary who was one of the first people to introduce Joseph Stalin to Marxism. He was one of ...

Leonid Krasin Leonid Borisovich Krasin (; – 24 November 1926) was a Russians, Russian Soviet Union, Soviet politician, engineer, social entrepreneur, Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet diplomat. In 1924 he became the first List of ambassadors of Russia to ...

, Nikolay P. Kozerenko,

Avel Yenukidze Avel Safronovich Yenukidze ( ka, აბელ ენუქიძე, ''Abel Enukidze'', ; ; – 30 October 1937) was a prominent Georgian Old Bolshevik and, at one point, a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b) ...

, Semyon Yenukidze, and

Lev Halperin Lev or LEV may refer to: People and fictional characters *Lev (given name) *Lev (surname) Places *Lev, Azerbaijan, a village *Lev (crater), a tiny lunar crater Religion *an abbreviation for Leviticus, the third book of the Hebrew Bible and the ...

. Nina received direct assistance from

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

and had contacts with the

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი, ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), ( ka, ტფილისი, tr ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia ( ...

committee of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

. At Nina, the illegal

Georgian language Georgian (, ) is the most widely spoken Kartvelian language, Kartvelian language family. It is the official language of Georgia (country), Georgia and the native or primary language of 88% of its population. It also serves as the literary langu ...

newspaper '' Brdzola'' was printed, as well as an array of leaflets and pamphlets in

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

and Georgian languages. Nina was temporarily shut down from April 1902 to December 1902. In 1903 it was occupied with printing the conference documents of the

2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was held from July 30 to August 23 (July 17 – August 10, O.S.) 1903, starting in Brussels, Belgium (until August 6) and ending in London, England. Probably as a result of diplomat ...

, documents of the Caucasian League of RSDLP as well as works by

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.1903 RSDLP congress in Brussels and London, it came to function as the printing house of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. In total around 1.5 million copies of different publications were brought out by Nina. At the

3rd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The 3rd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was held during 25 April – 10 May

2–27 April Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

1905 in London, UK. The Menshevik Central Committee had voted against calling the Congress on 7 ...

, the legacy of Nina was praised. In January 1906 the central committee of the party decided to shut Nina down and moved its printing house to Saint Petersburg.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

«Нина»
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References

{{reflist Book publishing companies of the Russian Empire Publishing companies of Russia Publications of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union History of Baku Printing companies 1901 establishments in the Russian Empire 1906 disestablishments Underground press Secret printing