Great Russian Encyclopedia

The Great Russian Encyclopedia is a universal Russian encyclopedia, completed in 36 volumes, published between 2004 and 2017 by Great Russian Encyclopedia, JSC. A successor to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, it was released under the auspices of the Russian Academy of Sciences after President Vladimir Putin signed a [Decree of the President of Russia|President of Russia|presidential decree] №1156 in 2002. The complete edition was released by 2017.
The chief editor of the encyclopedia was Yury Osipov, the president of the RAS. The editorial board had more than 80 RAS members.
The first, introductory volume, released in 2004, was dedicated to Russia. Thirty-five volumes were released between 2005 and 2017, covering the range from "A" to "Яя". The RAS plans to publish an updated version every five years, although it may not be issued in print after the first edition.
On 17 June 2024 the project was suspended due to discontinued funding from the Russian government and by October 2024, its materials are being transferred to Ruwiki.
In December 2024 it was decreed to liquidate the "Great Russian Encyclopedia" by October 20, 2025. In September 2025 the Russian government allocated over 300 million rubles to complete the liquidation. In particular, this money will be used to pay the unpaid salaries, for layoff payments, and for debt repayments.

WWW bigenc.ru

Personnel and management

Editorial board

Yury Osipov, a mathematician, President of RAS, is the GRE Editor in Chief and Chairman of the Scientific Editorial Board.
Managing editor is, journalist, editor and cultural figure.
Also in the scientific editorial board are or were:

RAS Academics:

Sergey S. Averintsev,
Eugene N. Avrorin,
Sergei I. Adian,
Zhores I. Alferov,
Alexander F. Andreev,
Dmitry V. Anosov,
Vladimir I. Arnold,
Nikolai Bahvalov,
Alexander A. Boyarchuk,
Evgeny Velikhov,
Eric M. Galimov,
Mikhail L. Gasparov,
Vitaly L. Ginzburg,
Georgy S. Golitsyn,
Yuri I. Zhuravlev,
Viktor P. Ivannikov,
Sergei P. Karpov,
Gennady A. Mesyats,
Sergey P. Novikov,
Yuri S. Osipov,
Yuri V. Prokhorov,
Alexander Y. Rumyantsev,
Victor A. Sadovnichii,
Alexander S. Spirin,
Yuri S. Stepanov,
Vyacheslav S. Stepin,
Michael L. Titarenko,
Valery A. Tishkov,
Yuri D. Tretyakov,
Kliment N. Trubetskoy,
Oleg H. Favorsky,
Ludvig D. Faddeev,
Vladimir Ye. Fortov,
Konstantin V. Frolov,
Yuri I. Chernov,
Gorimir G. Chernii,
Alexander O. Chubarian,
Vitaly D. Shafranov,
Sergey V. Shestakov,
Dmitry V. Shirkov.

RAS Corresponding Members:

Boris A. Babayan,
Vladimir I. Vasiliev,
Piama P. Gaidenko,
Rudolf V. Kamelin,
Michael V. Kovalchuk,
Nikolai I. Lapin,
Sergey S. Lappo,
Alexey V. Yablokov.

Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences Academician:

Vladimir I. Fisinin.

Russian Academy of Arts Academician:

Dmitry O. Shvidkovskiy.

Russian Federation Statesmen:
and also:

Alexei D. Bogaturov,
Sergey V. Chemezov,
Vladimir V. Grigoriev,
Alexei I. Komech,
Vladimir A. Mau,
D. L. Orlov.

Edition summary

Publication schedule and contents of volumes:

Vol.	Title	Publication year	ISBN	pages
-	Россия	2004		1008
1	A Анкетирование	2005		766
2	Анкилоз Банка	2005		766
3	«Банкетная кампания» 1904 Большой Иргиз	2005		766
4	Большой Кавказ Великий канал	2006		766
5	Великий князь Восходящий узел орбиты	2006		786
6	Восьмеричный путь Германцы	2006		768
7	Гермафродит Григорьев	2007		767
8	Григорьев Динамика	2007		767
9	Динамика атмосферы Железнодорожный узел	2007		767
10	Железное дерево Излучение	2008		767
11	Излучение плазмы Исламский фронт спасения	2008		767
12	Исландия Канцеляризмы	2008		767
13	Канцелярия конфискации Киргизы	2009		783
14	Киреев Конго	2009		751
15	Конго Крещение	2010		767
16	Крещение Господне Ласточковые	2010		751
17	Лас-Тунас Ломонос	2011		751
18	Ломоносов Манизер	2011		768
19	Маниковский Меотида	2012		768
20	Меотская археологическая культура Монголо-татарское нашествие	2012		768
21	Монголы Наноматериалы	2013		768
22	Нанонаука Николай Кавасила	2013		767
23	Николай Кузанский Океан	2013		767
24	Океанариум Оясио	2014		767
25	П Пертур	2014		765
26	Перу Полуприцеп	2014		767
27	Полупроводники Пустыня	2014		767
28	Пустырник Румчерод	2015		767
29	Румыния Сен-Жан-де-Люз	2015		767
30	Сен-Жерменский мир 1679 Социальное обеспечение	2016		767
31	Социальное партнёрство Телевидение	2016		768
32	Телевизионная башня Улан-Батор	2016		768
33	Уланд Хватцев	2017		799
34	Хвойка Шервинский	2017		799
35	Шервуд Яя	2017		799

Electronic version

In 2022, an electronic version, the was launched at, described as a Russian government alternative to Wikipedia. Some assumed that this will be associated with blocking Wikipedia or competing with it, however Russian officials disavowed this claim.

Criticism

While it was widely recognized that the Great Soviet Encyclopedia needed a replacement, the need for a print encyclopedia has been questioned, since many other analogues have now moved online, such as the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie.
Critics complain that many of the biographies, historical entries, and cultural articles are narrow and biased: according to writer and literary critic, several of the articles are "quite superficial" and "the lists of references at the end were often extremely biased". While admitting that some of the articles in the encyclopedia were "excellent", Podosokorsky still stated that he maintained a generally negative view of the project.