The Great Russian Encyclopedia (GRE;, БРЭ, transliterated as Bolshaya rossiyskaya entsiklopediya or academically as Bol'šaja rossijskaja ènciklopedija) is a universal Russian encyclopedia, completed in 36 volumes, published between 2004 and 2017 by Great Russian Encyclopedia, JSC (, transliterated as Bolshaya rossiyskaya entsiklopediya PAO). A successor to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, it was released under the auspices of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) after President Vladimir Putin signed a 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" (Yaya). 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.

Personnel and management

Editorial board

Yury Osipov, a mathematician, President of RAS (1991-2013), 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: 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. Boris A. Babayan, Vladimir I. Vasiliev, Piama P. Gaidenko, Rudolf V. Kamelin, Michael V. Kovalchuk, Nikolai I. Lapin, Sergey S. Lappo, Alexey V. Yablokov. Vladimir I. Fisinin. Dmitry O. Shvidkovskiy. 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:

Electronic version

In 2022, an electronic version, Great Russian Encyclopedia (portal) was launched at bigenc.ru, 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 Nikolai Podosokorsky, 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.