Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Большая советская энциклопедия
Title page of the 3rd ed. (in Russian), 1st vol.
LanguageRussian
SubjectGeneral
PublisherSovetskaya Entsiklopediya
Publication date
1926–1981 (printed version)
Media type30 volumes (hardbound) in 1981
OCLC14476314
Followed byGreat Russian Encyclopedia 
Websitebse.sci-lib.com
The first edition from 1927
The second edition from 1950
The third edition from 1977

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE; Russian: Больша́я сове́тская энциклопе́дия, БСЭ, romanized: Boljšaja sovjetskaja enciklopjedija, BSE) is the largest Soviet Russian-language encyclopedia,[1] published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later Boljšaja rossijskaja enciklopjedija (or Great Russian Encyclopedia) in an updated and revised form. The GSE claimed to be "the first Marxist–Leninist general-purpose encyclopedia".[2]

  1. ^ The 3rd edition contains more than 95,000 articles, and nearly 35,000 illustrations and maps. Compare with over 120,000 articles in the Russian Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (1890–1907) and with 100,000 in the 15th edition of Britannica
  2. ^ "Great Soviet Encyclopedia". TheFreeDictionary.com.