Academic publishing, Russian Style: Why Ivan Ivanovich won't stop quibbling with Ivan Nikiforovich

Abstract It was, initially, my intention to describe the preparation of academic editions in post-Soviet Russia, using the new Gogol complete works and correspondence of which I am one of the editors, as an example of the necessary steps involved. But, to quote one of Gogol's heroes, ‘a story happene~ to this story’. The number of incidents which hampered work on the first volume not only gave the whole process a dramatic colouring, but the context of the ‘story’ broadened, opening out on to two main subplots: life in Russian academlc institutes, and the fate of academic editions more generally.