Skip to content

Svobodnoye marksistskoye izdatelstvo

A Russian independent publishing house founded in 2008 that issues Marxist, anti-capitalist and critical literature, often in the form of cheaply produced pamphlets.

Last updated September 29, 2026

AI crawler reads

No AI crawler has read this profile since Oct 28, 2026.

Overview

No content in this language yet.

History

Svobodnoye marksistskoye izdatelstvo was founded in 2008 by Kirill Medvedev, a poet, translator, musician and left-wing activist born in 1975. Medvedev had already begun publishing pamphlets under the imprint in 2007, starting with Pierre Paolo Pasolini's 'Almost a Testament: Three Texts of 1975'. The publishing house was established as a small, independent project with the aim of issuing Marxist analysis and left-wing, anti-capitalist thought, as well as art reflections connected with it. In its early years the publisher focused on short, inexpensive pamphlets that could be produced quickly and sold cheaply. By November 2010 it had released around 20 such pamphlets, including the first Russian editions of works by contemporary left-wing theorists Terry Eagleton, Daniel Bensaïd and Michael Löwy. The catalogue also included classic Marxist texts, poetry, film criticism and cultural analysis. Together with the almanac Translit, the publisher launched the book series 'Kraft'. In 2008 the publishing house received the Ilya Kormiltsev Prize 'for publishing activity that is unconventional in form and progressive in content.' This recognition helped raise its profile in Russian intellectual circles. Reviews of its pamphlets appeared in a number of publications, including the journal Novoye Literaturnoye Obozreniye, the review journal Pushkin, the Ukrainian journal of social criticism Spilne, the portal OpenSpace.ru and Kasparov.ru. The publisher took part in several book fairs in Moscow and Novosibirsk, and presentations of its pamphlets were held in various cities. On 8 May 2010, an outdoor presentation of the anthology 'A Trampoline Goes to the Front', featuring poems by participants of the Great Patriotic War, took place in Moscow. The publisher's output continued to grow in the 2010s. In 2017 it released books under the 'New Reds' series, including Kirill Medvedev's 'Antifascism for All' and Ilya Budraitskis's 'Dissidents Among Dissidents'. These titles, with prefaces by Oleg Zhuravlev and Alexei Yurchak respectively and covers by Nikolai Oleinikov, reflected the publisher's ongoing commitment to combining activist and scholarly perspectives on Russian and Soviet history. Throughout its existence, the publishing house has maintained a deliberately austere, minimalist aesthetic. Its pamphlets are typically made from cheap paper and bound with staples, a style that reviewers have described as both aesthetically appealing and pointedly 'proletarian'. This approach has drawn both praise and criticism. Boris Kupriyanov, director of the Moscow bookshop Falanster, called it the best contemporary example of social art, while the political critic Vadim Veterkov criticised the format as unsuitable for poetry. Despite its small scale, the publisher has remained an active and recognisable presence in Russia's left-wing intellectual scene.

  • 2017

    Publishes books in the 'New Reds' series, including Kirill Medvedev's 'Antifascism for All' and Ilya Budraitskis's 'Dissidents Among Dissidents'.

  • 2010

    By November, around 20 pamphlets have been released, including first Russian editions of Terry Eagleton, Daniel Bensaïd and Michael Löwy.

  • 2010

    Outdoor presentation of the anthology 'A Trampoline Goes to the Front' held in Moscow on 8 May.

  • 2008

    The publishing house is officially founded by Kirill Medvedev.

  • 2008

    Receives the Ilya Kormiltsev Prize for publishing activity unconventional in form and progressive in content.

  • 2007

    Kirill Medvedev begins issuing pamphlets under the Svobodnoye marksistskoye izdatelstvo imprint, starting with Pasolini's 'Almost a Testament'.

Products and positioning

An activist, educational publishing project combining enlightenment and activism, producing cheaply made but intellectually rigorous left-wing literature.

Product categories. Pamphlets on Marxist theory · Left-wing political theory books · Poetry collections · Film and cultural criticism · Translations of Western left-wing theorists

Sources3 sources

Cite this profile: Cite the canonical profile. /brand-wiki/svobodnoye-marksistskoye-izdatelstvo · Editorial policy · How profiles are compiled