Rormation of Russian readers circles in the second half of the XVIII century

The dramatic growth of book printing could be observed in Russia during the second half of the XVIII century, especially after the Decree on Free Printing Houses of 1783. This process was to a certain extent smoothed by a kind of newly generated readers' audience, quite different from the nobility, namely, the circles of readers of lower classes ("mean estate") origin. That was the audience that publishers of the Catherine the Great's epoch seemed to be targeting at.