The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (also known as TBE) is one of the largest publications ever created on the territory of the former Soviet Union. The first edition was published in 1926, and the last, 3rd edition, was published in 30 volumes (1969–1978). The encyclopedia contains descriptive information from more than 100,000 articles on various topics - from natural sciences to history, from cultural studies to technology. An important characteristic of this encyclopedia is not only its content, but also the high degree of authority of the authors who worked on its creation. The "Great Soviet Encyclopedia" remains an incomparable source of knowledge about various aspects of world culture, science and technology.