'Between East and West: History of Encyclopaedia Writing in Russia'. Russian joined the 'encyclopaedia' writing nations of France, Britain, Germany and United States quite late – first successful encyclopaedical dictionaries were published in Russia only at the second part of the 19 th century ('Russian Encyclopaedical 'Encyclopaedical Dictionary' in forty-one volumes with two additional volumes published later). From the 14 th century trying to cope with Tataro-Mongol's dependency of the Russian principalities on the one hand and growing Catholic pressure on the other hand, Russia found herself in a kind of political and geographical isolation. All troubles to Russian political and religious stability arrived from the West and Russian rules tried to compensate themselves by expanding Russian influence and conquering new territories on the East. This was visible by the number of professional interpreters and official papers translators at the Department on Foreign Affairs ( Pischii Prikaz): two- third of its staff knew different Eastern languages (Arabic, Persian, Tatar, Mongol, Chinese) and one-third was experienced in Western languages (German, Swedish, English). All information on Eastern and Western people was accumulated and transformed in written form in so-called 'Chronographs' scrolls. Responsibility on their writing and preserving laid upon Orthodox Church authorities, the only educated social strata in Russia of that time. Cloisters and churches in Moscow and nearby served as repositories for numerous documents and information about foreign countries. Educated monks were responsible for selection of trustful sources of information and their translation into Old-Russian. One of the well-known book of that period (late 15 th – early 16 th centuries) was known under the name 'Russian Chronograph' (Russkii Khronograf 1516). It can be found in fragments and different editions in Russian libraries manuscript departments and archives; exact date of its first edition as well as authorship hardly can be defined. 'Russian Chronograph' comprised of 208 separate chapters, which included main events from the Russian and world histories and covered Biblical history, Middle Eastern History, history of the Roman Empire, Hellenic world and Byzantium Empire. As main sources for the history of the Byzantium Empire 'Russian Chronograph' used Chronicles of Konstantin Manasseh and Johannes Zonara, for Alexander the Great deeds used Bulgarian and Serbian translation from Greek sources, for Roman Empire were translated exceptions from Josephus Flavius works. Byzantium sources deserved