Critical Mass and the Economics of Kritika

This issue marks six full years of publication for Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. It is hard to believe that at the end of the 20th century one could find a trio of editors sufficiently ambitious, energetic, and foolhardy to establish a new scholarly journal in this field. It is equally unfathomable that they should find a publisher unguarded enough to agree to produce it for them. Well, the chemistry was good, and the editors had planned well; Kritika has flourished in these six years; and the result is, miracle of miracles, the vital journal you are currently reading. At this moment Kritika's existence seems secure enough, and perhaps the tale of what it took to make it that way will serve as a guide to others who might seek to follow in its footsteps, as well as sound a cautionary note.

Kritika was pitched to Slavica at the hurricane-depleted AAASS conference in Boca Raton, Florida, in September 1998 by Marshall Poe and Michael David-Fox. The atmosphere at this conference was a bit giddy, as if the air conditioning were mixed with nitrous oxide (the hurricane ultimately bypassed Boca Raton, merely dumping a lot of rain on the area for a day or so). Perhaps this helps explain why the Kritika proposal seemed to make so much sense.

A scholarly publication, whether book or journal, requires motivation by two separate factors: scholarly value and commercial potential. The balance between these factors can vary, but if there is not sufficient potential for sales to cover expenses, then somebody has to make up the difference. The editors outlined the scholarly raison d'être for reviving Kritika in its present form in this column in the very first issue, which made its appearance at AAASS a year after Boca Raton. We at Slavica embrace this reasoning; after all, publishing scholarly books is a big part of what we do. We think that Kritika has been a splendid addition to the field, and we proudly refer to it as our flagship publication. However, there was also that other factor to consider.

Why did Slavica decide to take on Kritika, despite the certainty that establishing it would be an uphill struggle? Above all, we felt that the editors had planned well for a start-up venture. A triumvirate of editors allows for the necessary redundancy in skills and available time; and a respectable level of funding was in place for the editorial office at the University of Maryland before publication began at the end of 1999. But could it be made to work in terms of that second factor?

Slavica Publishers was founded in 1966 by a quartet of graduate students and young faculty at Harvard and over the years evolved into a private corporation owned by Charles E. Gribble, professor of Slavic linguistics at Ohio State University; after I became director, it became a public institution under the aegis of Indiana University in August 1997. Slavica is primarily known for textbooks and scholarly publications in the field of Slavic languages and literatures, but it has always published some titles in the broader field of Slavic area studies, and even outside the Slavic_/East European field altogether. The journal Oral Tradition, which found a home at Slavica, is one example; Kritika is another. We had learned from Charles Gribble that the broader the field, the better the commercial potential of any publication.¹ As a linguist, I conceptualize this as a categorial hierarchy:

Area studies > Literature > Linguistics

Moreover, the genre of a book also makes a difference to its commercial potential:

Textbooks > Scholarly monographs > Thematic collections > Non-thematic collections > Festschriften

Journals, however, stand outside this genre hierarchy. On the one hand, marketing is theoretically easier, as most purchasers are repeat customers. Sell it to them once, and they generally keep subscribing for years. On the other hand, a new scholarly journal is a really tough sell to libraries nowadays, and Kritika began its existence in an especially challenging economic climate. Moreover, the increasing prominence of electronic dissemination of journals and journal-like e-publications makes it difficult to...