500 Years of Belarusian Book Printing

MINSK, 7 September (BelTA) – The book heritage from the holdings of the National Library of Belarus, libraries of Germany, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia will be on display during the exhibition titled as Francysk Skaryna and His Epoch in the National Library of Belarus, BelTA learned from the library’s director Roman Motulsky.

The international exhibition project “Francysk Skaryna and His Epoch” will open on 14 September and will run till the end of the year.

The exhibition is dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the Belarusian and East-Slavonic book printing. The large exhibition will feature the books published 500 years ago and earlier, the publications from foreign libraries and private collections. The project aims to demonstrate the contribution of the outstanding thinker, humanist, educator, Belarusian and East-Slavonic printing pioneer Francysk Skaryna to the development of the Belarusian and common Slavonic book culture. The goal of the project is to present the Belarusian book heritage as part of the European book printing traditions.

The heart of the exhibition is the original publications of Francysk Skaryna printed in Prague and Vilna in 1517-1525. The exhibition includes the biggest collection of Francysk Skaryna’s books from the holdings of the National Library of Belarus, the unique Old Testament books (published in Prague) from the libraries of Germany and Russia, and the publications (printed in Vilna) from the collections of Slovenia, Russia and the corporate collection of Belgazprombank.

The separate exhibition section will be dedicated to the European book heritage of the Francysk Skaryna epoch. The visitors will see the first printed European books and the first books in the national languages of the famous printers from Mainz, Nurnberg, Paris, Venice, Lviv, Basel, Krakow, Moscow, Cetinje, Targoviște and other cities.

The exhibition will also display a fragment of the famous Forty-two Line Bible from the German library and its high-quality unique facsimile from the Russian library, the publications of the 15th-16th centuries from the Slovakian library, the original and the copies of the first printed books from Poland, early publications of the Serbian and Romanian printing houses from the Moscow private collection.

The Belarusian book printing through the five centuries will be demonstrated by the early printed books of Francysk Skaryna’s followers from Brest, Nesvizh, Vilna, Mogilev, Kuteino, Polotsk, Slutsk and other places and the important rare publications of the 19th-21st centuries from the National Library’s collection. One of them is the unique edition “The Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania” (Vilna, 1588) printed in Cyrillic from the holdings of the National Library of Latvia.