MINSK, 25 May (BelTA) – On 26 May Kiev will play host to an official ceremony of donating a unique facsimile edition titled Francysk Skorina Book Legacy to the biggest libraries of Ukraine. The event has been organized by the National Library of Belarus, BelTA learnt from the Belarusian embassy in Ukraine.
The event will take place in the National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine under the auspices of the Belarusian diplomatic mission, the Culture Ministries of Belarus and Ukraine as part of the Year of Culture in Belarus. Attending the solemn ceremony will be Director of the National Library of Belarus Roman Motulsky, Director General of the National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine Tamara Vylegzhanina, representatives of the Culture Ministry of Ukraine and the National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine, cultural and art figures of the two countries.
The facsimile edition of 25 books printed by Francysk Skorina in Prague (1517-1519) and Vilno (1522-1525) is Belarus’ unique cultural project dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the Belarusian book printing.
Francysk Skorina printed the first copy of the Psalter in the Belarusian Old Church Slavonic language and then translated other Bibles. It was Skorina who made reading more affordable: a printed book cost less than a hand-written one. He also developed the Small Travelling Book that united the Psalter, texts of church services and hymns and also an astronomic church calendar.