Frantsysk Skaryna, the first East Slavic book printer
It will soon be the 520th birth anniversary of Frantsysk Skaryna (Franciscus Skorina) the Belarusian humanist of the early to mid-16th-century, doctor of medicine, writer, translator, artist, and enlightener. His name is linked to an outstanding intellectual event in the life of not only the Belarusian people but also the entire East Slavic world: the publication in the early 16th century of a considerable part of the Bible in Old Church Slavonic, which was then closely related to the Belarusian language. This was the second printed Bible in the Slavic world after the one that was published in Bohemia. Before the famous Ostroh Bible appeared, Skaryna’s publications were the only printed translations of the Holy Writ on the territories of the East and South Slavs. These translations were very well known in the 16th and 17th centuries and were subject to imitations and revisions because, in one way or another, East Slavic publishers of biblical texts oriented themselves toward Skaryna. This is hardly surprising, since in many respects his Bible foreshadowed similar publications in other countries.
Skaryna’s name is also linked to the significant growth of interest in the ancient Greek and Roman legacy and its impact on the humanization of philosophical and social thought in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He was perhaps the first East Slav to attempt a synthesis of antiquity and Christianity, “Solomon’s divine and Aristotle’s worldly wisdom,” and to recommend the system of “seven free sciences,” an educational program devised in ancient Greece. Later, this system was adopted by the brotherhood schools in Ukraine and Belarus and modernized by professors of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, which helped to bridge the gap between Ukrainian and Western cultures.
LANDMARKS OF LIFE
Little is known about Frantsysk Skaryna’s life. This lacuna thus offers historians a golden opportunity to advance some interesting hypotheses. We do not even know the exact dates of his birth and death. He was supposedly born between 1485 and 1490 in Polatsk in the family of a wealthy merchant, Luka Skaryna, who traded with Bohemia, Muscovy, and the Polish and German lands. From his parents the son inherited a love for his native Polatsk to which he would always attach the epithet “glorious.” Frantsysk received his primary education in the parental home, where he learned to read the Psalter and write in Cyrillic characters. In all probability, he learned Latin to perfection at one of the Catholic cathedral schools in Polatsk or Vilnius. In his father’s home Frantsysk was always in contact with “ordinary Ruthenian-speaking people” for whom he later published his books.
There were no higher educational institutions in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania before the establishment of Vilnius University (1570) and Kyiv Mohyla Academy (1632), so many Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Lithuanians had to go abroad to obtain a higher education. Some of the most popular choices were the universities in Krakow, Poland (founded in 1364), and Padua, Italy (1222). Accordingly, Skaryna, the son of a Polatsk merchant, obtained his first higher education in Krakow.
The records of Krakow University first mention the name ‘Franciscus Skoryna’ in 1504, when he was enrolled there as a student. On Dec. 14, 1506, the young Belarusian, who had completed humanities studies, was awarded the degree of baccalaureate. Skaryna then obtained a master’s degree, which allowed him entry to the most prestigious faculties (of medicine and theology) at European universities. Scholars believe that after graduating from Krakow University, Skaryna served as secretary to the Danish king in 1506-1512. In 1512 he quit this office and set off for Padua, where he received a medical degree at Padua University. Language was no problem for the Belarusian from “glorious Polatsk” because Latin was the language of instruction throughout Western Europe.
DOCTOR OF MEDICINE
Preserved in the archives of Padua University is a resolution of the university’s Collegium that examined the young Skaryna. The Collegium’s prior stated in the preamble: “The reason why Your Excellencies have been summoned is as follows: a certain quite learned poor young man (Frantsysk’s father had died by this time — Author), a doctor of arts, from a very distant country, perhaps four thousand or more miles away from the glorious city of Padua, has arrived. He has requested the Collegium to allow him, as a sign of benefaction and good grace, to take an examination in medicine under the rules of this sacred Collegium. This young man and doctor of arts is Ruthenian and bears the name Franciscus, the son of the late Luka Skoryna from Polatsk.” Then there was a two-day exam. After a long discussion of Skaryna’s answers and theses, the prior put the matter to a vote. “Whoever agrees that this gentleman named Franciscus be awarded by God’s grace a medical degree may please cast his ballot into the red box, whoever does not agree may please cast his ballot into the green one.” There was not a single ‘anti’ ballot because “Master Franciscus, son of the late Mr. Luka Skoryna from Polatsk, brilliantly answered all the medical questions from memory and excellently argued all the objections raised, acquitting himself in the best way.”
Thus, the young man from a “distant country” obtained a medical degree from the illustrious University of Padua. This was a significant event not only in the life of young Frantsysk but also in the history of Belarusian culture. This episode also sheds light on the liberal mores and attitudes of Italian scholars and the absence of ethnic or religious prejudices during the High Renaissance.
Another information gap in Skaryna’s life begins in the period following his exam until the year 1516. Contemporary Mensk scholars hypothesize that Skaryna began traveling across Europe to familiarize himself with book printing and incunabula (first printed books) as well as to meet his contemporaries of genius, including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. They base this assumption on the fact that one of Raphael’s frescoes depicts a man who looks very much like Skaryna’s self-portrait in a Bible that he published later. Interestingly, Raphael painted this portrait next to his own.
Skaryna’s wanderings in Italy and his familiarity with the culture of Europe (even if he did not meet the great painters) are especially significant when viewed against the background of the position that the Orthodox Church took (and upholds to this day). Striving to preserve their medieval church culture at any cost, Orthodox hierarchs fiercely resisted Western science, philosophy, culture and art, which eventually caused the entire Orthodox community to lag fatally behind the West. The church still justifies its intolerance by the necessity to fight off Catholicism, Protestantism, and various heresies, thus instilling and inculcating in its flock a dislike or even open hatred of all things non-Orthodox, of their brethren in Christ from other denominations. Like 500 years ago, today East Slavic societies have a dire need for people like Frantsysk Skaryna, the Belarusian from Polatsk.
THE BIBLE IN CYRILLIC
From 1517 Skaryna lived in Prague, where there was a tradition dating to the days of the Hussite movement of using biblical books to shape public opinion. Once there, he began to study printing and book engraving techniques. He continued his studies in Venice, Ausburg, and other European cities. In Prague Skaryna mastered two languages: Hebrew, which he needed to translate the Bible (his teachers were Prague rabbis) and Czech. Frantsysk also made an extensive study of Czech biblical incunabula. These efforts allowed him to set up his own publishing business in Prague and begin printing biblical books. In all probability, Skaryna was the organizer and ideologue of the printing business, the translator of biblical texts, designer and commentator of certain books, while local masters did the actual printing.
The first printed book was the Slavic Psalter, the foreword to which states, “I, Frantsysk Skaryna, the son of glorious Polatsk, a doctor of the healing sciences, ordered this Psalter to be printed in Ruthenian words and in the Slavonic language.” (One civilization-related coincidence should be pointed out: Skaryna began to print the Bible in the very year that Martin Luther proclaimed his 95 theses in Wittenberg, which were aimed against indulgences and deviations from the faith on the part of the Catholic clergy: this was the beginning of the Reformation and radical changes in Europe. Some sources claim that in 1525 Skaryna visited Wittenberg, where he met Luther and presented him with his publications). Skaryna’s book-printing endeavors found support among rich Ruthenian patrons, including the Great Hetman of Lithuania Konstanty Ostrogski, father of the Kyivan voivode Kostiantyn Ostrozsky, who was instrumental in the printing of The Ostroh Bible (1581).
In 1517-1519 Skaryna published 22 books of the Bible (most from the Old Testament) under the general title Bibliia Ruska. In the foreword the first printer wrote: “I, Frantsysk, the son of Skaryna from Polatsk, understanding that people cannot possibly live together on earth without fear of God, without wisdom and good behavior, have resolved to print Parables in the Ruthenian language, first and foremost to the glory and honor of God the Comforter and then to the benefit of the common people so that they may learn good ways and wisdom, and live a righteous worldly life by glorifying merciful God.” (At the time, Skaryna’s fellow countrymen used the word “Ruthenian” to denote the Belarusian language in contrast to “Slavonic,” which meant Old Church Slavonic).
In the early 1520s Skaryna moved to Vilnius and founded Belarus’s first printing shop in the house of the rich Belarusian burgher Yakub Babich. He published The Lesser Prayer Book and The Apostle “laid out and printed with great effort and the attention of Doctor Frantsysk Skaryna from glorious Polatsk.” This book, which appeared in 1525, turned out to be the last one: the Vilnius printing shop was destroyed in a fire, and there was no money to restore it because, contrary to Skaryna’s hopes, his books were not widely read.
WORLDLY MATTERS
Soon after, Skaryna married Margarita, the widow of a Vilnius city councilor. In 1532 Skaryna was arrested for failure to pay debts and served four months in a Poznan jail, only to be released through the intervention of King Sigismund of Poland, who granted Skaryna a certificate protecting him from the arbitrary rule of voivodes and starostas. Litigations and conflicts, the death of his wife and brother, and debts were not conducive to the resumption of book-printing activities by the humanist and enlightener. Skaryna thus accepted the invitation of Duke Albert of Prussia to accept the post of court physician, but he soon returned to Vilnius to become the doctor and secretary of the bishop of Vilnius. In 1533 Skaryna set off for Prague — this time forever. He was appointed King Ferdinand’s court gardener and was one of the founders of Central Europe’s oldest botanical garden in Prague’s Hrad я cany. Frantsysk Skaryna died here either in 1540 or 1550.
SKARYNA’S BIBLE
In the 16th century printing the Bible was not just a trade: it required courage, a reformist mindset, and various talents, especially in the conditions when the ruling elite of Belarus was Catholic and only recognized Latin texts of the Scriptures. Moreover, the Catholic Church believed that letting the common people read the Bible meant “throwing the holy church to the dogs and casting pearls before swine.” The same viewpoint was shared by the Orthodox Ivan Vishensky, who from his cell in faraway Athos Monastery mercilessly scourged those who “know many languages and praise and extol the pagan Plato, Aristotle, and others. But you, simple, uneducated and meek Ruthenian, cleave steadfastly to the simple and unsophisticated Gospel, for it gives you a sense of eternal life.”
Skaryna always tried to make the Bible clearer to the reader by focusing on understanding the Word of God. “For not only doctors of sciences and other learned people understand it (God’s Word) but any common and ordinary man can see, by reading and listening to it, what is needed to save his soul.” It was the common people for whom Skaryna’s prefaces to each of the Old Testament books were intended. The author defined the language in the prefaces as the Belarusian version of Old Church Slavonic. In them the scholar and enlightener provides the reader with detailed information on the history, geography, and culture of various peoples, especially the nations of the Middle East. In addition to prefaces, Skaryna wrote abstracts of each of the Bible’s chapters. Like other Reformation figures, Skaryna sought to teach readers to understand the Bible by explaining in the margins some difficult Old Church Slavonic or Greek words and furnishing links to other places in the Bible: “I have also put on the edges of pages some words in the Psalms that might be difficult for an ordinary man to understand, such as ‘Herod’s home’ and ‘windows of heaven,’ and explain them in the Ruthenian language.” No “instructional” books like this had ever been published before Skaryna.
The publisher embellished all his books with superb engravings. For example, Skaryna included an engraving called “The Verdict about Two Children” in the book Parables of Solomon, the King of Israel and the Son of David, and the engraving “The Prophet Jeremiah Weeping and Gazing at Jerusalem” in another book, etc. All the pictures are very esthetic and attest to the author’s superior artistic taste. Skaryna’s engravings may be used to study the mores of his age, for the people depicted in them are wearing European clothes of the time and buildings are constructed in the Gothic style. The 19th-century Russian critic and literature scholar Vladimir Stasov pointed out the “finesse of the picture and mastery of the engraving, which shone briefly in Venetian publications and Skaryna’s, and never again occurred in any other Old Church Slavonic publication.”
The drawings contain many symbols that are difficult to “read” today, as well as astrological and astronomical signs and instruments, which gave rise to the hypothesis that when he was studying in Krakow, Skaryna met Copernicus (they were studying medicine at the same time). One engraving shows a unique picture of the Golem of Prague, an “automaton” allegedly created by a Prague rabbi, legends about which haunted Europe for several centuries.
Skaryna oriented all his translations, prefaces, and illustrations toward his fellow countrymen, i.e., Orthodox readers. Despite the hostile attitude of both the Catholic and Orthodox clergies, Skaryna’s books and a large number of imitations circulated throughout the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Even the Ostroh Bible of 1581, considered the standard Old Church Slavonic text of the Bible in Southwestern Rus’, follows the learned Belarusian’s works in certain fragments.
WHAT IS THE LANGUAGE OF SKARYNA’S BIBLE?”
Some Belarusian scholars consider Skaryna the creator of the Belarusian literary language. Others claim that his language is mixed and “rough,” although it does contain some elements of that era’s spoken Belarusian. Another direction limits Skaryna’s linguistic element by means of the so-called “Slavonic” language, in which Maksym Hrek, Ivan Fedorov, and Ivan Smotrytsky, wrote their works. At the very least, Skaryna made a major contribution to bridging the gap between the Bible’s Old Church Slavonic and the spoken language of his fellow countrymen. In the preface to the Book of Job he says that he ordered it to be printed in the “Ruthenian language.” He also said that his books are printed in “Ruthenian words (letters) in the Slavic language.” Interestingly, Skaryna’s Prague publications contain a number of neologisms that show that he coined new words, for example, hlupovstvo (stupidity), lenivstvo (laziness), skupovstvo (stinginess), knizhnitsa (library) and pevnitsa (music).
RELIGIOUS DENOMINATION
One of the many puzzles in the biography of the first Belarusian book printer is his religion. There have been many disputes over this in scholarly and religious circles, but Skaryna himself never used the words ‘Catholic,’ ‘Orthodox,’ or ‘Protestant’ in his books: he always talked about ‘Christians.’ There was an unambiguous reference to this in a late 16th-century document: polemicizing with the Orthodox, the Uniate Archimandrite Seliava wrote: “Before the union (Brest, 1596) there was a Hussite heretic Skaryna in Prague who printed books for you in Russian.” However, there was no hard evidence to confirm this “accusation.”
Orthodox theologians in turn unanimously claimed that Skaryna’s publications were influenced by Luther’s ideas. When Skaryna or perhaps someone traveling on his behalf visited Moscow in 1525 to popularize the Prague edition of the Bible, Orthodox hierarchs suspected that it showed Protestant influences and ordered all the copies burned. Throughout the 16th century it was forbidden in Muscovite Rus’ to mention the name of the first Belarusian book printer, although many Orthodox believers made use of his books. Some time later Prince Andrei Kurbsky, who had escaped from Ivan the Terrible to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, harshly criticized Skaryna’s translation in a letter to the Great Hetman of Lithuania, accusing the publisher of “pernicious ties” with the Reformation, distortion of the true Orthodox faith, and heretical thinking. How difficult it is to be a prophet in one’s own country and in one’s own time! All of Skaryna’s activities were permeated with the ideas of the age of Reformation and the Renaissance in which he lived: we can say without exaggeration that Skaryna was one of the European humanists. His name is inseparably linked with the formation and development of the Belarusian language, for Skaryna was aware of the importance of a native language not only as a medium of culture but also as a factor of national unity. However, the experience of past centuries has proved insufficient for some Slavic peoples to grasp this truth.
Frantsysk Skaryna has long been a venerable figure in Belarus: his biography is studied in schools; streets and squares in cities and villages bear his name; Belarusian academics study his life and work; monographs, films, and fiction books dedicated to Skaryna’s legacy continue to appear. But there is much more medieval scholasticism, rhetoric, and emptiness in all this than there was in the activity of the Polatsk-born Humanist, who lived 500 years ago. His homeland has now almost forsaken its native language, which, as the far-seeing Skaryna once warned, has led to social conflicts. Some Belarusian scholars are more anxious about not forgetting to mention the “friendship of the Slavic peoples” or “the great brother” in their works than about studying Skaryna’s links with world (i.e., Western European) culture, his thirst for knowledge regardless of its provenance, tolerance for other faiths in a time of religious wars, and his touching solicitude for the enlightenment of his compatriots. I think this story is also about us, Ukrainians.
