Belarusian ABC-Book: 400 Years of History

The opening of the exhibition "Belarusian ABC-Book: 400 Years of History", timed to the anniversary of the edition of the first ABC book (Vievis, 1618) will be held on March 29 at 16:00 in the Book Museum of the National Library of Belarus.

The famous ABC Books of the XVI-XXI centuries are represented at the exhibition. They differ all in composition, graphics, artistic design, teaching methods of reading and writing.

They are also represented some of the oldest domestic books for training, famous letters from Orthodox monasteries and little-known publications for Uniates and Old Believers. Particularly interesting are the Belarusian textbooks for teaching reading of the beginning of the XX century: Belarusian alphabets and textbooks by Karus Kahanets, Ciotka (Alaiza Pashkevich), Yakub Kolas, Vaclau Lastouski, Yanka Stankevich, etc. Every visitor can find a lot of unexpected in Belarusian Soviet alphabets of the period of the elimination of illiteracy, in the Western Belarusian alphabets, and the editions of the Belarusian diaspora abroad.

One of the best Belarusian ABC books of the XX - early XXI century is the Anatoly Klyshka's famous "Bukvar", which was published in 1969 for the first time and reprinted 23 times in Belarusian, Russian and Polish. He received the gold medal of the International Leipzig Book Fair in 1977, and he was recognized as the best textbook of the year at the exhibition in Frankfurt am Main in 2004. At the exposition you will see the newest ABC books, prepared by Olga Tsirinova.

But it’s obviously, that the most interesting task for the Book Museum guests will be an attempt to find their "Bukvar" from which they started their school. The exhibition presents the old diaries and notebooks, writing materials and other artifacts of school life unknown to modern schoolchildren.

We invite you to the exhibition!

Tel.: (8 017) 293 27 22