The presentation of a miniature edition of Francysk Skaryna’s Book of Judith, released this year in Baku, took place in the bookstore Svetoch in Minsk, on 23 September.
The event was attended by the project initiator, founder of the Museum of the Miniature Book in Baku Zarifa Salakhova, the authors of commentary the deputy director of the National Library of Belarus Alies Susha and the head of the library department Galina Kireeva, as well as the representatives of the Ministry of Information of the Republic of Belarus and the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Belarus.
According to Alies Susha, the book was published by the Indigo print house in the series The Book Heritage of Francysk Skaryna with the support of the National Library of Belarus and the Congress of Azerbaijani Communities of the Republic of Belarus.
The 217-page book, in addition to modern texts, includes the facsimile of The Book of Judith published by Skaryna in Prague on February 9, 1519. In the preface to the book, Skaryna briefly outlines the history of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian powers, as well as the circumstances of Judith’s patriotic deed. The book was published in the Belarusian version of the Church Slavonic language. Up to now, only 9 copies of the edition survived.
The Book of Judith is an Old Testament biblical book describing the story of the Israeli widow rescuing her city from the invasion of the Assyrians.
The current action is timed to the 500th anniversary of Skaryna’s beginning of Belarusian printing. Recall that the first Belarusian printed book was the Bible.
Source: adapted from Katolik.Life
