Francisk Skorina: a journey to the Fatherland

The exposition presents the Bible of Francisk Skorina from the Upper Lusatian Science Library (Görlitz, Germany) and Skorina’ editions from the collections of the National Library of Belarus.

The edition from Görlitz found in 2003 in the Upper Lusatian Science Library (ULSL) consists of 11 independents: the Book of Wisdom, four Books of Kings the Moses’ Pentateuch (the Book of Genesis, the Book of Exodus, the Book of Levite, the Book of Numbers, the Deuteronomy) and the Book of Jesus Navin.

The most valuable are the Law of Moses and the Book of Jesus Navin missing in the stocks of the National Library of Belarus; the Book of Genesis with an engraved title-page; the Books of Kings with the known portrait of Francisk Skorina.

Skorina started his publisher’s career in 1517 in Prague where printed his Psalter, and then 22 books of the Old Testament under the common name Bivlia Ruska. All of them are published in the format of a fourth part of a leaf that was not characteristic for the West-European printed Bibles of that time. Texts of the Bible are printed in the Church Slavonic Language in Belarusian edition. In the forewords Skorina emphasizes that the purpose of his publishing is to help common people to “become acquainted with wisdom and science” so that they “schooled in wisdom, live kindly on the Earth”. Numerous engravings in his books are remarkable for original composition, plots and a skill of engraving.

Convolute of F. Skorina’s Bible of 11 books (from the ULSL’s collections)	Engraved title-page from the Bible	The Book of Genesis (from the ULSL’s collections)
The Book of Wisdom (from the ULSL’s collections)	Engraving from the Book of Wisdom	The Book of Kings with a portrait of Francisk Skorina (from the ULSL’s collections)
The Book of Jesus Navin (from the ULSL’s collections)	Engraving from the Book of Jesus Navin	The Book of Jesus Navin (from the ULSL’s collections)
Книга Второзаконие (from the ULSL’s collections)	Engraving from the Book of Exodus	The Deuteronomy (from the ULSL’s collections)
The Book of Solomon. Prague, 1518 (from the NLB’s collections)	The Book of Kings. Prague, 1518 (from the NLB’s collections)	The Book of Job. Prague, 1517 (from the NLB’s collections)
The Ecclesiast. Prague, 1518 (from the NLB’s collections)	The Song of Songs. Prague, 1518 (from the NLB’s collections)	The Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach. Prague, 1517 (from the NLB’s collections)