Frantsishak Skaryna
(ca. 1490-1551)

Belarusian and East Slavonic enlightener and humanist, first printer, scientist, writer, translator, painter, graphic artist of the Renaissance epoch.

He was born into the family of a Polatsk merchant. In 1506, he graduated from the University of Krakow (Jagiellonski University) where he got his bachelor's degree in philosophy. In 1512, at the University of Padova, he was conferred a degree of the Doctor of Medicine. He was the first to publish 23 books of the Bible in the Belarusian version of the Church Slavonic language, in 1517-1519, at a printing-house founded in Prague. About 1520 he founded a printing-house in Vilnya and in about 1522 and 1525 he published "The Small Travel Book" and "The Apostle" there. The prefaces and epilogues of his editions expounded many advanced ideas on state sovereignty, patriotism, equal rights, religious and moral freedom and responsibility, "natural law," self-value of the human life on the earth. Skaryna believed the service to the society to be equal to the service to God, hence he interpreted his translating, writing and publishing activities as a spiritual sacrifice to his Motherland. The creative work of Skaryna accounts to a great extent for the specificity of the Belarusian culture of the 16th-17th centuries, it promoted the book printing, humanism and Reformation. The great citizen of Polatsk has been commemorated in various countries of the world, for instance, there is a monument to him in Polatsk, memorial plaques in Vilnia, Krakow and Padova.