A joint project of the National Library of Belarus and Collection Publishing House is awarded the 2nd Degree Diploma in nomination “Art-book” of the International contest “The Art of Book” among the CIS member states.
Nine member countries of the CIS – Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Ukraine – presented 77 high-quality editions at the 11th International contest “The Art of Books”. The international jury examined books in nine nomination: “Commonwealth”, “My country”, “Books for children and young adults”, “Dialogue of cultures”, “Science and education”, “Art-book”, “Printed in the CIS”, “The Victory”, and “Grand Prix”.
A publishing project on preparation and printing of the first facsimile edition of the complete set of Francysk Skaryna’s, works which initiators and main executors are BelVEB Bank and the National Library of Belarus, is to be fulfilled in 2013–2017.
The project is timed to the 500th anniversary of Belarusian book printing which will be celebrated on August 6th, 2017. For the first time this multivolume facsimile edition will allow gathering the complete collection of books printed by Francysk Skaryna in Prague (1517–1519) and Vilna (1522–1525). It is based on electronic copies of the first printer’s best remaining books which are kept in libraries and museums of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Germany and other countries.
The facsimile edition presents as fully as possible the books by Francysk Skaryna. It reproduces all the structures, contents, fonts and engravings of original books as well as all the features they got during their existence. All these books include comments of scientists and translations of forewords and afterwords by Francysk Skaryna into modern Belarusian, Russian and English languages.
The objective of the facsimile restoration is to acquaint a wide public with one of the most valuable treasures of Belarusian book culture.
In 2013, five facsimile books were printed: Genesis, Exodus, Levite, Numbers and the Second Law. The Book of Genesis starts this project of the first fullest facsimile edition of all books by Francysk Skaryna. Well-known is its title-page which is that of all 23 books of the Bible printed in Prague. This is evidence of the fact that Francysk Skaryna regarded this edition as the first book of the Bible he printed though he published it only in the third year of his publishing activity.
It is notable that Francysk Skaryna for the first time used a title-page in Slavic Cyrillic books. The title-page of the Book of Genesis features the heading the translator and publisher wrote for the whole Bible: “The Russian Bible printed by Doctor Francysk Skaryna from the glorious city of Polotsk for worshipping God and educating people”.
