“From Martin Kuhta’s printing house”

From March 12th a book exhibition timed to the 140th birth anniversary of publisher Martin Kuhta runs in the Book Museum.

Martin Kuhta (lithanian Martynas Kukta; 1875–1956) is a printer and publisher of books in Belarusian, Russian, Polish and Lithuanian languages.

In 1904–1906 he was head of the first Lithuanian printing house in Vilna (along with P. Vileisis). In 1906 Martin Kuhta founded in Vilna his own printing house with the right to print books, newspapers and journals in European languages. Belarusian editing communities such as Nasha niva, Nasha hata, Palachanin, Belaruskae vydaveckae tavarystva cooperated with Martin Kuhta’s printing house which operated till 1918.

It is known at least 60 book editions in the Belarusian languages printed by Martin Kuhta between 1906 and 1915. The most part of the printing house’s book products was fiction by F. Bogushevich, М. Bogdanovich, Y. Kolas, Tsiotka, К. Buylo and other Belarusian authors, books on literary criticism, literary translations, collections of folk songs and fairytales, Belarusian calendars, papers on ethnography, linguistic studies, editions on agriculture and medicine. Also the printing house released editions in Polish and a significant number (over 300 in 1914) of Lithuanian books, brochures, Lithuanian periodicals (newspapers Balsas, Lietuvis, Lietuvos aidas, Lietuvos žinios, Viltis, journals Garsas, Lietuvių tauta, Scaron;viesa etc).

The offered exhibition presents Vilna editions of the early ХХ century printed by Martin Kuhta in Cyrillic and Roman types (from the collections of the National Library of Belarus): original first issues of the newspaper Nasha niva, first original editions Belarusian Calendar (1910–1914), one collection of M. Bogdanovich’s verses Vyanok published in his lifetime with the poet’s autograph (1913), editions of Y. Kolas’ Rodnyja javy (1914), Y. Kupala’s A hto tam idze? (1910), К. Buylo’s Kurgannaja kvetka (1914), М. Goretsky’s Run’ (1914), Belarusian textbooks Karotkaja historyja Belarusi (1910) by V. Lastovsky, Belaruskaja gramatyka dlja shkol (1918) by B. Tarashkevich, Pieršaja čytanka: knižyca dla biełaruskich dzietak dziela nawuki čytańnia (1916), Siejbit: druhaja, paśla łementara, čytanka dla pačatkowych škoł (1918) etc.

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