Francysk Skaryna

• Name — Francysk Skaryna • Birth Name — Francišak Skaryna • Born — c. 1470–1490 • Birthplace — Polotsk, Grand Duchy of Lithuania • Died — 1551/29 January 1552 • Place of death — Prague, Bohemia • Occupation — Humanist, physician and translator • Known for — One of the first book printers in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in all of Eastern Europe • Illustration — Title page of Skaryna's Bible

Skaryna was born into a wealthy family from Polotsk (now in Belarus), which was then a major trade and manufacturing center of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. His father, Luka Skaryna, was a merchant, who dealt with someone known as Doronya Ivanov, from Velikiye Luki. Skaryna's older brother, Ivan, was also a merchant. The brothers owned property, possibly ancestral, in Polotsk.[2] The date of birth is unknown. Usually it has been suggested that he was born somewhere between 1495 and 1490.[3] In 2019 Ilja Lemeškin argued that Skaryna was born in 1470.[4] The year 1490 is often proposed based on the assumption that he was 14 when he came to study in Kraków in 1504. The date is an upper boundary; while new students younger than 14 were rare, older ones were not unusual, and Skaryna could have started his studies at the age of 18 or even older. Mikalai Shchakatsikhin suggested that the overlapping sun and moon on Skaryna's personal emblem indicates that he was born around the time of the 1486 solar eclipse, which was observed in Polotsk.[5] It is believed that he received his primary education in Polotsk and possibly in Vilnius.[6] In 1504, Skaryna is recorded as a student at Jagiellonian University. In 1506, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1512, after passing all required tests, he received a doctorate in medicine at the University of Padua in Italy.[7] Records suggest that he requested to take his examination in Padua but had not studied in the city. Earlier, he obtained an "artium doctor" degree, but the exact date and place are unknown.

Skaryna arrived in Prague by 1517. According to one hypothesis, he had been a student at Charles University in Prague, but there is no documentary evidence of this. In the same year, he rented a printing house from a merchant named Severin[8][9] in Prague and started publishing a new translation of the Bible with his own prefaces. On 6 August 1517, his first edition, Psalter (Skaryna, 1517), was released. "The Psalter" comprises nearly all of the biblical books of Holy Scripture. He released new books periodically over the next few months (10 September, 6 October, 5 December, 2 January 1518, 9 January, and 19 January). Then, on 10 August 1518, he published four books at the same time. The culmination of his life's work was printing a translation of the Bible in twenty-three books from 1517 to 1519.[10] In 1522, Skaryna opened the first printing house in Vilnius. He published "The Little Travel Book", followed by "Apostol" in 1525. "Apostol" was released in the same order as it is used in Orthodox worship now. In the late 1520s or early 1530s, he visited Moscow. He wished to distribute his books in Moscow but was unsuccessful.[11] Skaryna married Margarita, the widow of a Vilnius city councilor. In 1529, following his brother's death, he went to Poznań and obtained a share of Ivan's property. In 1530, he moved with his wife to Königsberg, but they soon returned to Vilnius. In 1532, he worked as a doctor and secretary to John, Bishop of Vilnius. After two years, creditors of his late brother Ivan considered Skaryna as the brother's primary heir, and imprisoned him in Poznań. He was there for several months. Roman Skaryna, Ivan's son and Francysk's nephew, actively helped his uncle, meeting with King Sigismund I.[12] When Skaryna was released, he sent a complaint letter with a counterclaim against the creditors to the King. In response to the letter, he was awarded two royal privilege certificates (dated 21 and 25 November 1532). These certificates exempted him from the jurisdiction of all authorities except the King.[13] The last information about Skaryna is mentioned in the archives of 1534. He moved from Vilnius to Prague. He probably served in the royal garden in Prague until his death. According to some theories, Skaryna taught as a professor at Charles University in Prague. He is presumed to have died sometime between 1551 and January 29, 1552. In 1552, his son Simeon Rus Skaryna received a royal certificate, according to which he, as the sole heir, was given all of the property of his father.[15] The property included manuscripts, letters, and books.

• Illustration — Image from "Song of Songs" of Francysk Skaryna, 1519 It is not known for certain whether Skaryna was Catholic or Orthodox. His name is Catholic, but it is often suggested that he changed it before entering the university. A single copy of a document in which he is called Georgius Franciscus instead of just Franciscus gave birth to a theory that Georgius was his original name; today, however, it is mostly accepted to be a scribe's error (the presumed correct reading being egregius Franciscus, "venerable Francysk"). In any case, the once popular theory that he changed his name from Georgius to Franciscus to be able to enter the university is unsupported by evidence: the name Georgius was equally popular among the Catholic and the Orthodox in the region, and in Skaryna's year there were more students named Georgius than Franciscus in Kraków. In 1552, after Skaryna's death (and long after his final departure from the country) King Sigismund August mentioned in a letter that a man from his country printed a translation of the Bible and tried to sell his edition in Moscow, but the books had been burned there because they had been produced "by a subject of the Roman Church". The books mentioned in the letter are most probably Skaryna's.

Skaryna devoted his life to the publication of the biblical texts. He sought to make the Bible more available to the common people and write it in an accessible language. Skaryna also composed prefaces to his editions, in which he emphasized that the purpose of his publishing activities was to help ordinary people "become acquainted with wisdom and science". He contributed to the development of the Belarusian literary language. This Bible became the second printed Bible in the Slavic world, following the publication of a Czech edition.[16]

Francysk Skaryna is recorded with the occupation Bible translator. Recorded as philosopher, writer, translator, publisher and typographer.