B. Some old and Rare Books in the Francisk Skaryna Library in London

When the Francisk Skaryna Byelorusian Library in London was opened on 15 may 1971, it contained about 10,000 books, dealing directly or indirectly with Byelorussia. In particular during the last years the Library has succeeded in building up a small collection of early printed books, i.e. books published before 1800.

The oldest of these early printed books is a small fragment of the Francis Skaryna Bible. It consists of two sheets printed in Prague in 1518. An interesting point to note about this fragment is that it has never been part of a bound book. It is not unique, for there are two fragments identical with it in Cambridge, one at the University Library and the other at Trinity College.

One of the most important Byelorussian early-printed books is Statut Velikoho Knjazstva Litovskogo, the first printed code of civil and criminal law in the Byelorussian language. Promulgated in 1588, it was printed in Vilna by the well-known printing press of the Mamonic brothers who used for this purpose a particular and elegant typeface of a design based on contemporary Byelorussian cursive handwriting. The Statut appeared in three Byelorussian editions – in 1588, 1592 and 1594-95, - which differ from each other only in minute details. The Francis Skaryna Library copy is the third edition. It is a defective copy, having only 10 out of 40 initial unnumbered ff., and lacking the first two pages and all pages after p.492 (out of total of 554) of the main text. Also missing are a few pages in the middle of the book. Nevertheless it appears to be the only copy of this particular edition of the Statut in the West. The University Library in Uppsala has a near-perfect copy of the first edition of 1588.

Early in the 17^th century Statut was translated into Polish under the title Statut Wielkiego Xiestwa Litewskiego. The Francis Skaryna Library has a copy of the 1619 edition, printed also in Vilna by the Mamonic Press. It is bound together with a copy of Trybunal obywatelom W.X.Litowskiego (Vilna, Mamonic press, 1616).

The next book is an example of the printing of the Orthodox confraternity of the Holy Spirit in Vilna. It is Novyj Zavet of 1623, and is one of the ‘pocket editions’ (format 8⁰) for the use of laymen, which became very popular in Byelorussia in the 17^th century. Its contents consist of the Psalter and the New Testament, preceded by a dedicatory article to the confraternity’s benefactor, Theodorite Sapieha, together with an introduction to the reader. There are fine wood engravings of the evangelists and original designs of initial letters, printed in red, at the beginning of each Gospel. The Francis Skaryna Library copy lacks all the introductory part and the Psalter. There is a perfect copy of this book in the British Library (formerly the British Museum).