Professor Heorhiy Halenchanka — the historian who restored Skaryna's true name — has died
He was born in Petrozavodsk, Russia, into a Jewish-Ukrainian family, but lived in Minsk from childhood. Here he learned the language, here he fell in love with Belarusian culture.
Heorhiy Halenchanka was born on February 28, 1937, in Petrozavodsk (Karelia) into a Ukrainian-Jewish family, but lived in Minsk from childhood. Here he learned the language, here he fell in love with Belarusian culture.
Halenchanka graduated from the History Department of BSU and completed postgraduate studies at the Historical-Archival Institute in Moscow. Only in the center of the Soviet country at that time was it possible to defend such a culturological and such a Belarus-centric dissertation — «The History of Belarusian Book Printing of the XVI-XVIII Centuries.»
Halenchanka was the first to open up for a wider circle of readers books published in Belarusian lands in the first centuries of book printing.
In the catalog «Book of Belarus 1517-1917,» he not only provided a detailed description of all books but also outlined their content, which was an extremely bold step in Soviet Belarus at the time — after all, all early printed books were religious!
Halenchanka's monumental work was the facsimile edition of Skaryna's Bible —
the famous large-format three-volume set in a red cover, a contemporary of Belarusian independence. Halenchanka traveled the world with a photographer, searching for book after book, to finally publish the complete set for Belarusians.
It was Halenchanka who restored Skaryna's true name: he found a document showing that «Georgius» was not actually the printer's second name, but an unfortunate error made by a scribe in a copy of the document: instead of «egregious» (excellent), Francysk Skaryna became «Georgius.»
Russian pre-revolutionary historians used this to assert Skaryna's affiliation with the Orthodox world. While Skaryna, in the modern sense, was a man of the Universe: he printed the Bible for the entire «Ruthenian people» in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, not for a specific confession.
Heorhiy Yakaulevich was a Belarusian with a global name, respected among the entire book studies community.
An organizer of Belarusian science, a specialist in historical sources, from which he never deviated in his research. Both in Soviet times and in independent Belarus, objectivity was the main guiding principle in his works.
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Comments
Вечная памяць.
Спачуванні родным і блізкім.
Расійскім гісторыкам хапіла гэтага, каб сцвярджаць пра прыналежнасць Скарыны да праваслаўнага свету. У той час як Скарына быў у сучасным разуменні чалавекам сусвету: друкаваў Біблію для усяго «народу руськага» ў ВКЛ, а не для пэўнай канфесіі. "
і тут доўгія вушы маскоўскага д'ябла бачны . Нават я чуў казакі пра грышку першадрукара , дзякуй Богу я каталік і мяне усходнія казкі ніколі не цікавілі