Belorussian Culture in the Sixteenth Century

Abstract

Belorussian culture made a great leap forward in the 16th century, a period that many scholars call the 'Belorussian Renaissance' and the 'golden age' of Belorussian culture.1 Its beginning is closely connected with the name of Doctor Francis Skaryna from Polotsk. The 'Belorussian Renaissance', according to V. Picheta, 'has an individualistic character which is reflected in the legislation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in the rise of national literature, in the formation of Literary Belorussian based on the spoken language, and in the formation of a new Belorussian intellectual class.'2 Of the numerous surviving juridical documents the most important is the Litouski Statut ('Lithuanian Statute'), written in Belorussian. There are three editions 1529, 1566, and 1588 but only the last one was printed. The 1588 edition was in force until 1840, though the whole of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had been annexed to Russia for well over 30 years. After translation in the 17th century into Russian and Polish the Litouski Statut exercised great influence in these countries as well.3 It will be interesting to examine briefly the Litouskaya Metryka ('Lithuanian Register'), also written in Belorussian, considered to be the most important of the surviving historical documents. The first edition was begun in the third decade of the 15th century and the amplified second edition in the middle of the 1 6th century. The Litouskaya Metryka is not a single document, but a collection of the state archives embracing the 14th to the 18th centuries. It