Francysk Skaryna, a scientist, educator-humanist of the Renaissance, left an indelible mark on the history of Russian culture, in the history of social and philosophical thought of the East Slavic peoples. He was one of the most highly educated people of his time: he graduated from two universities (Krakow and Padua), spoke several languages (besides his native Belarusian, he knew Lithuanian, Polish, Italian, German, Latin, Greek). He traveled a lot, his business trips were long and distant: he visited many European countries, visited more than a dozen cities. Skaryna was distinguished by an extraordinary breadth of views and depth of knowledge. He is a physician, botanist, philosopher, astronomer, writer, translator. And besides, he was a skilled "bookmaker" - publisher, editor, printer. And this side of his activity had a huge impact on the formation and development of Slavic printing. In the history of the domestic book business, Skaryna's activities are of particular importance. His first-born - "Psalter", published in Prague in 1517, is also the first Belarusian printed book. And the printing house, founded by him in Vilnius around 1522, is also the first printing house in the present territory of our country.
More than a century has passed since then. Time irretrievably erased many facts from the biography of the Belarusian pioneer in the memory of generations. The riddle arises at the very beginning of Skaryna's biography: the exact date of his birth is unknown (usually indicated: "around 1490", "before 1490"). But recently in the literature, the year of Skaryna's birth is increasingly called 1486. This date was "calculated" as a result of the analysis of the publisher's mark - a small elegant engraving often found in his books depicting a solar disk and a crescent moon running on it. The researchers decided that the first printer depicted the “death of the Sun” (solar eclipse), thus indicating the day of his birth (in the homeland of Skaryna, a solar eclipse was observed on March 6, 1486).
Polotsk, where Skaryna was born, was at that time a large trade and craft city on the Western Dvina, which was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There were about fifteen thousand inhabitants in the city, who were mainly engaged in blacksmithing, foundry, pottery, trade, fishing, and hunting. Skaryna's father was a merchant, selling leather and furs.
It is believed that Skaryna received his primary education in one of the Polotsk monastic schools. In the autumn of 1504 Skaryna went to Krakow. He successfully passes the entrance exams to the university and his name appears in the list of students - Francysk Lukich Skaryna from Polotsk. Skaryna studied at the faculty, where they studied traditional disciplines, reduced to a strict system of seven "free arts": grammar, rhetoric, dialectics (these are formal or verbal arts), arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy (real arts). In addition to these disciplines, Skorina studied theology, law, medicine, and ancient languages.
Krakow is the capital of the Kingdom of Poland, a city with a centuries-old Slavic culture. The flourishing of art, science, and education also contributed to the relatively early emergence of book printing here. At the beginning of the XVI century. There were twelve printing houses in Krakow. The publications of the Krakow printer Jan Haller, whose activities were most closely connected with the University of Krakow, were especially famous - the printer supplied him with teaching aids and literature. Possibly, Skaryna was familiar with Galler and received the first information about book publishing and book printing from him. Among those who awakened in young Skaryn a love for "black art" was the teacher of the faculty of "liberal arts", a humanist scientist Jan from Glogov, who himself showed an interest in printing.
Student years flew by quickly, and in 1506 Skaryna, having graduated from Krakow University, received the title of Bachelor of Liberal Arts and left Krakow.
At the beginning of 1967, the Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian SSR received a package from Italy (from the University of Padua) - photocopies of documents and materials related to one important event in the life of Skaryna. Documents testify that in the fall of 1512 a certain very learned, but poor young man, doctor of arts, came to Padua from very distant countries ... and turned to the College with a request to allow him, as a gift and special favor, to undergo medicine". And further: "the young man and the aforementioned doctor bears the name of Francis, the son of the late Luka Skaryna from Polotsk." On November 5, the “Board of the Most Glorious Padua Doctors of Art and Medicine” admitted Skaryna to the tests, which took place on November 9 in the Bishop's Palace in the presence of the most prominent scientists of the University of Padua. The examinee withstood the test with brilliance, "commendably and flawlessly" answering questions, reasonably objecting to controversial remarks. The Board unanimously awarded him the title of Doctor of Medicine.
Being in Padua, Skaryna could not, of course, miss the opportunity to visit neighboring Venice - the universally recognized center of European book printing, a city with numerous printing houses and established book publishing traditions. At that time, the famous Aldus Manutius was still living and working in Venice, whose publications enjoyed pan-European fame. Undoubtedly, Skorina held an aldina in her hands, and perhaps, having become interested in the book business and making certain plans on this score, she met with the great publisher himself.
Nothing is known about the next five years of Skaryna's life. Where has he been all this time? What did you do during these years? Where did you go from Padua?
Scientists try to fill this gap with conjectures, assumptions. Some believe that Skaryna made trips as part of a diplomatic mission to the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, and then to Vienna. Others believe that Skaryna visited Wallachia and Moldavia with the intention of setting up printing houses there. Still others claim that Skaryna came to Vilnius for a short time, where he tried to interest some wealthy citizens with his book publishing plans. Or maybe he immediately went from Padua to Prague with the firm intention to engage in book publishing? ..
So Prague. 151 7 By the middle of summer, Skorina had basically completed all the preliminary work related to the organization of the printing house, and they were ready to type the manuscript. On August 6, his first book, The Psalter, is published. The preface to the book says: “... I am Francysk Skaryna, the son of Polotsk in the medical sciences, the doctor ordered that the Psalter be embossed in Russian words and in the Slovenian language ...”
The Prague period of Skaryna's book publishing activity (1517-1519) was generally very eventful - he published nineteen more small books, which, together with the Psalter, made up a major publication - the Russian Bible. Already in his first books, he showed a subtle understanding of the nature of book art. Skorina perceived the book as an integral literary and artistic organism, where all design techniques and typographic materials used should fully correspond to the content of the book. The Prague editions of Skaryna in terms of artistic and technical design and typographic performance are not inferior to the best examples of European book publishers of that time and significantly surpass the previous books of the Church Slavonic press. Three books contain an engraving portrait of the publisher himself - Skaryna (you had to have a strong character to decide on such a daring act - to include an illustration of secular content in a liturgical book). The engraving is very elegant and, despite the many smallest details, the reader's attention is focused primarily on the human figure. Skaryna is depicted in a doctor's robe, an open book in front of him, rows of books to his right; there are many tools and devices in the office: an hourglass, a lamp with a reflector, an armillary sphere - an astronomical goniometer ... But the most significant feature of Skaryna's publications (not only Prague, but all subsequent ones) is the simplicity of presentation of the content: the text is always given in translation into colloquial folk language with the necessary comments and explanations.
Engraving from the Russian Bible. Prague. 1517-1519 Nothing is known about the Prague printing house of Skaryna. How was it equipped? Who else besides Skaryna himself worked in it? Only its approximate location can be established. In some of his books, Skaryna indicates where the printing house was located: “in the Old Town of Prague.” Perhaps among them the house where Skaryna began to print books was also lost.
The title page of "Akathists" on the "Small Road Book". Vilnius, around 1522 Approximately in 1520, Skaryna moved to Vilnius, where "in the house of a respectable husband, the senior steward of the glorious and great place of Vilna" Yanub Babich founded a printing house and printed two books - "A Small Road Book" and "Apostle". Until recently, it was believed that both editions were published in the same year - 1525. Moreover, the following order was observed: first "Apostle", and then "Small Road Book". But at the end of the fifties of our century, a sensational discovery was made in the Royal Library in Copenhagen - a complete copy of Paschalia, the last part of the Little Travel Book, was discovered. And on the fourteenth sheet of the copy, a calendar for 1523 was printed. Thus, it was established that the “Small Road Book” was the first domestic printed book and it was published no later than 1522. This book is interesting in many respects. It was intended not only for liturgical purposes, but also for the needs of itinerant townspeople, merchants, and artisans. Small in format (8th part of a sheet) and volume, it contains a lot of generally useful advice on economic affairs, medicine, and practical astronomy. Compared to the Prague editions, the Vilnius books are much richer in design. Two-color printing is more widely used in them, the fonts are distinguished by great elegance. The books are decorated with a large number of large and small headpieces, the purpose of which was determined by the publisher himself: “Behind each kathisma there is a large headpiece, and for each chapter there is a smaller headpiece for a false division of the readers.” In other words, decorating the book, Skaryna sought not only to make it a highly artistic work of art, but also to help the reader quickly navigate the content.
In March 1525, Skaryna published The Apostle (the first domestic printed accurately dated book). On this, his publishing and printing activities, apparently, ceased. So far, no other books with his publishing mark have been found. The next event in the life of the Belarusian first printer has a purely mundane character: he gets married, participates in a lawsuit (the division of property). In 1530, Albrecht, Duke of Prussia, invites Skaryna to his service. Skaryna goes to Koenigsberg, but does not stay here for long: family affairs force him to return to Vilnius. Here he was again forced to participate in complex legal proceedings. For some time he served as secretary and personal physician of the Vilna Bishop. In the mid-thirties, Skaryna left for Prague and served as a doctor and gardener at the royal court. Francysk Skaryna died around 1540.
Skaryna was a spokesman for the spiritual needs of the progressive-minded citizens of Belarus, in whose worldview, under the influence of economic, socio-political and cultural shifts, there has been some departure from the orthodox feudal-church ideas of his time. At the same time, a number of Skorinin's ideals and values are of a universal nature. The originality of Skaryna's philosophical and ethical views manifested itself in the synthesis of medieval Christian, ancient and Renaissance humanistic ideas. They were significantly influenced by the ancient Russian folk-ethical and aesthetic, as well as literary and philosophical tradition. Biblical-Christian ethics is modernized and adapted by Skaryna in accordance with the ideological needs of the Renaissance, the current socio-political and national-cultural tasks of the Belarusian, Ukrainian and Russian peoples. In the center of his attention was the problem of man and society. Skorina considered and resolved the issues of the meaning of life, the spiritual world, the dignity of a person, the origin of moral ideas, spiritual and moral freedom, the common and individual good, civic activity, etc. . He made an attempt to revise the orthodox Christian interpretation of the problem of human existence, according to which the earthly life of a person is only a preparation for the life beyond. He affirmed the inherent value of human life, rehabilitated earthly existence, but did not deny the belief in the afterlife. The ethics of Skaryna orients a person mainly to a real, socially useful earthly life, serving the "pospolitome", constant intellectual and moral improvement, "having learned wisdom," people "are good tenacious in the world." Skorina considered the problems of the meaning of life and the highest good in the prefaces to the books "Proverbs of Solomon", "Jesus Sirakhov", "Ecclesiastes", etc. In the preface to the book "Proverbs of Solomon" Skorina argued that the main purpose of a person is to improve earthly life, the object of - the problem "how to imati be right and live in this world". Skaryna was sympathetic to the real, earthly sea of people, at the same time opposing it with a moral ideal, which he uses as a humanistically modernized Christian-ethical concept of life. For Skaryna, the highest good - earthly good - is an intellectually rich, morally perfect and socially useful life on earth, first of all, serving people, and then God or serving God through serving people, the common good. Skaryna focuses on the spiritual world of a person, his values, ideals, vocation. “Let the man of God be perfect,” he postulates, “and prepared for every good work,” as the holy Apostle Paul writes. And for this sake, the holy letters are filled with the essence of our teaching, correction, spiritual and bodily, various customs.
Skaryna's ethical concept is based on the idea of the need and possibility of continuous improvement of human nature, on which the perfection of human life depends. He affirmed the ideal of a thinking, intellectually aspiring person. He interpreted intellectual and moral virtues as an acquisition, the result of an active creative, cognitive and socio-practical activity of a person. nor wealth", but "wisdom and understanding". Skaryna's ideal was a man who combined biblical and philosophical wisdom, "full of the Holy Spirit and philosophy." “Wisdom,” he writes, “supposedly power in a precious stone, and like gold in the earth, and a kernel in a nut. Whoever knows [her], this know mercy and will get a blessing from the Lord, and all good things will come to him with her Praise and honor are her countless motions - she is the mother of all good speeches and a teacher of every good skill.
Turning to the inner world of a person, caring about his intellectual moral virtues, Skaryna asserted one of the Renaissance-humanistic principles, according to which the true dignity and nobility of a person is not in origin, nobility, social status and not in religious zeal, but in such qualities as intelligence , moral character, abilities, thanks to which he brings real benefits to society. The Belarusian thinker seeks to find out the origin of human moral ideas. According to Skaryna, the concepts of morality have a dual basis: individual reason and divine revelation. Moreover, the natural moral law has priority: "before all laws or written rights, the law is born, it is given to all people from the Lord God to eat." The basic postulate of "born", ie. of the natural moral law, deduced by the thinker from the mind, is formulated by the following gospel saying: "Repair to others everything that you yourself like from others, and do not repair that to others, which you yourself did not have from others." On this moral principle, Skorina believes, all "written" moral laws, including biblical ones, are based. Skaryna, therefore, seeks to find some universal, rational moral principle, acceptable to all people, regardless of social status and religious affiliation, on the basis of which social life could be regulated. .
The written source of moral norms, according to Skaryna, is mainly the Bible. From the religious and ethical teachings of Skaryna, it follows that a person through the Bible carries out a direct and intimate dialogue with God; he independently, without church mediation, can understand the moral and ethical meaning of "divine revelation" and achieve moral perfection. The initial provisions of morality in the view of Skaryna act as a command of moral duty and conscience. Skaryna substantiated the idea of a person's personal responsibility for his actions. The religious and moral position of Skaryna can be qualified as a manifestation of Renaissance individualism, which affirmed the morality of internal thoughts as opposed to the official church morality of afterlife retribution. Skaryna seeks to reveal in religion not its external, dogmatically ritual side, to comprehend its inner essence, mainly philosophical and ethical, to comprehend some of the fundamental universal moral values accumulated by Christianity.
Skaryna poses and solves one of the most important philosophical and ethical problems - the ratio of the individual and the common good. The thinker considers man as a social being, and his ethics is characterized by the assertion of the primacy of the common good over the individual. In the preface to the Book of Esther, Skaryna formulates the concept of public duty as follows: "Not only was he born into the world, but more to the service of God and the good of the Commonwealth." Skaryna also considered his own activities, first of all, as serving the common good ("good Commonwealth"), as the fulfillment of his duty to the people, "brothers of Russia" and the motherland. This idea is emphasized by him in almost every preface and afterword. From Skaryna's ethical teaching, it indirectly followed that people, first of all, should be united by the idea of the common good.
The most characteristic feature of Skaryna's ethical and humanistic worldview is patriotism. Skaryna was the founder of the national-patriotic tradition in the history of Belarusian culture and social thought. The patriotic beginning in Skaryna's worldview is the result of concretization of the idea of the "common good". It develops in line with the traditions of ancient Russian culture.
Justifying his activity with the interests of the “pospolite of the Commonwealth,” the Belarusian humanist constantly specifies its focus: “Sick for that reason, like the merciful God from that language let me into the world.” Skorina expressed his patriotism and love for his homeland in the following remarkable words: and people, where they were born and nourished, according to the Bose, have a great caress to that place ". The ethics of Skaryna, thus, brought up a citizen and patriot in a person, formed in him the qualities necessary for active social and practical activities for the benefit of his people.
Skaryna does not absolutize the "common good" to the detriment of the "individual good", but tries to harmoniously solve the problem of the relationship between these two moral and ethical virtues. In order to be useful to society, to contribute to its improvement, improvement, preservation of value, a person must constantly develop his spirituality, cultivate in himself the moral qualities necessary for social life. According to Christian ethics, Skaryna considers love to be the most important moral virtue of a person. “Every Christian,” writes the thinker, “let him observe the greatest love for everyone, if he eats perfect over all other talents, without it, nothing eats hastily.” The affirmation of an active, socially useful worldly life as an ideal was an expression of the self-consciousness of the trade and craft strata of the urban population, and was one of the moments of the emerging early bourgeois ideology of the Renaissance.
Francysk Skaryna stood at the origins of the national Renaissance-humanistic socio-political thought. He tried to define some ideal political and legal forms, borrowed mainly from the history of the ancient world. Bible. The political ideal of Skaryna is enlightened, humane and strong monarchical power. Skorina also assessed social relations with the evangelical-Christian abstract-humanistic principles of philanthropy and justice. Human society is based on peace and harmony, "from it all good things come to every city and every assembly, bad weather destroys even the largest kingdoms." Skaryna propagated the ideas of early Christian philanthropy, urged people to treat "helping each other with all love." He was aware of the difference between the real social reality of his era and the ideal.
As a social ideal, Skaryna asserted the early Christian principle "equal freedom for all, having a common name for all." Skaryna's social ideal testifies to the influence of radical reformist ideas on his worldview. It is characterized by social democracy. The thinker was guided by "simple people, commonwealth."
So, the outstanding merit of F. Skaryna is in posing the problem of man and society in the socio-philosophical thought of Belarus of the Renaissance and in an attempt to solve this problem in the spirit of Renaissance humanism. At the same time, it should be noted the abstract nature of Skorinin's interpretation of this problem and the insufficiently clear connection of his teaching with concrete historical reality. aesthetic outlook.
Skaryna attached great importance to aesthetic education and, in general, to the spiritual improvement of people by means of art. This is evidenced by his panegyric "Psalms" - a book that of all parts of the Bible is closer to art - poetry and music. According to the thinker, it is ambiguous in its content and functional purpose. Songs and poems of her "all sorts of infirmities, spiritual and bodily, heal, illuminate the soul and meanings, pacify anger and rage, mend peace and tranquility, drive away confusion and sadness, give feeling in prayers, lead people to sit down, strengthen the shop and mercy"; they are "quiet fuss and robots, the protector of the maddah and the joy of the old, fun and song, pious prayer for wives, every good ear of science for small children, growth in science for grown-ups, fashionable affirmation for men"; adorns the psalm and sacredly" and "to soften the cruel heart", it "together amuse the body with singing and teach the soul". This contains the thinker's guess about the semantic ambiguity and multifunctionality of art, in contrast to the semantic unambiguity of scientific logical judgments. Skorina is convinced of the comprehensive educational impact of poetry and music and the corresponding richness of aesthetic experience. He considered the "Psalter" as a work of art, so his assessment can be rightfully transferred to artistic creativity in general. Skaryna tries to overcome the Christian-medieval teaching about beauty as a category predominantly divine. He seeks to discover the beautiful mainly in the person himself, interpreting beauty as a harmony of moral-intellectual and civic virtues Skaryna is characterized by the aestheticization of human cognitive activity.
Skaryna's beauty is identical with kind philanthropy, justice, public good, citizenship and patriotism. On the basis of the merger of the ethical, socio-political and aesthetic, Skaryna solves the problem of the ideal. The thinker seeks to create an ideal image of a person, a citizen, a statesman, a military leader, to form an idea of the ideal law, state and social system. He uses the creative principle of the Renaissance artists, who put actual socio-political and aesthetic content into biblical images and allegories, and solved new artistic and aesthetic tasks with their help.
Beautiful in Skaryna are not only the human spirit, mind, virtues, but also to some extent the physical nature of a person, his health and, in general, the beauty of the material world. Arguing, for example, about earthly, real human life, the thinker is quite tolerant of the desire of a person to take care of "health, beauty and strength of the body." Although “bodily beauty” does not play such a big role for Skaryna as spiritual beauty, nevertheless, emphasizing this moment indicates a certain departure from medieval asceticism and the influence of hedonistic ethics and aesthetics of the Renaissance on it. State-legal views.
New legal ideas about state (people's) sovereignty and the unity of law for the entire state and all people who preached Skaryna, are clearly reflected in his writings and were taken into account to a certain extent in the texts of the Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1529. Skaryna adhered to the idea of the supremacy of the people in the state and law-making. He believed that "the rights of the zemstvo, hedgehog single every people with their the elders praised the essence nearby, as if they saw life more blindly" (2, p. 137-138]. The thought expressed by Skaryna about the primacy of the people, national sovereignty is clearly visible in his words that "to the right of any assembly of people and any city, if by faith, by the union of kindness and good fortune, good things are multiplied. "Only a state or a city in which citizens live in harmony and take care of common interests, according to Skaryna, will flourish.
Proclaiming new ideas about legislation, it is necessary for the law to be “respectable, just, possible, necessary, prosperous next to birth, a servant of the customs of the earth, an hour and a place suitable, obviously having no closeness in itself, not for the belongings of a single person, but written for the Commonwealth good ". This record contains a whole set of legal principles based on the theory of natural law. The law must be enforceable, useful to the people, and appropriate to the customs, the time, and the place.
Skaryna's views on the classification of law are of interest. He believed that law should be divided according to the source into natural and written. According to Skaryna, natural law is inherent in every person equally, and everyone is or is endowed from birth, regardless of class and estate. He divided written law into divine, ecclesiastical and zemstvo. Zemstvo law was subdivided depending on social relations, regulated by certain norms. In the preface to the book "Second Law" Skaryna wrote: "The law born in that we observe most painfully: then fix to everyone else what you yourself love to eat from everyone else, and don't fix it to others, which you yourself don't want to have from others. This law is born it is written in the heart of one single person. And before all laws or written rights, the law born to all people from the Lord God is given to eat ". In itself, the fact of preferring the natural law of the Bible to canon law testifies to the humanistic views of Skaryna and his free-thinking. During the period of feudalism, the theory of natural law was an ideological weapon directed against class inequality and the oppression of ordinary people.
Zemstvo law Skaryna divided into: Commonwealth, which includes the norms of civil and family law "like a husband and wife, honorable service, sawing children, close-living convergence of speech, a slanderous obsession, rejection of violence by force, equal freedom for all, common property for all"; international, which Skaryna called "pagan, from many ubo languages it is praised"; state and criminal (royal); "ritserskoe or military, hedgehog observed in the war"; urban, maritime and commercial (merchant) law.
This division of law greatly contributed to the development of not only legal theory, but also codification practice. A similar classification was applied in the preparation of the Statute of 1529.
Skaryna also spoke on one of the most important issues of criminal law - the purpose of punishment. In his opinion, the purpose of criminal punishment is the elimination of the criminal: "And the essence of law, or the law, was imposed for evil people, anyhow fearing execution, they pacified their courage and had no other ushkoditi, and anyhow a good boundary and evil could live in the chambers ".
An analysis of the main state-legal ideas of Skaryna allows us to conclude that he has progressive humanistic views and a significant contribution made to legal science, especially to the theory of state and law. A comparison of Skaryna's legal ideas and the content of the Statute of 1529 allows us to conclude that some of his ideas are practically implemented in legislation, which, in turn, suggests his possible participation in the development of the Statute of 1529.
Worldview thought of the Renaissance. F. Skorina A turning point in the development of the Belarusian national spirituality and culture was the deployment of on the Belarusian lands of the pan-European processes of the Renaissance. The direct representatives of the Renaissance culture were scientists, philosophers, writers, artists, book publishers, teachers, doctors. It is in their midst that a new, humanistic worldview is affirmed and developed, the basis of which is “the teachings about freedom, or about the great possibilities of man in relation to the world, himself, knowledge, creativity, the idea of the inherent value of human life, or revivalist anthropocentrism, where the main thing is not a problem of reward beyond the grave, but the earthly destiny of a person; naturalism as a predominant way of interpreting natural and social reality and man”1. Francysk Skaryna (c. 1490-1541) is the most prominent figure of the Belarusian Renaissance. He owns an important worldview idea about the inseparable unity of universal human values, which in this era took the form of Christian-humanistic values, with the values of the national life of Belarusians. 1Padokshyn, S.A. Belarusian Dumka at the Kantex Pstorp i Culture / S.A. Padokshyn. Mshsk, 2003. S. 70. Rethinking such philosophical and religious and moral concepts as faith, love, justice, the common good, individual and social duty, moral and legal law, theory and practice, Skaryna, according to the famous Belarusian philosopher S .BUT. Podokshina, not only humanizes them, but also ensures their national concretization, interpretation in accordance with the special conditions of life of Belarusians. It was Skorina who affirmed in the minds of our compatriots the humanistic meaning of national-patriotic values expressed by a person's love for his homeland, his language, and the cultural traditions of his people. Having deeply analyzed the work of Skaryna, S.A. Podokshin notes that this outstanding son of the Belarusian people significantly developed and enriched the Byzantine-Orthodox idea of catholicity, substantiated the personalistic concept of man in a new way.
Expanding the boundaries of south-dividual spiritual freedom, he affirmed the human right to knowledge and creativity, coupled with personal moral responsibility for the actions performed. This personalistic attitude was already inherent in the upper strata of Belarusian society, whose rights were secured by grand ducal and royal charters, and then by the Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Orthodox brotherhoods in the Belarusian lands had a significant impact on religious life, independently interpreting the Holy Scriptures. The personalistic tendency is partly connected with the influence of the Reformation, but mainly due to the fact that for a long time religious tolerance was the norm of life in Belarus. In the texts of Skaryna, as the researchers note, there are no terms "Orthodoxy" and "Catholicism"; they are talking about Christianity in general, i.e. about the common thing that unites and reconciles representatives of various branches of Christianity. The idea of religious tolerance was then legally enshrined in the Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and dominated until the Catholicization of Belarusians and their forced transfer to Uniatism began. Skaryna made important conclusions about the rule of law and the need to strengthen the legal foundations of state life. In affirming the natural origin of law, he first of all compares it with morality. Skaryna's worldview as a whole is characterized by a clearly expressed ethical dominant, which also affects his decision on the attitude of Belarusians to the cultural values of the Orthodox East and the Catholic West. Skorina sees the solution of a significant issue for the fate of the Belarusian people in the ways of implementing a cultural synthesis that excludes any kind of coercion. The assimilation of the achievements of Western science and the education system, he believes, should be connected with the Christian value system.
Translating the Bible into his native language, accompanying this translation with numerous prefaces and comments, Skaryna emphasizes the educational and patriotic orientation of all her activities, dictated by the desire to accustom all Belarusians to the spiritual and moral richness of the texts of Holy Scripture. Commenting on these texts and simultaneously expounding her own socio-philosophical views, Skorina, as it were, revives the Aristotelian concept of the common good, associated with the recognition of the need to achieve social agreement regarding the basic values of social life. Skorina's personalism is not identical to individualism; he sees the vocation of the individual in the conscious service to the "good commonwealth", i.e. the common good of the people.
