18 – 19 April 2017 the Russian State Library (RSL) hosted a regular session of the annual International research and practical conference “Roumiantsevskiye Chteniya 2017” (“Roumiantsev’s Readings 2017”). This time the event was devoted to “500^th Anniversary of publication of the first Slavonic Bible by Francisk Skorina – Establishment and development of book publishing culture”.

The organizers of the conference were the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Belarus, the Russian State Library, the National Library of Belarus and the Library Assembly of Eurasia.

The conference itself gathered over 400 participants from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, Israel, Tatarstan, etc. They were specialists of such establishments of culture as libraries and museums, as well as professionals from higher education institutions and research organizations.

Vladimir Gnezdilov, acting as the director general of the RSL, started the meeting. In his greeting speech he emphasized the fact of the forty – year tradition of the “Roumiantsevsky Chteniya” conference at the Russian State Library. Still its importance would ever be high, and the problems of innovative development of libraries, those ones of strengthening collaboration of the establishments of culture, education and research, and those ones of intercultural cooperation would sound no less urgent than ever. That time the session of the conference was devoted to the book heritage by Francisk Skorina, the largest collection of whose works were kept at the RSL. Vladimir Ivanovich would also remind the audience about the RSL and its participation in project “Sokrovischa slavianskoy kulturi” (“Treasures of the Slavonic Culture”) which had been realized in Minsk with the support of the UNESCO. During the “Roumiantsevsky Chteniya 2016” the RSL had also presented their Belarussian colleagues with the disk with digital copies of all the books by Francisk Skorina stored at the Russian State Library.

In conclusion Mr. Gnezdilov invited everyone to the opening ceremony of the “Chelovek epokhi Vozrozhdeniya” (“Renaissance Man”) exhibition devoted to the 500^th anniversary of edition of the Bible by Francisk Skorina. 

To continue the plenary meeting there were pronounced the greeting speeches by officials. Head of the Department of the Standing Committee of the Union State of Russia – Belarus Margarita Levchenko congratulated the participants of the conference on their meeting from the Secretary of the Union State Gregory Rapota.  She would also report on the collaboration of the two nations in the social and cultural spheres, as well as on cooperation of the two libraries, which were the Russian  State Library and the National Library of Belarus. Margarita Pavlovna presented Vladimir Gnezdilov with jubilee editions of two books, “Orel Rossiysky” (“The Russian Eagle”) and “Francisk Skorina – chelovek mira” (“Francisk Skorina: A Person of the World”), then she transferred certain editions to the collections of the Russian State Library.

Sergey Sheremetyev, counsel, head of the complex, spoke from the Embassy of the Republic of Belarus. Sergey Ivanovich dedicated his speech to the significance of Francisk Skorina and his work in the development of the East – Slavonic book publishment, to the first Slavonic Bible by Francisk Skorina and jubilee events devoted to that.

The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation was represented by acting as director of the Department of Science and Education Oleg Makhno. Oleg Olegovich reported the conference as important for the development and popularizing of cultural heritage of Russia and pointed out the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. Then he emphasized the fact that the 500th anniversary of edition of the first Slavonic Bible by Francisk Skorina was a date of significance for the cultural life not only of Russia and Belarus, but for all the Slavonic nations, too.

Roman Motulsky, the director of the National Library of Belarus, addressed to the participants of the conference his video message. Roman Semenovich gave a brief biography of Francisk Skorina, a ‘person of the world’, who was among the first people dedicating their lives to studying ancient books. Then the speaker reported on the story of creation of the first Slavonic Bible. In conclusion Mr. Motulsky wished good luck to the audience in their studying our common cultural heritage and work which had long ago been started by Francisk Skorina.

Report “Francisk Skorina i obschie istoki vostochnoslavianskogo knigopechataniya” (“Francisk Skorina and common sources of East – Slavonic book printing” ) was presented by deputy director in research work and publishing activity of the National Library of Belarus Alexander Susha. Alexander Alexandrovich spoke on Francisk Skorina’s versatile personality of a practicing doctor, botanist, secretary and authorized representative of European sovereigns, translator of the Holy Scripture, developer of the Old Belarusian language, writer and poet, theologian and lawyer, philosopher – here are several of the spheres the researcher had succeeded. Francisk Skorina wrote 520 books. And the task of the National Library of Belarus was seen by the speaker in gathering all that heritage, studying it, preserving, re-publishing and popularizing all over the world.

A research report concerning the Gospels Francisk Skorina had used in compiling the first Slavonic Bible was presented by Sergey Temchin, head specialist of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language.

Further speeches of the plenary meeting touched the problems of preservation and studying Francisk Skorina’s world cultural heritage as well as national values, those ones of printing and manuscript tradition in Slavonic books, of history and urgent matters of studying Skoriniana, of the role of first printers in the development of the European science, literature and art, of the peculiarities and mutual influence of national book – printing traditions, together with those ones of polygraph culture of 15 – 21 centuries, of studying, preservation and popularization of early – printed books in libraries, museums and archives and of the role of personality in preservation and augmentation of cultural heritage.

An event of importance turned out to be the opening ceremony of exhibition “Chelovek epokhi Vozrozhdeniya” (“Renaissance Man”). Natalia Samoilenko, deputy director of the RSL, greeted the audience. After that head of the Scientific and research department of rare book (Book Museum) of the RSL Jamilia Ramazanova expressed her gratitude to all those who had helped in organizing the exhibition. Senior researcher of the Book Museum of the RSL Elena Emelyanova spoke on the exposition and gave a brief excursion around exhibition for the participants of the conference.

The plenary meeting of the conference was broadcast directly on the Internet and it was viewed by 198 online participants. 

Within the framework of the “Roumiantsevsky Chteniya” conference there were held roundtables “BBK – natsionalnaya klassifikatsionnaya sistema Rossii” (“BBK as a National Classifying System of Russia”), “Standartizatsiya v bibliotechnoy deyatelnosti” (“Standardization in library activity”) and “Petr Ivanovich Yurghenson – lichnost, vremia, sobitiya” (“Peter Yurghenson: person, time, events”), video bridge “Bibliographirovaniye setevih informatsionnih resursov: problemi organizatsii i metodiki” (“Bibliography making of network information resources – problems of organization and methods”) with connection of the National Library of Russia and Ryazan regional universal scientific library named after M.A.Gorki. There were also organized pre – session meeting of the 32^nd section of the RLA devoted to library management and marketing “Effektivnoye upravleniye bibliotekoy: problemi i resheniya” (“Effective library management – problems and solutions”) and plenum of the Interregional Cataloguing Committee (���) “Noviy etap razvitiya Rossiyskoy i mezhgunarodnoy kataloghizatsii” (“New stage of development of cataloguing in Russia and abroad”).

Video materials of the conference are available on the official website of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries http://www.aselibrary.ru/video/conference43/conference437893/