[aaus-list] IEU Features Legacy of the Ostrih Academy (February 2009 newsletter)

[Marko R. Stech]

INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA OF UKRAINE
FEATURES:

OSTRIH ACADEMY: EASTERN EUROPE'S FIRST INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING
(February 2009)

Founded ca 1576 in Ostrih, Volhynia, by a Ukrainian nobleman Prince
Kostiantyn Ostrozky--one of the most remarkable figures in the 16th-century
Ukrainian cultural and national rebirth--the Ostih Academy was the first
postsecondary learning center in the Orthodox Eastern Europe. At a time
when Catholicism was making inroads into Western Ukraine, the academy was a
bastion of Orthodoxy and Ruthenian culture and maintained the traditional
orientation toward Constantinople. Though the Ostrih Academy did not
develop into a Western European-style university, as Ostrozky had hoped, it
was the foremost Orthodox academy of its time. Closely associated with the
Ostrih Press, the academy and the Ostrih intellectual circle had an
enduring influence on pedagogical thought and the organization of schools
in Ukraine and provided a model for the brotherhood schools that were later
founded in Lviv, Lutsk, Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Vilnius, and Brest. The legacy
and tradition of the Ostrih Academy has endured until today and became the
basis for the establishment in 1994 of the Ostrih Higher Collegium, which
was conferred university status in 2000 and renamed the Ostrih Academy
National University...

Learn more about the Ostrih Academy and Ostrih intellectual circle by
visiting:
http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/featuredentry.asp
or by visiting:
http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com
and searching for such entries as:


OSTRIH ACADEMY. The first rector of the academy was the writer Herasym
Smotrytsky. The instructors, many of whom had been invited from
Constantinople, included the pseudonymous Ostrozkyi Kliryk, the Greek Cyril
Lucaris, J. Latos (a philosopher from Cracow University), and Yov Boretsky,
who later became rector of the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood School and then
metropolitan of Kyiv. The curriculum consisted of Church Slavonic, Greek,
Latin, theology, philosophy, medicine, natural science, and the classical
free studies (mathematics, astronomy, grammar, rhetoric, and logic). In
addition the academy was renowned for choral singing. The academy was
closely affiliated with the Ostrih Press. Hetman Petro
Konashevych-Sahaidachny, the writer and scholar Meletii Smotrytsky, and
several other prominent political and cultural leaders studied at the
academy. With the founding of a rival Jesuit college in Ostrih in 1624, the
academy went into decline, and by 1636 it had ceased to exist...


OSTROZKY, KOSTIANTYN, (Polish: Ostrogski, Konstantyn), b 1526 or 1527 in
Dubno, Volhynia, d 23 February 1608 in Ostrih, Volhynia. Ukrainian nobleman
and political and cultural figure; starosta of Volodymyr-Volynskyi and
marshal of Volhynia from 1550, voivode of Kyiv from 1559, and senator from
1569; the most powerful magnate in Volhynia and one of the most influential
figures in the Lithuanian-Ruthenian state and Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth. He was a candidate for the Polish throne after the death of
Sigismund II Augustus (the last member of the Jagiellon dynasty) in 1572,
and for the Muscovite throne after the death of Tsar Fedor Ivanovich (the
last member of the Riurykide dynasty) in 1598. Ostrozky defended Ruthenian
(Ukrainian and Belarusian) political rights and was the de facto leader of
Ukraine in the negotiations leading up to the 1569 Union of Lublin, during
which he demanded that Ruthenia be treated as an equal partner of Poland
and Lithuania...


SMOTRYTSKY, HERASYM, b ? in Smotrych (now in Dunaivtsi raion, Khmelnytskyi
oblast), d October 1594. Writer and teacher; father of Meletii Smotrytsky.
He was secretary at the Kamianets-Podilskyi county office and in 1576 was
invited by Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky to Ostrih, where he became one of the
leading activist members of the Ostrih intellectual circle. In 1580
Smotrytsky became the first rector of the Ostrih Academy. He was one of the
publishers of the Ostrih Bible, to which he wrote the foreword and the
verse dedication to Prince Ostrozky. The dedication is one of the earliest
examples of Ukrainian versification (nonsyllabic) and is somewhat
reminiscent of Ukrainian dumas. Smotrytsky's polemical works against those
betraying the Orthodox faith and a satire on the clergy have been lost.
Only his book, Kliuch tsarstva nebesnoho (Key to the Heavenly Kingdom,
1587), which is the first printed example of Ukrainian polemical
literature, has survived...


OSTRIH PRESS. The second oldest printing press in Ukraine, founded in 1578
by Ivan Fedorovych (Fedorov) with the financial backing of Prince
Kostiantyn Ostrozky at the prince's castle in Ostrih, Volhynia. Its first
publications were Azbuka (Alphabet, 1578), a collection of prayers in Greek
and Church Slavonic; the second impression of Fedorovych's Bukvar (1578),
the first Ukrainian primer; the first Ukrainian edition of the New
Testament and an alphabetical index to it (1580); the Ostrih Bible (1581);
and the first poetic work printed in Cyrillic, Andrii Rymsha's Khronolohiia
(Chronology, 1581). It also printed pro-Orthodox, anti-Uniate polemical
literature, including works by Herasym Smotrytsky, V. Surazky, Ostrozky,
Khrystofor Filalet, and the pseudonymous Ostrozkyi Kliryk; a book (1598)
containing eight epistles by Meletios Pegas and one by Ivan Vyshensky (his
only work published during his lifetime); several liturgical books; and
works by Saint Basil the Great and Saint John Chrysostom in Church Slavonic
translation...


OSTRIH BIBLE. The first full Church Slavonic edition of the canonical Old
and New Testaments and the first three books of the Maccabees, printed in
Ostrih in 1580-1 by Ivan Fedorovych (Fedorov) in 1,500-2,000 copies. The
preparation of the text and the printing were funded by Prince Kostiantyn
Ostrozky. With close to 1,400 headpieces, initials, and tailpieces, the
628-folio book is one of the finest examples of printing in late
16th-century Ukraine. The text was based on all the Church Slavonic and
Greek sources of the Bible (including the complete 1499 Bible of Archbishop
Gennadii of Novgorod the Great) collected by Ostrozky. The Old Testament
sources were verified against the Septuagint or translated anew (sometimes
incorrectly) by scholars directed by Herasym Smotrytsky at the Ostrih
Academy. The Bible includes Ostrozky's and Smotrytsky's prefaces,
Smotrytsky's heraldic verses dedicated to Ostrozky, and Fedorovych's
postscript. The Bible was reprinted with minor revisions in a unified
orthography in Moscow in 1663...


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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries dealing with the
Ostrih Academy and Ostrih intellectual circle were made possible by the
financial support of the CANADIAN FOUNDATION FOR UKRAINIAN STUDIES.
*******

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