Page "History of Belarus" Paragraph 20

In such circumstances, a vibrant Ruthenian culture flourished, mostly in major present-day Belarusian cities.

Despite the legal usage of the Old Ruthenian language ( the predecessor of both modern Belarusian and Ukrainian languages ) which was used as a chancellery language in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the literature was mostly non-existent, outside of several chronicles.

The first Belarusian book printed with the first printing press in the Cyrillic alphabet was published in Prague, in 1517, by Francysk Skaryna, a leading representative of the renaissance Belarusian culture.

Soon afterwards he founded a similar printing press in Polatsk and started an extensive work of publishing the Bible and other religious works there.

Apart from the Bible itself, until his death in 1551 he published 22 other books thus laying the foundations for the evolution of the Ruthenian language into the modern Belarusian language.