The National Library of Wales
Presentation of the Chylinski Bible facsimile edition to National Library
Thu, 18 Jun 09 09:50:00
The National Library of Wales proudly welcomed Mr Michael Peart, Chairman of the British-Lithuanian Society on 27 May. The Chairman was formerly H.M. Ambassador to Lithuania – the first after Independence in 1991 and he was part of a tour of foreign consulates based in Wales to the Library. Mr Peart graciously presented the Library with a recently published facsimile copy of one of Lithuania’s most important artefacts, the Chylinski Bible. The Bible was the first printed Lithuanian-language version of the Old Testament, translated by Samuel Boguslaus Chylinski.
Samuel Chylinski was a Lithuanian Calvinist who came to England in about 1657 to continue his work on a Lithuanian-language bible, having started his endeavour in Holland some years earlier. Chylinski’s work is intimately connected with Wales because King Charles II decreed that a collection towards the printing of this bible be made in churches throughout his Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales. Separately, the King had also instigated ‘a generall Collection through-out this his Kingdome of England & Dominion of Wales, for releife of the Distressed Protestant Churches in the great Dukedom of Lithuania now in a most lamintable & sad condition, groaning under t a heavy persecution’. At the time, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was under attack by Sweden and Muscovy; death and disease were widespread.
In 1660, for the first time in history, the printing of a Lithuanian-language Bible was started in London – 74 years after the publication of William Morgan’s Bible in Welsh. Its printing was advocated and supported by influential 17th century Protestant thinkers, such as Samuel Hartlib, John Dury, Jan Amos Comenius, and by the famous Oxford scientists Robert Boyle and John Wallis. Unfortunately, adverse circumstances, including rivalry within the Lithuanian Calvinist community, prevented the project from being completed. Having reached Psalm 40, the printing stopped.
Chylinski died and was buried in the parish of St Giles’ Cripplegate, London, on 5 July 1666. Subsequently a certain Medgate and Phipps petitioned the Privy Council for ‘… Nyneteene pounds odd money for dyet, lodgeing, physique, nurses, funeral charges, burial and otherwise’.
The only surviving copy of the incomplete Old Testament is now in the British Library in London, as is the manuscript of Chylinski’s translation of the New Testament. Two years ago, photographic copies of the only other known copy of Chylinski’s Old Testament, lost since World War II and known as the Berlin copy, were discovered in the library of Vilnius University. The volume being presented in based on the only surviving copy, that of the British Library, and on the photographs of the lost Berlin copy for the parts missing from the London one. The facsimile is preceded by an extensive academic introduction discussing philological aspects of Chylinski’s translation, and also revealing new facts relating to Chylinski’s English years, based on recently discovered letters and other hitherto unknown source document. The book is illustrated with etchings on Biblical themes by Šarūas Leonaviŏius, a prize-winning Lithuanian graphic artist and book designer, specially made for this publication.
This volume was published by the Institute for the Lithuanian Language in Vilnius, and was prepared by Dr Gina Kavaliūnaitė. It is planned, if funds allow, to publish a similar edition of the New Testament in 2010, 350 years after the printing of Chylinski’s translation started.
The presentation of the Bible was organised by the Lithuanian Honorary Consul for Wales, Anthony Packer, also enabled the presentation to coincide with the gathering in Aberystwyth of so many Members of the Consular Corps in Wales.
Further Information
NLW Press Office
Medi Jones-Jackson,
01970 632 534
