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[COLUMBUS FOR RUTHENIAN YOUTH] Vidkrytie Ameryky [i.e. The Discovery of America]

K. S. Z-pid Belzia [pseud., Kyrylo Seletskyi]

Item #2610

2nd edition. Lviv: Z drukarni Naukovoho T-va im. Shevchenka u Lvovi for Tovarystvo “Prosvita”, 1891. 51 pp., ills. in text. 12 × 17.5 cm. Owner’s cloth. In Iazychie, printed using accented Cyrillic letters. Very good condition. Recent owner’s cloth. Trimmed. Internally mostly clean, with minor spotting, foxing and page browning. Marginal recent tear restoration to some pages. Spots and a pencil mark on the rear wrapper; possibly the owner's signature (Golosnik?). Table of contents demonstrates discrepancy between the chapter list and the actual chapters chain, but complete.

The book is printed in an artificial local language invented by the Galician “Russophiles” to teach the peasants a desirable linguistic construct, one intended to bridge Rusyn (Ukrainian) and Russian cultures. The typeface used highlights the eclectic nature of the invention. Today it is a rare opportunity to examine the roots of locally used terms and observe how politically charged an orthographic system can be. For example, the “jus” letter “ѧ” was borrowed from Church Slavonic books. Pre-1917 orthographic elements of common Russian, like “ѣ” and “ъ” were familiar for the Western and Eastern Ukrainians. Some accented letters like ô, cherished the specifics of regional phonetics. The deliberate absence of Latin letters is intentional: it ought to solidify the distance from Polish. Iazychie never went mainstream and was largely abandoned by the late 1800s. The 1880s saw adaptations of more appropriate, universally understandable versions, additionally supported by the Austro-Hungarian government. The book is from 1891, which makes it actually a rather late Iazychie example.
The book was authored by Rev. Kyrylo Seletskyi (1835–1918), a Catholic priest who actively collaborated with Prosvita on numerous enlightenment activities. Seletskyi was an active belletrist and educator; as demonstrated in this text, he used various means to educate, entertain and, as a professional theologian, instill religious ideals. The highpoint of Seletskyi’s religious career was establishing the congregation and monastery of Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate, that of his enlightenment effort was founding the local sobriety society as excessive drinking was a huge, huge problem of the region. Bibliographies note that, aside from multiple articles, Seletskyi authored 14 separately printed books. Notable are: an Ukrainian primer Svoia khata: chytanka (Lviv, 1868) and Ukrainian version of the Catechism for children (Lviv, 1869).

The text of this Vidkrytie Ameryky is also aimed at uneducated classes and children. The text employs straightforward language and factual information interspersed with engaging storytelling, all presented as 28 short chapters. Those cover basic geographical information, “racology” (as understood by the author), sailing, Columbus’s initial motivation and preparations, brief but numerous remarks on his travels, encounters with the indigenous people in America, on the Cuban soil. Throughout the chapters Seletskyi elegantly emphasized the importance of the Christian faith of Columbus, as opposed with the—perceived— strangeness of American Indians and evilness of some Tahiti settlers. Seletskyi additionally underscores the importance of good relationships with the King and the Queen, which is also a nuanced political note of the text. Following some paragraphs on Mexico, the author concludes with a short sermon-like moralizing speech on the wrongness of greed. As an example he delves into a local Podolia story of oil extraction, when the entrepreneurs destroyed the natural soil structure in search for oil-rich plots, which resulted not in wealthy businesses but in hunger.

The chosen author’s pseudonym openly hints at Seletsky through both with the “K.S.” monogram and the direct mention of his residence: Seletsky lived in Zhuzhil village, in the suburb of Belz. The pseudonym was probably chosen to differentiate the text from theological or strictly pastoral texts. Possibly encouraged by the positive response on the two editions of this Vidkrytie Ameryky, a year later Seletski published yet another book focusing on the Age of Exploration, precisely on Cpt. James Cook’s life and deeds (Z zhyttia Yakova Kuka abo shcho zmozhe sylna volia y trud postiinyi. Lviv, 1892). This noteworthy attempt to construct Christian role models using not the most obvious, but definitely respected and intriguing people is not a standard move that can be expected for a religious preacher, but actually a very clever one, as it accurately aligns with the interests of children. The publisher, Vseukrains'ke tovarystvo Prosvita im. Tarasa Shevchenka, est. 1868, was a Galician Ukrainophilic organisation with the aims of enlightenment and literacy promotion. Prosvita played a pivotal role in providing a steady stream of Ukrainianlanguage books during the late XIXth century: in its prime decades, Prosvita printed thousands of titles with over 3 mln copies total.

Rare. Not in WorldCat. Not in KVK. According to the National bibliography of Ukraine, the first edition is held at three Ukrainian libraries, this second edition at one Ukrainian library.

Price: $1,200.00