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23 Apr 2026

Historian explains what made Spiridon Sobol’s primer unique

An archive photo

MINSK, 23 April (BelTA) - Mogilev book printer Spiridon Sobol in his published primer presented an original author’s method of teaching children to read and write, Chairman of the Standing Commission on Education, Culture and Science of the House of Representatives Igor Marzalyuk said in BelTA’s project True History. Lectures by Igor Marzalyuk.

Book printer Spiridon Sobol, a native of Mogilev, was the first to publish a Belarusian primer. He started printing both in Mogilev and in Kiev. In 1630, at the invitation of Bogdan Statkevich, an Orthodox representative of Belarusian nobility from Mstislavl, Spiridon Sobol took over a printing house in the Holy Epiphany Kuteino Monastery near Orsha. “Both residents of Orsha and Mogilev were part of the same Mogilev Orthodox Brotherhood. Together they resisted Polonization, fought for Orthodox faith, worked together, and defended their culture with both words and deeds. It was in Kuteino near Orsha that Spiridon Sobol worked extremely productively and efficiently. One after another, his books came out: the Psalter, the Primer, Everyday Prayers, all in 1631, and the Book of Hours in 1632. But the most important of all these publications was his Primer,” the historian emphasized. “The uniqueness of Spiridon Sobol’s primer lies in the fact that it implemented his distinctive, original author’s method of teaching children to read: a method that was very simple, accessible, and easy for young students to master. Spiridon Sobol’s method was later used and borrowed by Moscow printer Vasily Burtsev. He followed Spiridon Sobol’s example and called his Grammar, which he published in Moscow, a primer. From that moment on, both Spiridon Sobol’s method and the word ‘primer’ itself began their triumphal march throughout the Slavic Orthodox world,” he said.

The printing activity of the Mogilev native did not end there. “In 1635, on the outskirts of Mogilev, in Buinichi, Spiridon Sobol founded a printing house and published the Psalter. In 1636, in his native Mogilev, he republished the Primer of the Slovenian Language,” the historian added. “In 1637 and 1638, several more books were published here: the Psalter in 1637, and the Testament in 1638.”