Jadvyga Misiūnienė (Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, Lithuania)
The Reformation—and later the Counter-Reformation—was one of the main impulses behind the revival of book printing in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the subsequent flourishing of this process throughout the entire century. It was an extremely dynamic and productive period in the development of book printing in the duchy, sometimes referred to as the ‘Golden Age’. The starting chronological point of the topic under study is 1553, when the first Protestant publication in Lithuania, the Polish Catechism of Brasta, was published in the printing house established in Brasta by the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania, Mikalojus Radvila the Black (Pol. Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł Czarny). The wars with Sweden and Russia in the mid-17th century end the chronology of this study, signifying also the end of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. The year 1656 marks the last publications. From then on, the development of book printing in the GDL came to a standstill for an entire decade.
The National Library of Lithuania holds 282 books from this period (211 titles). For the first time in the history of Library, the Rare Books and Manuscripts Unit carried out a comprehensive research (historical, bibliographical, provenance, filigree, and thematic) on the collection of books published in the GDL from 1553 to 1656. The research yielded excellent results: 51 typographical anonyms were identified, 23 extremely rare books, also known as ‘unicum absolutum’ were found. In the context of the 700th anniversary of Vilnius, it is important to mention that out of 211 publications studied, 185 are ‘vilniana.’