Apology of Some Modern Local Historians on the Beginnings of Ukrainian Printing

Abstract

The aim of the study is to elucidate the myth of the so-called movable type printing house based on the epoch-making discovery of the German Johannes Gutenberg, which was funded by Stepan Dropan, a Lviv burgher, and which allegedly operated in Lviv in 1460. Although this story was clarified in the works of prominent bibliologists of Ukraine and as a fait accompli even entered the modern Ukrainian textbooks on the history of publishing (by M.Tymoshyk), from time to time it becomes the subject of speculation of amateurs of bibliology.

Research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and scientific objectivity using comparative-historical, problem-chronological, structural-systemic methods, as well as bibliological methodology.

The scientific novelty contains the fact that the author gave a picture and definitions of the origin of the first Ukrainian printed editions, as well as formulated the most probable versions and hypotheses concerning printing houses and their products in Lviv in the 16th century and why there was an anonymous printing house in Moscow. The author also studied the role of Schweipolt Fiol and Ivan Fedorovych in Ukrainian book printing and learned who was most likely the person who printed the first dated book in Cyrillic in 1574 in Lviv, the original area of the Ukrainian people.