Ostroh Press

Ostroh Press (Ostrozka drukarnia). The second oldest printing press in Ukraine, founded in 1578 by Ivan Fedorovych (Fedorov) with the financial backing of Prince Kostiantyn Vasyl Ostrozky at the prince’s castle in Ostroh, Volhynia. Its first publications were Azbuka (Alphabet, 1578), a collection of prayers in Greek and Church Slavonic; the second impression of Fedorovych’s Bukvar (1578), the first Ukrainian primer; the first Ukrainian edition of the New Testament and an alphabetical index to it (1580); the Ostroh Bible (1581); and the first poetic work printed in Cyrillic, Andrii Rymsha’s Khronolohiia (Chronology, 1581). It also printed pro-Orthodox, anti-Uniate polemical literature, including works by Herasym Smotrytsky, V. Surazky, Ostrozky, Khrystofor Filalet, and the pseudonymous Ostrozkyi Kliryk; a book (1598) containing eight epistles by Meletios Pegas and one by Ivan Vyshensky (his only work published during his lifetime); several liturgical books; and works by Saint Basil the Great and Saint John Chrysostom in Church Slavonic translation. It issued some 30 titles, some of which were later reprinted in Moscow. The press functioned, with some interruptions, until 1612; from 1602 to 1605 it operated at the Derman Monastery.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boiko, M. (ed). Ostroz'ka ta dermans'ka drukarni (Bloomington 1980)
Zapaska, Ia.; Isaievych, Ia. Pamiatky knyzhkovoho mystetstva: Kataloh starodrukiv, vydanykh na Ukraïni, vol 1 (Lviv 1981)
Isaievych, Ia. Literaturna spadshchyna Ivana Fedorova (Lviv 1989)

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]