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Ilya Kopievich
KOPIEVICH Ilya Fyodorovich
(near 1651 – 04.10.1714)
Enlightener, publisher, translator, poet; the first-rate publisher of Slavic books in Western Europe
Ilya Fyodorovich Kopievich was born near the town Lyakhavichy of Brest region. During the Russian-Polish war in the age of 9 years, he was forcibly brought to Russia. Having escaped from the boyar who kidnapped him, he lived and studied in Moscow until 1666, using the patronage of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich. Upon returning to motherland he studied at Slutsky Calvinist school, in 1674 he received a position of lecturer in it. After emigrated to Holland, he studied at the Universities of Amsterdam and Copenhagen (Denmark). Around the year 1682 he became a Calvinist minister and preacher in Amsterdam. He knew Belarusian, Polish, Russian, Church Slavonic, Dutch, German, Greek and Latin languages. As a connoisseur of languages, he became known to the Russian Tsar Peter I, whom he met in 1697 in Amsterdam. He was invited as a teacher of foreign languages for Peter I and other members of the Great Russian Embassy, who arrived to Holland. On behalf of Peter I he proceeded to translation into Russian and printing of books of secular educational content, along with the publishing activities he tought the noble young people of Russia the foreign languages, grammar, and navigation. Books were published with the edition of 2000 – 3000 copies of each in various publishing houses, including his own, opened in Amsterdam in 1700, and were sent to Russia. In 1703 he left Holland, in 1703 – 1706 he lived in Poland, in 1704 he attempted to organize his own printing house in Copenhagen or Halle (Germany).
At the turn of XVII–XVIII centuries, was the most prolific author and translator of textbooks designed for Russian schools, with the help of which he promoted education and dissemination of scientific knowledge in Russia. He prepared, translated into Russian and Slavic languages and published around 30 textbooks on history, arithmetic, astronomy, military and marine business, the rhetoric, the first Star Map in Russian designed for the Russian schools. The most famous between those are the following: “Brief introduction into the history from the creation of world, clearly and completely described” (1699), “Brief and useful guide to arithmetics” (1699), “Preparation and clear interpretation of heavenly circles” (1699), “Brief collection of Lev Mirotvorec, the August Greek Caesar, showing military affairs training” (1700), “Latin Grammar” (1700), “The book political, or politician-scientist and a pious scholar, transmitted with Polish poetry” (1700 – 1702), “The shortest guide to rhetoric and oratorical art at the same time” (1700 – 1702), “The book teaching maritime navigation” (1701), “Introduction to the Slavic Russian grammar” (1706). For a school designed The book “Proverbs by Essop, in Latin and Russian ... with the addition of Homer’s abuse, or a battle between frogs or toads and mice” (1700), which became the first edition in Russian of works of ancient Greek classics. He also prepared and published Russian-Latin-German, Russian-Latin-Dutch thematic dictionaries (nomenclatures) and manuals of Latin and Russian grammar, which were used by foreigners for teaching Russian. In printing houses of Kopievich the new Cyrillic print was cast, different from the Church-Slavonic by outlines of individual letters. It is believed that the print, designed by Kopievich, became the basis of the new Russian civil script, introduced in 1708, and still lie at the basis of alphabets of Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Macedonian and other Slavic Languages. In 1707 – 1714 he served as an interpreter at the Ambassy order in Moscow, where he died.
Works:
1. The glory of celebrations and banner of victories of His Serene Highness and August Sovereign and Invincible Majesty King and the Great Prince Peter Alexeyevich, of all the Great and Small, and White Russian autocrat, described in short poems. Amsterdam, 1700.
2. Nomenclator in Lingua Latina, Germanica et Russica. Amsterdam, 1700.
3. Latina grammatica in usum scholarum celeberrimae gentis Sclavonico-Rosseanae adornata. Amsterdam, 1700.
4. Manuductio in Grammaticam. In Sclavonico Rosseanam. Seu Moscoviticam in Usum discentium linguam Moscoviticam. Stoltzenbergii, 1706.
Literature:
1. Doroshevich E. Kapievich (Kapievsky) Ilya Fyodorovich // Thinkers and enlighteners of Belarus: Encyclopaedic handbook. Minsk: Belarusian Encyclopaedia, 1995. P. 220–222.
2. Begunov Yu. Kopievsky (Kopievich) Ilya Fyodorovich // Dictionary of Russian writers of the XVIII century. Saint Petersburg: Science, 1999.
© National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 2011
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