Wasyl Ciapiński was a Belarusian thinker, writer and publicist, humanist and enlightener, publisher and founder of one of the earliest printing houses in Belarus, translator of the Gospel into Belarusian, initiator of the Bible publishing tradition in the native language, radical of the Reformation movement, one of the few Antitrinity (Socinianism) followers among the nobility of Polatsk.
Background
Wasyl Ciapiński was born in the village of Tsiapina (near Lepel, the Province of Polatsk of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (now in the Chashniki District of the Vitsebsk Region). Sometimes he used a double name - Amelyanovich-Tsiapinsky, a combination of Amelyan, the name of the founder of the family, and the name of his birthplace.
Education
Wasyl Ciapiński received a university education, but it is not known where. Perhaps, he did not study at foreign universities, but the Holy Scripture could be translated only by well educated and talented people, those who had good knowledge of history, linguistics, theology and literature.
Career
The historical data on Wasyl Ciapiński’s life are really modest. Even the years of birth and death have been defined circumstantially. In 1565, Wasyl Ciapiński served the Lithuanian marshal dvorny, an official close to the Grand Prince’s court, and had, besides a family estate, small hereditary and obtained possessions in the districts of Minsk, Lida and Vilna of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Wasyl Ciapiński took part in the Livonian War (1558-1583). The fate brought him together with famous people. In 1567, he was a junior officer of a cavalry company, headed by Philon Kmita, the starasta (headman) of Orsha, known for his military, administrative and innate literary abilities. For some time, he served Astaphy Valovich, who was a famous state figure, a vice-chancellor, one of the editors of the Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of 1588.
Starting from the 1560s he became a friend of Symon Budny. In the mid-1550s, Symon Budny was invited by the influential magnate Mikolaj Radziwill Chorny to move to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (he lived in Vilna, then in Kletsk and Nyasvizh). Wasyl Ciapiński shared Budny’s social and confessional views which were in conformity with the interests of the szlachta’s wing in the Protestant movement. In 1569, 1574 and 1578, he joined Symon Budny at synods in open debates with Polish and Lithuanian Antitrinity followers (representatives of a radical sectarian branch of the European Christianity denying the Holy Trinity, one of its principal foundations). The synod of 1574 was held in Tsiapina, in Ciapiński’s house. At the synod of 1578, he asserted the right to possess estates, to participate in just wars and to struggle against tyranny, claiming that not to be a sin or something in conflict with the Bible.
In the late 1560s, Wasyl Ciapiński started literary and translation work. He founded a small private publishing house (usually it is considered to have been in Tsiapina but more probably it existed in his estate Vyarsotsk, Lida district, or in the estate of Svirany of the Vilna district) where, in 1580, he printed the Gospel translated by him into Belarusian with his own lofty preface, which has become one of the best examples of the Belarusian social and political literature. It was the first publication of the best known book of the New Testament in the Belarusian and Old Slavonic languages in Central and Eastern Europe. However, limited financial resources, adverse war-time conditions and counteraction from conservative circles did not favour the continuation of his translation, humanistic, enlightenment and publishing activities.
Religion
His approach to religion was a rationalist, tolerant. He connected religious education with education in general. Wasyl Ciapiński addressed Gospel to both adults and children, to Calvinists and Orthodox, and anyone who wants to read this book.
Views
Being a resident of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and after 1569 - of Rzeczpospolita, he considered himself to be a "Rusin" - the way the residents of the Eastern regions of the present Belarus were called during the 14th-18th centuries.