- While about the publishing house itself, say a few words about yourself, Igor.

Where in London are you from?

What did you do before?

- I once lived in Belarus, graduated from the history faculty there, worked in the Yakub Kolas museum, worked in a Catholic publishing house.

And then Father Alexander Knudson invited me to come to London to study theology, with the idea that I would become a priest.

It was at the very end of 1998.

But life turned in such a way that not all those plans, mine and Father Alexander's, came true.

After studying theology, I still studied to become a librarian, became a professional librarian, and have been working as a librarian for a long time now.

And the publishing business for me started back in Belarus, where I helped publish the magazine "Unia", other books and, as I already said, worked in a Catholic publishing house.

This remained with me, and in the Belarusian community in London, when I was still a student, we made books with Father Alexander and with the translator of Ukrainian and Belarusian literature, Vera Rych, who created the first English-language anthology of Belarusian poetry.

I helped Vera Rich publish her self-published magazine of English poetry, Manifold.

Such projects somehow told me that this is what I would like to do in life.

Not everything you want to do professionally gives you a salary and means of living.

Publishing in the diaspora requires a lot of time and effort, but it is not a profitable job.

Nevertheless, this is what is needed for the Belarusian community.

In recent days, I have been walking and thinking about my publishing experience of the past months and I came to the conclusion that books gather and unite the Belarusian community in the diaspora... In short, my desire to publish books led me to the Skaryna Press publishing house in London.

- When exactly did this publishing idea come to your mind?

— The name came rather late.

First, the idea itself appeared.

The need to publish books in the Belarusian diaspora is obvious, especially after 2020.

In other countries, they have not had time to create such publishing houses, but in Great Britain, the tradition of Belarusian book printing is very long, spanning centuries.

A thought appeared - why not restore this tradition?

Belarusian calendar - 2023, Skaryna Press, London.

Pictures: Paval Severinets

Of course, it was a little timid to call the publishing house after Skorina, but the Belarusian library in London itself took the name of Skorina at a time when no library in Belarus bore that name.

Maybe this is an example of the fact that the diaspora is a bit simpler in this regard: it does not create some marble monuments of what we should be proud of and from which we can draw ideas, inspiration and confidence for the future.

And one more thing - I really liked Skorina, because he had an adventurous spirit: he took up the Bible right away, he didn't wait.

If one project didn't work out, he took on another, and it didn't work out for a long time.

- What is the legal status of your publishing house?

- This is a private enterprise.

- Who works with you in the publishing house?

Could you briefly introduce the editorial staff?

- This is a wonderful group of people, and I am very pleased to tell about them.

Karolina Matskevich

is a member of the board of trustees of the Skorina Library.

She is a biblical scholar by education.

But in recent years, she has been very involved in work for the sake of the library, for the sake of various Belarusian projects.

I would say that she is the soul of the Belarusian community here.

I am very glad that Karolina agreed to help the publishing house - both with ideas and with editing of materials.

lives in London

, she came here not so long ago.

But I assume that all local Belarusians have already met and got to know her, because she is very active, she organizes many readings, works, so to speak, on the border between literary creativity and political activism.

lives in Vilnius

- he is known as Vladislava Ivanova at the European Humanities University: he is a translator and author of literary works.

A couple of weeks ago, we published his small collection of stories and sketches from his time in Graz, Austria.

A very beautiful book.

And

is a historian.

This year, her book on the history of Belarusian self-publishing was published in Belarusian.

This book was published in English a couple of years ago.

Igor Ivanov.

London Pride 2022

- Books of which profile do you want to publish?

- We definitely haven't decided yet, we're taking a closer look.

What I already know for sure: we will not be a big publishing house, we will not be competitors of those publishing houses that work in Belarus or those that are now starting to work in the diaspora.

After all, it is impossible to do in the diaspora what could be done in the Motherland - not the same scale, not the same infrastructure, not the same needs.

Publishing in the diaspora is primarily for the diaspora, but not only.

After all, there have always been some gaps in the Belarusian publishing industry.

Some books could not be published in Belarus, it was always like that, and that is why they were published outside Belarus.

It began in the 19th century, with Alexander Rypinski, who created a printing house in London, and continued in the 20th century, through the experience of our post-war diaspora.

Well, I would like to note that the first book of the mentioned Wladislav Horbatsky - his study "Feminization of the Belarusian language" - we published in London 10 years ago, then this topic was completely unusual and incomprehensible, people laughed at such words as "champion" or "runner". .

Then it seemed that it remained unnoticed and the previous project of the publishing house disappeared by itself, but the sales were not bad, as for a diaspora publishing house, and the book was downloaded hundreds of times for free.

I think it played an important role in the return of feminisms to the modern language, since there were no other popular publications on this topic after that (except for the "Guide to Feminization of the Belarusian Language" by the same U. Horbatsky).

Vladislav Horbatsky "Guide to the Feminization of the Belarusian Language"

This is precisely what encourages me to think that there will always be a need for publishing houses in the diaspora, because Belarus and the Belarusian world do not end with the Republic of Belarus.

And a different perspective allows you to see and notice what can remain unnoticed from within Belarus itself for a very long time.

- If someone wants to publish a book in your publishing house, what should he do?

Give some practical advice…

- He needs to send us a manuscript or typescript - now, usually, a computer file.

Of course, we would like to work with a complete work, not with parts.

It would also be good if the author explained to us in an email what this book is about, what inspired the author, and what the context is.

If we decide that we will be able to invest in this publication and support it at presentations, then we will publish this book.

I would really hate to be a publishing house that prints something only for grants.

It may be the easiest way from a financial point of view - to print and give everything to the author - but the result is that such a book has a very short life.

- Who have you published under the Skaryna Press emblem so far?

- The very first book was a translation from Ukrainian: Agatangel Krymsky "Beirut stories".

The book was written in Ukrainian 120 years ago.

The lineage of its author is from Belarus, from the Crimean Tatars.

Then in the 18th century they returned or moved to Ukraine, and Agatangel Krymsky became the founder of Ukrainian Oriental studies and co-founder of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.

He was an outstanding scientist first in the Russian Empire, then in the Soviet Union, he paid for his Ukrainianness.

Agatangel Krymsky "Beirut stories", Skaryna Press, London 2022

The book "Beirut Stories" is interesting to us, on the one hand, because the author's roots were Belarusian: he himself wrote that his mother was a "Polish Lithuanian woman from Minsk".

Well, we know which "Polish Lithuanians" lived near Minsk.

On the other hand, the book is interesting for its content.

The author described Beirut at the end of the 19th century — a cosmopolitan city where the colonizing influences of Russia, Turkey, France, and Britain collided.

As a result, it was a city where different communities lived more or less peacefully: of course, they quarreled, but they did not fight with each other.

It is similar to how it was at that time in Vilnius.

Therefore, we decided to present the book in Vilnius, because it is the closest analogue.

Beirut in the book of Agathangel of Crimea is also a city where Europeans came to breathe the air of freedom, if we compare it with Europe, which was jammed by different ideologies at that time.

For us, this is an example of the process that Belarus must go through in order to become a country where people of very different views and identities will live together, maybe they will quarrel from time to time, but basically live in peace.

Vladislav Horbatsky, "Mercks, Graz!".

Skaryna Press 2022

We also published, as I said, a small book by Władysław Horbatski "Mercks Graz!".

It begins in the 19th century, during the pandemic, and very quickly goes into the 17th century, during the plague.

A romantic story takes place against the background of the beautiful city of Graz.

The author also mentions his hometown, Vitebsk.

What is also interesting is the language in which this story is written.

I myself am from Polachchyna, which is basically not far from Vitebsk, but I have never heard the speech used by Vladislaus Horbatsky in my life.

And Wladyslaw had the privilege of being brought up in living languages, which later suffered from Russification and disappeared.

Well, the other day we sold out the entire edition of the calendar with illustrations of the police prisoner Pavlo Severinets.

It was an absolutely unexpected privilege for us to make such a calendar in Britain.

We are currently working on a couple of political collections and a jubilee collection about the Belarusian Library named after Francisko Skaryna.

- How do you distribute your publications?

What is the average price of a copy of your publication?

Igor Ivanov

- Sales, of course, is the most difficult part of book publishing in the diaspora, because there is no infrastructure, we do not have the distribution networks that exist for publishers in Belarus.

That's why we decided to bet on selling books at the parties and presentations we organize.

One was in Vilnius, the other took place in London.

We are thinking about how to organize contacts in other cities where there is now a more or less significant Belarusian diaspora, we are looking for contacts for this.

But people can order our books online, and depending on the country, we will send them ourselves, or we will order them through the company with which we print - the book will then be printed in the region where the person lives, so that he does not have to pay taxes and duties.

Books are a little more expensive compared to what we are used to in Belarus.

For example, Agatangel Krymskyi's book costs around 11 euros, including shipping costs.

But, I think, in the conditions of the diaspora, it cannot be otherwise, because there is no way to publish a book in large editions and save on the cost of one copy.

I think that books financed by grants can be cheap, and if a publishing house like us tries to develop organically and gradually, then this is the price that has to be paid.

I really hope that our books are so wonderful that people will not spare the money they spend on them.

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• Jan Maksimyuk

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