The 1574 Lviv Apostol and Azbuka

“This book began to be printed on February 25, 1573, and finished printing on the 15th of the same month in [15]74, in the famous city of Lviv.” The printer himself left these words at the end of a liturgical book. This is the wording of the colophon as transcribed in the catalog of Harvard University’s Houghton Library, signed “Ioann Fedorovych, printer of Moscow.” The dates are per the calendar in use at the time.

This book is the Apostol (Апостол), which contains the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles. In the same year, 1574, the same printer also produced, in Lviv, a small, roughly 80-page primer, the Azbuka (Азбука). What follows draws on the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine (ЄІУ) from the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU) from the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), and the catalog of the Harvard University Library, as of September 2026.

From Moscow, via Zabludiv, to Lviv

According to IEU, the printer was a deacon of a Moscow church, and from 1553 oversaw the building of a printing house ordered by Tsar Ivan IV. ЄІУ states that in 1564–1565 he printed an Apostol and a Book of Hours in Moscow together with Petro Mstyslavets, and that these are the first dated books in Russia. He was afterward suspected of heresy (ЄІУ) and moved to Zabludiv (in what is now eastern Poland), an estate of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania magnate Chodkiewicz, where he produced a Didactic Gospel and a Psalter in 1568–1570.

According to IEU, he moved to Lviv in 1572 and resumed printing the following year at St. Onuphrius’s Monastery. ЄІУ states that the Lviv print shop was opened with help from the city’s Ukrainian townspeople. IEU states that his son and Hryn Ivanovych, from Zabludiv, took part in the work on the Apostol.

How His Name Is Spelled: Fyodorov and Fedorovych

This person’s name is spelled differently in different sources. ЄІУ headlines its entry “Fedorov (Fedorovych), Ivan,” explaining that a patronymic-style name is written “Fedorov” in Russia and “Fedorovych” or “Hvedorovych” in Ukraine, indicating he was not of high birth. In Russian pronunciation it becomes “Fyodorov.”

IEU headlines its entry “Fedorovych (Fedorov),” and states that he changed his surname from Fedorov to Fedorovych while in Zabludiv. In Lviv he was called “the Moscow printer,” a name IEU says indicated where he had come from rather than his ethnicity. This article follows the Lviv books’ colophon signature and writes “Ivan Fedorovych.” The “Ivan Fedorov Ukrainian Book Chamber,” which compiles Ukraine’s publishing statistics, is named after him (see our article on Ukrainian publishing by the numbers).

Encyclopedias Disagree on His Birth Year and Date of Death

Source	Birth year	Date of death
ЄІУ (published 2013)	Unknown. States that the recently popularized claim he was “born around 1510 in Belarus and studied at Kraków University” is not documented	December 15, 1583 (Old Style the 5th), Lviv
IEU (reprint of the 1984 print edition)	Around 1525	December 16, 1583, Lviv
Harvard University Library authority record	Around 1510	1583

The Apostol: His Own Story, Told in the Colophon

The Apostol is a book containing the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles read during worship (IEU). According to ЄІУ, its text is the same Church Slavonic translation as the one printed in Moscow in 1564, but with errors corrected and the spelling brought closer to the orthography widely used in Ukraine. Per the Harvard catalog, it is a large-format book with 264 leaves of text plus 14 leaves of front matter, 31 cm tall, printed in red and black.

The biggest difference, according to ЄІУ, is at the end of the book. In place of the Moscow edition’s official afterword, Fedorovych wrote “a tale of where this print shop began and how it was accomplished.” ЄІУ explains that this is a text arguing for the worth of the printing trade, describing how he suffered persecution in Moscow from “many rulers and heads of the clergy,” and that in Lviv it was people of humble standing who helped him.

The Lithuanian magnate Chodkiewicz’s coat of arms is printed at the front, and a printer’s device combining the city of Lviv’s coat of arms with the printer’s own mark appears at the back. The image of the Apostle Luke is said to have been modeled on icons then current in western Ukraine (ЄІУ). According to ЄІУ (2003), more than 90 known copies survive.

The Azbuka: An 80-Page Primer

ЄІУ calls the same year’s Azbuka “the first primer printed in Ukraine,” and states it was printed after the Apostol, or around the same time as its final stages. Per the Harvard catalog, it is a small-format book of 80 pages (the last page blank), 17 cm tall, with a colophon reading “Printed in Lviv, 1574.”

According to ЄІУ, its contents are arranged in the following order.

• A list of letters, and exercises in two- and three-letter syllables
• The names of the letters, and examples of verb conjugation
• Notes on spelling, such as words differing only by accent and words using abbreviation marks
• A prayer whose initial letters run through the alphabet in order (the first sustained piece of reading)
• Prayers, the Proverbs of Solomon (chapters 22–24), and excerpts from the Epistles of the Apostle Paul

Among the prayers is a text corresponding to the first half of Volodymyr Monomakh’s prayer, found in the Tale of Bygone Years (ЄІУ). This chronicle is covered in our article on the manuscripts of the Tale of Bygone Years. The Proverbs section is drawn from Skaryna’s edition or a closely related Belarusian-Ukrainian translation, which ЄІУ says suggests a Lviv scribe may have taken part in preparing the text. The afterword is addressed to “the Christian people of Rus’.”

ЄІУ presents the view of researchers who connect this book to the educational movement of Lviv’s Ukrainian townspeople, who in 1572 obtained from the crown the right to send their sons to gymnasiums and schools.

The Old Names “Azbuka” and “Hramatyka,” the Present Name “Bukvar”

According to ЄІУ, this book is what would now be called a bukvar (буквар, a primer), but at the time was called an azbuka (азбука) or hramatyka (граматика). The Harvard catalog likewise gives its title as “A B V,” an alternate title as Azbuka, and its uniform title as Bukvar’.

Only 2 Copies Survive

According to ЄІУ, only 2 copies survive of the 1574 Azbuka: one at Harvard University’s library, and one at the British Library in London. The Harvard catalog lists as previous owners of the Houghton Library’s copy the Russian nobleman Grigory Stroganov (1829–1910), the ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev (1872–1929), and Boris Kochno. In 1955, a facsimile with commentary by the linguist Roman Jakobson was published by Harvard.

The Conditions Behind “the First Printed Book in Ukraine”

ЄІУ calls the 1574 Apostol “the first book printed in Ukraine,” while its entry on Fedorovych calls it “the oldest currently known book printed in Ukraine.” IEU states that Fedorovych established the first print shop on Ukrainian ethnic territory.

Calling it “first” comes with conditions. Cyrillic books had been printed before this.

• 1483: the oldest known printed book by an author from Ukraine, a treatise by Yurii Drohobych, is published in Rome (ЄІУ)
• 1491: Schweipolt Fiol prints Cyrillic books in Kraków (2 undated works and 2 dated 1491; ЄІУ). IEU calls this the first book in the Ukrainian recension of Church Slavonic. ЄІУ states it was most likely commissioned by a Ukrainian cultural figure
• 1517–1525: Francysk Skaryna prints books for Belarusian and Ukrainian readers in Prague and Vilnius (ЄІУ)

In other words, the 1574 Apostol is “first” in the sense that it is the oldest surviving book printed on Ukrainian territory whose place and date of printing are known. The encyclopedias’ own phrasing likewise carries the qualifier “currently known.”

Timeline

Year	Event	Source
1491	Fiol prints Cyrillic books in Kraków	ЄІУ, IEU
1564–1565	Prints an Apostol and a Book of Hours in Moscow with Mstyslavets	ЄІУ, IEU
1568–1570	A Didactic Gospel and a Psalter in Zabludiv	ЄІУ, IEU
1572	Moves to Lviv	IEU
February 25, 1573	Begins printing the Apostol in Lviv	Colophon (Harvard catalog), ЄІУ
February 15, 1574	Finishes printing the Apostol	Colophon (same), ЄІУ
1574	Prints the Azbuka	Colophon (same), ЄІУ
1575	Enters the service of Prince Ostrozky and is put in charge of Derman’ Monastery	IEU
1578	A 2nd edition of the Azbuka in Ostroh (adding a guide to the Greek alphabet, among other things)	ЄІУ, IEU
1580–1581	The New Testament and the Ostroh Bible in Ostroh	ЄІУ, IEU
December 1583	Dies in Lviv (the 15th or the 16th)	ЄІУ, IEU
1591	The oldest surviving publication of the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood press, which inherited his print shop’s equipment	IEU

To Ostroh, and Back to Lviv

According to IEU, from 1575 he served Prince Kostiantyn Vasyl Ostrozky, a magnate of Volhynia, and opened a print shop in Ostroh in 1577–1579. IEU describes the Ostroh Bible, produced there in 1581, as the first complete Church Slavonic Bible with both the Old and New Testaments. The school at Ostroh is touched on in our article on the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

After a falling-out with the prince, he returned to Lviv, but was unable to reopen a print shop (IEU). According to IEU, his gravestone in Lviv is inscribed, “He renewed printing that had died out.” His print shop’s equipment passed to the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood, which continued to use his designs into the early 19th century.

What His Name Was Given To

According to ЄІУ, monuments to him were erected in Moscow (1909) and Lviv (1977). In 1976, a memorial museum was established at St. Onuphrius’s Monastery in Lviv, now the Museum of Old Ukrainian Books, part of the Lviv Art Gallery. Lviv’s specialized printing college (now the Ukrainian Academy of Printing) has borne his name since 1994.