Read the text with a dictionary and do the exercise that follows it

Additional texts for reading

Margaret Thatcher (1925)

She was the first woman in European history to be elected Prime Minister who won 3 consecutive terms. She was the longest-serving Prime Minister in Britain since 1827. She limited government control‚ giving individuals greater independence from the state and ending interference in the economy. She became known as The Iron Lady because of her strict control over cabinet and the country’s economic polices.

Answer the questions on the text:

Who

– wrote “Othello”? – wrote books about H. Poirot? – was the greatest historical novelists? – wrote a novel “David Copperfield”? – was the longest-reigning monarch in English history? – was a Prime Minister during the Second World War? – saved his land from destruction by the Danes? – has opened to man a new source of energy? – was called The Iron Lady? – was a member of the British House of Lords‚ a poet and a Greek’s national hero? – was the most talented admiral of Britain? – made England a great sea state? – was the most famous English pirates? – was a blind poet?

Text 1. Who was Dr. Skaryna?

In 1990 Belarusians were celebrating the 500^th anniversary of the birth of Doctor Francisak Skaryna, the first translator and publisher of the Bible (1517–1519) in the Belarusian language. The impact of Skaryna’s work has been profound both on the cultural development of Belarus and on the Belarusian patriotic movement in the 20^th century.

Belarusian printing owes its beginnings to Dr. Francisak Skaryna, a prominent scholar and humanist. Dr. Skaryna was born in a wealthy merchant family in the old Belarusian city of Polatsk in 1490. After attending local schools he studied at Krakow and other universities. He received his degree in liberal arts, and later, at the University of Padua, he received his degree in medicine. He was a true Renaissance man – his intellectual interests embraced theology, literature, linguistics, poetry, art, law, medicine, botany, and printing.

The most important of his achievements was the translation and publication of the Bible into the Belarusian language, first in Prague in 1517–1519, and later in Vilnya. Skaryna’s Belarusian Bible was the second work printed in a native Slavonic tongue.

Like other translator working elsewhere in Europe at that time, he wanted to “make knowledge available to the people in their own language”. He said, “I vow it shall become a language of books, and not only of speech”.

Speak on:

– Scaryna’s life and education;

– Scaryna’s contribution to the Belarusian history and culture.

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