About the typographical activity of Mihail Ștefan (Stepaneshvili). Considerations and assessments

Abstract

(c. 1650–c. 1720), an outstanding printer, engraver, translator, scholar, and theo­logian, enriched the Romanian Principalities with a number of landmark printed works and provided Georgia with the first books ever printed on its soil. In both countries, the Romanian printer made significant contributions to the promotion and development of their cultural and spiritual heritage.

Through the books he printed—embellished with remarkable engraved title pages and illustrations of exceptional artistic quality—Mihail Ștefan contributed not only to the enrichment of the cultural heritage of both Romania and Georgia, but also to the continuation and advancement of the Romanian printing tradition. By the time he arrived in Tbilisi (Kartli) in 1708, this tradition had already been established in his native Wallachia for nearly two centuries.

His knowledge of Romanian, Church Slavonic, and Greek enabled Mihail Ștefan to become thoroughly acquainted not only with the themes of medieval religious literature and the books printed in these three languages on Romanian soil up to his own time, but also with the principal theological works of Byzantine origin.

Having learned the craft of printing at Târgoviște, the typographer Mihail Ștefan subsequently worked in the princely printing houses of Bucharest and Snagov, as well as in the printing house of the Metropoli­tanate of Bucharest and in the printing house of the Metropolitanate of Bălgrad, in Transylvania, with the blessing of Metropolitan Teodosie of Wallachia. He then continued his activity in the printing house of the Bishopric of Râmnic, where Antimoz Iverieli served as bishop between 1705 and 1708, and subsequently in Georgia.

In Tbilisi, Georgia, Mihai/Mihail Ungrovlahitul (Mihail of Ungro-Wallachia) established the first printing house in the country, where he printed the first books produced on Georgian soil, thereby laying the foundations for enduring cultural relations between Romania and Georgia, two nations united since that time by their common Christian cultural and spiritual values.