Who invented the Cyrillic alphabet? A Brief History of the Cyrillic Alphabet

Everyone knows how words are formed today: a ready-made word is taken, a ready-made suffix or prefix with a certain meaning is added to it - and we have something new: ecstasy - a previously used basin. It is clear that the formation of words is based on already established concepts: ancient words are “overgrown” with suffixes and prefixes, changing their meaning. But it is also clear that the very first words were formed differently.

Each letter carries some concept. For example, the letter “A” is associated with the beginning - the main, starting point of our physical and spiritual actions. The categories of energy correspond to the letters “E”, “E”, “I”, and the first two have a connotation of cosmic energy, and the letter “I” gravitates towards more “earthly” forms of its manifestation. The sounds and letters of the alphabet contain the original meaning of everything. And the very first words were formed in accordance with this original meaning.

That is why the alphabet can safely be considered the first code, and applicable to any language - modern or ancient. Why are there two “a”s in the word beginning? Do you feel something in common between the words layer, iron, plate, palm, plateau? Or, for example, remember the word yell, which means to plow, to cultivate the land. For the Sumerians, Ur-Ru meant to plow; in Hebrew khoreysh is a plowman, in Lithuanian and Latvian arti is to plow; in Latvian plow is aro; in Old High German art is a plowed field, and in Hindi harvaha is a plowman. Modern English Earth - earth is cognate with Old Norse ertha, Old High German erda, modern German Erde; aro is Latin to plow, which is related to the English and French arable - arable. After all these examples, it is quite clear that Aryan means, first of all, a tiller of the soil, and not what we usually think.

We often cannot accurately determine the “fine” structure of the meanings of words - because we do not set ourselves such a task - but we can always feel it. And - thanks to the creators of alphabets - see it in writing. They managed to isolate the smallest particles of meaning - sounds - from the flow of information that reality bombards us with and stop them, leaving them on parchment, paper, metal or wood. That's right, we're talking about letters. The invention of the real alphabet can be considered the largest cultural revolution in human history.

The ancients were much more aware of the importance of the alphabet than we are. They perceived it as something whole, as a model of the world, the macrocosm - that is why on vases, urns, medallions from ancient burials we find complete records of various alphabets that played the role of a propitiatory sacrifice. At the same time, naturally, if the alphabet as a whole was a model of the world, then its individual signs were considered as elements of the world.

We do not know the ancient " own name» alphabet, it may have been taboo. All alphabets are named by their first letters: Latin ABCD-arium (or abecedarium), Church Slavonic alphabet, Russian alphabet, Greek alphabet, German Abc.

Historians cannot give an exact answer to the question of when society became ready for the emergence of a real alphabet. Wars, fires, incorrect dating and established stereotypes are too many obstacles to find out how everything really happened. The art of writing is described in the Mahabharata, and, based on this data, it appeared long before the writing of the Sumerians and at least two thousand years earlier than the Phoenician alphabet. There are more questions than answers in this area of ​​knowledge. But we will not look into the depths of thousands of years yet - even with regard to the relatively young Cyrillic alphabet, there is a lot of uncertainty.

History of Slavic writing.

Since the Slavs settled quite widely - from the Elbe to the Don, from the northern Dvina to the Peloponnese - it is not at all surprising that their alphabets had many variants. But if you “look at the root”, then these groups that succeeded each other can be distinguished into three - runes, Glagolitic and Cyrillic.

Slavic runes.

At the end of the 17th century, about fifty figurines and ritual objects of ancient Slavic deities with runic inscriptions applied to them were found in the village of Prillwitz, among which the most common inscriptions were Retra and Radegast. Scientists have concluded that the collection of these items belonged to the temple of Radegast from the city of Retra. The German Andreas Gottlieb Masch acquired this collection and in 1771 in Germany published a catalog of objects with engravings. Shortly after publication, the collection disappeared. At the end of the 19th century, three stones (Mikorzyn stones) were found in the Poznań Voivodeship in Poland with inscriptions carved on them in the same alphabet as on the retrin objects.

Slavic runes in Scandinavian sources are called “Venda Runis” - “Vendish runes”. We know practically nothing about them, except the very fact of their existence. Runes were used for short inscriptions on gravestones, boundary markers, weapons, jewelry, and coins. Cult figurines with runic inscriptions are scattered throughout museums different countries, and there they mostly remain undeciphered.

Runic writing was the first, preliminary stage in the development of writing, when there was no special need for it: messengers were sent with news, everyone lived together, knowledge was kept by elders and priests, and songs and stories were passed on from mouth to mouth. Runes were used for short messages: indicating the road, a border post, a sign of ownership, etc. The real writing of the Slavs appeared along with the Glagolitic alphabet.

Glagolitic and Cyrillic.

Regarding the invention of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet, scientists have a well-established opinion - something like this. The appearance of these alphabets is associated with the adoption of Christianity by the Slavs. The brothers Cyril (in the world - Constantine the Philosopher) and Methodius invented the Glagolitic alphabet on behalf of the Byzantine Empire on the basis of some rudiments of Slavic writing in order to translate liturgical books into this alphabet and prepare the ground for the adoption of Christianity by the Slavs. A little later, 20-30 years later, the Cyrillic alphabet was invented, more convenient than the Glagolitic alphabet, and therefore it quickly replaced the latter. Although the Cyrillic alphabet is named after the monastic name of Constantine the Philosopher, it was not invented by him himself, but, apparently, by one of his students. Thus, Slavic writing appeared no earlier than 863, and all written monuments dating earlier than the 860s were rejected by science as false and impossible.

This statement in itself can cause surprise. Indeed, it is at least strange to assume that normal people did not have normal writing when everyone around them already had it. And the very question of the “invention” of the alphabet at a certain point in time is extremely doubtful. The need for writing among the Slavs appeared centuries earlier. Knowing about the existence of runic, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and other writing, the Slavs probably either adapted foreign alphabets for their needs, or gradually developed their own. The Slavic pagan epic mentions that Svarog, the god of heaven, carved laws for people on a stone called Alatyr - that is, the population should already be able to read and, therefore, write. So what is the merit of Constantine the Philosopher?

Konstantin filosov, aka Kirill, brother of Methodius.

Constantine the Philosopher was a man of extraordinary intelligence, strong character and high education, and Constantinople, using these qualities of his, often entrusted him with various diplomatic tasks. During the years of Constantine’s life, the situation in Byzantium could not be called calm: not only was discontent rising within the country, it was also experiencing a significant threat from the growing power of the Slavic tribes. All together this called into question the existence of the Byzantine Empire itself.

The only salvation for her could only be the conversion of these pagans to Christianity. Byzantium made several unsuccessful attempts, but the idea did not take hold of the masses. And then in Constantinople it was quite reasonably decided that it would be more successful to present Christianity to the Slavs in their native language. In 860, Constantine the Philosopher was sent to Chersonesus to translate liturgical books - Crimea at that time was a crossroads where communication between Russia and Russia usually took place Byzantine Empire. Constantine had to study the Slavic alphabet, translate Christian prayer books with its help, and generally prepare the ground for the Christianization of all of Rus'.

Constantine spent four years in Crimea, and then was sent along with his brother Methodius to the Moravian ruler Rostislav, to whom, according to the chronicles, he brought prayer books written in Glagolitic alphabet. Perhaps on this basis it was concluded that the Glagolitic alphabet became the invention of Constantine on the seaside shores of Chersonesos.

However, as the Life of Constantine testifies, in 858, while in Chersonesos, he found the Gospel and Psalter there, written in Russian letters, and also met a man who spoke Russian, was able to somehow communicate with him, and then quite quickly learned to read and speak this language. Constantine learned to read so quickly that it seemed to his Greek companions that a great miracle had happened. In fact, even though the writing was alien, unfamiliar - judging by the fact that Constantine still had to learn to read, the Old Russian language turned out to be quite close to the language of the Macedonian Slavs, which was Constantine the Philosopher.

It turns out that more than a hundred years before the official baptism of Rus', the Slavs already had translations of church books into the Slavic language and their own developed writing system, different from Greek. What kind of writing was this? And what does Konstantin have to do with her?

Surely it was Glagolitic. And certainly writing at that time was already quite developed - at least not the rudiments. The statement that Slavic writing appeared only together with Christianity is not true. Chernorizets Khrabr (Bulgaria, late 9th century) in “The Legend of Slavic Writings” writes that the Slavs have long read and written, using special “features and cuts” for this.

Constantine became acquainted not with the rudiments of Slavic writing, but with a developed letter - probably unsystematized, so he had not so much to invent a new alphabet as to reform an existing one. What was this Slavic alphabet like?

Glagolitic.

There are also a lot of ambiguities in the history of the origin of the Glagolitic alphabet. It appeared as a Slavic alphabet at least in the 4th century. The Glagolitic alphabet originated on the Balkan Peninsula, where it still exists in a dying form. Glagolitic Western Slavs(Czechs, Poles, etc.) lasted relatively short-lived and was replaced by the Latin script, and the rest of the Slavs switched to the Cyrillic alphabet. But the Glagolitic alphabet was used until the beginning of the Second World War in some settlements in Italy, where newspapers were even printed in this font.

Its invention, or at least its introduction into use, is associated with Bishop Ulfila, the primate of the so-called small Goths who lived on the Balkan Peninsula. In fact, these were Getae who fell victim to consonance with the Goths, but to distinguish them they added “small” to their name. Thucydides mentioned the Getae, and their history goes back to the Trojan War. The Getae in ancient times had a high culture - the Greeks themselves stated that the Getae were almost no different from the Greeks. It is very likely that the Slavs were also hiding under part of the Getae, and the holy books of Christians were translated by them long before Cyril.

It is not known whether Bishop Ulfila invented the Glagolitic alphabet himself or improved the Getian runes in this way. But it can be argued that the Glagolitic alphabet is at least five centuries older than the Cyrillic alphabet. Knowing this, many historical documents can be overestimated, because they were dated based on the fact that the Glagolitic alphabet was created only in the 9th century, although the Slavs already had their own writing by the end of the 4th century. There are few traces of it left, and this legacy is little studied and not appreciated, since it does not fit into the picture of the invention of Slavic writing by Cyril and Methodius.

What are the most characteristic features of this mysterious alphabet?

The Glagolitic alphabet lacks the Greek letters “xi” and “psi”, which are found in the Cyrillic alphabet. The author of the Glagolitic alphabet was more independent of the Greek alphabet than Cyril, and decided that there was no point in introducing a third letter to combine sounds that already had their own designations. In the Glagolitic alphabet there are two letters to designate hard and soft “g”, which is more consistent with the phonetics of Slavic speech. In the Glagolitic alphabet there are two different letters for the sounds “dz” and “z”. The Cyrillic alphabet initially contained only the letter “z”, but later the Cyrillic alphabet was improved to the level of Glagolitic and the diphthong “dz” began to be represented by a crossed out letter “z”.

It turns out that if the original was written in Glagolitic alphabet, but was copied in Cyrillic, then the copyist, mechanically repeating the letters of the original, actually changed the date - often by decades. This explains some discrepancies in dates. Glagolitic graphics are very intricate and evoke associations with Armenian or Georgian writing. Based on the shape of the letters, two types of Glagolitic can be noted: round Bulgarian and Croatian (Illyrian, Dalmatian) - more angular.

As we can see, the Glagolitic alphabet differs significantly from the Greek letter used in Byzantium. This is another argument against its invention by Constantine. Of course, we can assume that Constantine “from scratch” created a new writing system that was so radically different from the one he was used to. But then the question requires an answer: where did he get these designs, this design principle, because he had little time - Byzantium was sending Constantine on a rather urgent mission.

The position that the “Cyril letter” was created later in Constantinople by one of Cyril’s followers, and it adapted the Greek alphabet for the needs of the Slavic languages, also raises doubts. The Cyrillic alphabet was a very subtle adaptation - it generally retained the internal system of the Glagolitic alphabet, but the Glagolitic letters were replaced by new ones similar to Greek ones, and additional letters to denote special Slavic sounds were stylized as Greek ones. Thus, this letter was Greek in its graphics, and originally Slavic in phonetics. The unknown follower of Constantine must have been a respectable scientist. It’s hard to imagine that he kept silent about his role and allowed his brainchild to be called by someone else’s name.

Moreover, when the Cyrillic alphabet, which belonged to some unknown creator, began to supplant the Glagolitic alphabet, the students and admirers of Cyril and Methodius could not help but react to this, because the transition from the Glagolitic alphabet to the Cyrillic alphabet actually nullified all the work of the brothers. Imagine: translating liturgical books for years, using them for at least 20 years - and suddenly giving up everything and starting to rewrite all the literature into “Cyrillic”? Such a revolution was supposed to cause a struggle between supporters of the innovation and its opponents. The transition to a new font was impossible without convening a special church council, without disputes and differences of opinion, but there is not a word about this in history. There is also not a single church book written in the Glagolitic alphabet.

From all this the conclusion suggests itself that Constantine the Philosopher invented not the Glagolitic alphabet, but the Cyrillic alphabet. And most likely, he did not even invent, but reformed an already existing alphabet. Even before Cyril, the Slavs used both non-Greek and Greek alphabets. In the 18th century, in the hands of the Montenegrin house of princes Chernoevich there was a diploma of Pope Leo IV (847-855), written in Cyrillic. One of the reasons why the document was declared false was that Cyril should have invented the Cyrillic alphabet only in 863.

Another example is the image of Christ on a towel, the so-called image of Veronica, kept among other relics in the Vatican. It is generally accepted that it dates back to the first centuries of Christianity. On it, in addition to the letters IC (Jesus) HS (Christ), there is a clear inscription: “IMAGE OF GSPDN ON UBRUSE” (ubrus - face towel).

The third example is the icon of the apostles Peter and Paul, recorded in the catalog of Giacomo Grimaldi in 1617 under number 52. By the nature of the writing, it dates back to the first centuries of our era. In the central part of the icon at the top is an image of the Savior with the Cyrillic inscription “ICXC”. On the left is the image of St. Peter with the inscription: “STY PETER”. On the right is the image of St. Paul with the inscription: “STA PAVEL”.

The Slavs used Greek-type alphabets centuries before Cyril, so he took the already existing alphabet as a basis, expanded it and created church literature on it. He could not use the Glagolitic alphabet as a basis: it was unsuitable for quick writing due to its complexity; in addition, behind it stood Ulfila, who was not particularly revered by the Orthodox Church. Finally, the Glagolitic alphabet alienated Byzantium with its Greek writing and the Slavs.

Rome was quite loyal to the Glagolitic alphabet. Since 1554, the French kings, upon ascending the throne, swore an oath in the Reims Cathedral on the Gospel. The Gospel consists of two parts: the first is written in Cyrillic and contains readings from the New Testament according to the Slavic rite; the second is written in Glagolitic alphabet and contains readings from the New Testament according to the Catholic rite. On the Glagolitic text there is an inscription in French: “The Year of the Lord 1395. This Gospel and message are written in Slavic. They must be sung throughout the year when the bishop's service is performed. As for the other part of this book, it corresponds to the Russian rite. It was written by St.'s own hand. Prokop, abbot, and this Russian text was donated by the late Charles IV, Emperor of the Roman Empire, to immortalize St. Jerome and St. Prokop. God grant them eternal rest. Amen". It should be noted that St. Prokop, abbot of the monastery in Sazava (died February 25, 1053), served the liturgy according to the Roman Catholic rite, but in the Old Church Slavonic language. According to tradition, the first king to swear on this gospel was Philip I, the son of Henry and Anna, daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, who married in 1048. The gospel may have belonged to Anna, and her son swore on it out of respect for his mother. In any case, the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets coexisted peacefully in the world for many centuries. Roman Catholic Church, in contrast to the Orthodox, where the Glagolitic alphabet was deliberately avoided, although both alphabets were used in parallel in everyday life.

Glagolitic is much older than Cyrillic and phonetically more perfect. Along with the Glagolitic alphabet, the Slavs also used Greek-style alphabets, and it fell to Cyril’s lot only to finalize what was in general use, but had no rules or canon. Thus, both the Glagolitic alphabet and the Cyrillic alphabet were compiled specifically for the Slavic language. The Cyrillic alphabet is graphically a variant of the Greek letter (it was often called the “Greek letter”), and in its sound structure it is an imitation of the Glagolitic alphabet. The Glagolitic alphabet is rather a product of the West - there it developed, there it became more and more consolidated, and there it still exists.

Russian writing has its own history of formation and its own alphabet, which is very different from the same Latin used in most European countries. The Russian alphabet is Cyrillic, or rather its modern, modified version. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

So, what is Cyrillic? This is the alphabet that underlies some Slavic languages, such as Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, Belarusian, Serbian, Macedonian. As you can see, the definition is quite simple.

The history of the Cyrillic alphabet begins in the 9th century, when the Byzantine Emperor Michael III ordered the creation of a new alphabet for the Slavs in order to convey religious texts to believers.

The honor of creating such an alphabet went to the so-called “Thessalonica brothers” - Cyril and Methodius.

But does this give us an answer to the question, what is the Cyrillic alphabet? Partly yes, but there are still some Interesting Facts. For example, the Cyrillic alphabet is an alphabet based on the Greek statutory letter. It is also worth noting that numbers were denoted using some letters of the Cyrillic alphabet. To do this, a special diacritic mark was placed above the combination of letters - the title.

As for the spread of the Cyrillic alphabet, it came to the Slavs only with For example, in Bulgaria the Cyrillic alphabet appeared only in 860, after it adopted Christianity. At the end of the 9th century, the Cyrillic alphabet penetrated into Serbia, and another hundred years later into the territory of Kievan Rus.

Along with the alphabet, church literature, translations of the Gospels, Bibles, and prayers began to spread.

In fact, from this it becomes clear what the Cyrillic alphabet is and where it came from. But has it reached us in its original form? Not at all. Like many things, writing has changed and improved along with our language and culture.

Modern Cyrillic has lost some of its symbols and letters during various reforms. So the following letters disappeared: titlo, iso, kamora, the letters er and er, yat, yus big and small, izhitsa, fita, psi and xi. The modern Cyrillic alphabet consists of 33 letters.

In addition, the alphabetic number has not been used for a long time; it has been completely replaced. The modern version of the Cyrillic alphabet is much more convenient and practical than the one that was a thousand years ago.

So, what is Cyrillic? Cyrillic is an alphabet created by the enlightenment monks Cyril and Methodius on the orders of Tsar Michael III. Having accepted the new faith, we received at our disposal not only new customs, a new deity and culture, but also an alphabet, a lot of translated church literature, which for a long time remained the only type of literature that the educated layers of the population of Kievan Rus could enjoy.

Over the course of time and under the influence of various reforms, the alphabet changed, improved, and extra and unnecessary letters and symbols disappeared from it. The Cyrillic alphabet that we use today is the result of all the metamorphoses that have occurred over more than a thousand years of the existence of the Slavic alphabet.

) Slavic alphabets. Named after the Slavic enlightener of the mid-9th century. Cyril (before accepting monasticism - Constantine), who in 863 created the first Slavic alphabet and, with the help of his brother Methodius, translated Christian liturgical books from Greek into Slavic. The oldest monuments of K. probably arose simultaneously with the oldest monuments of the Glagolitic alphabet. The oldest Cyrillic monuments: ancient Bulgarian - the inscription of Mostich (10th century), the inscription of Tsar Samuil (993), the inscription of Ivan Vladislav (1016); manuscripts from the 11th century. - Book of Savvina, Suprasl manuscript, Eninsky Apostle, as well as more numerous East Slavic ones, among which the dated ones are especially important - the Ostromir Gospel (1056-57), Collections of Svyatoslav (1073 and 1076), Service Menaions (1095, 1096 and 1097), monuments of everyday life correspondence - Birch bark letters.

There are a number of hypotheses about the origin of K. Most scientists, citing the Moravian-Pannonian and Ohrid Glagolitic traditions associated with the activities of Cyril and Methodius (See Cyril and Methodius), the great archaism of many Glagolitic monuments and the Novgorod monument of the 11th century, in which the Glagolitic letter is called K., believe that Cyril created the Glagolitic alphabet, and K. was compiled in Eastern Bulgaria at the end of the 9th century. (in Preslav) to bring Slavic writing closer to the solemn Byzantine one. In ancient K. there are 24 letters of the Greek uncial charter and specially created letters that are absent in the Greek alphabet and necessary to convey the corresponding Slavic sounds (the Charter from the 14th century was replaced by Poluustav, which formed the basis of the first Russian printed fonts. From the end of the 14th century. Cursive is used in everyday and business correspondence , and in book titles - ornamental Elm. In 1708-10, Peter I introduced a “civil” font that was close to the modern one instead of the half-rut. The alphabets of not only the southern and eastern Slavs, but also the majority of the peoples of the USSR and the Mongolian alphabet (via the Russian alphabet) were built on the basis of K.

Lit.: Georgiev E., Slavic writing before Cyril and Methodius, Sofia, 1952; Likhachev D, S., The emergence of Russian literature, M.-L., 1952; Cherepnin L.V., Russian paleography, M., 1956; Istrin V. A., 1100 years of the Slavic alphabet, M., 1963.

V. A. Istrin.

Cyrillic.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1969-1978 .

See what "Cyrillic" is in other dictionaries:

Type: consonantal vocal writing Languages: Old Church Slavonic ... Wikipedia

Cyrillic letter Ӫ Cyrillic ... Wikipedia

Cyrillic letter Ӎ Cyrillic ... Wikipedia

A iotized Cyrillic A B C ... Wikipedia

Cyrillic- Cyrillic. CYRILLIC, one of two (see Glagolitic) Slavic alphabets. Named after the Slavic enlightener Cyril (see Cyril and Methodius). Created on the basis of the Greek (Byzantine) solemn uncial letter at the end of the 9th beginning... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Cyrillic letter Ҷ Cyrillic ... Wikipedia

Big Yus Cyrillic ... Wikipedia

Cyrillic letter Є Cyrillic ... Wikipedia

Cyrillic letter Ђ Cyrillic ... Wikipedia

Cyrillic letter Ҫ Cyrillic ... Wikipedia

Cyrillic letter Y Cyrillic A ... Wikipedia

Books

• Cyrillic in watercolor. Poems, Maxina Elena Leonidovna. Elena Maksina was born in Moscow. Since 1996 he has lived in Philadelphia, USA. Prize-winner of the poetry competition named after N. Gumilev, St. Petersburg, 2008. Winner of the international Silver Sagittarius award, 2009...

Here's the version. Objections are accepted.

The full version of the infographic is below the cut, as well as the answer to the question posed in the title:

Here's a little more detail on the topic:

On May 24, Russia and a number of other countries celebrated the Day of Slavic Literature and Culture. Remembering the enlightenment brothers Cyril and Methodius, they often stated that it is thanks to them that we have the Cyrillic alphabet.

As a typical example, here is a quote from one newspaper article:

Equal to the Apostles Cyril and Methodius brought writing to the Slavic land and created the first Slavic alphabet (Cyrillic alphabet), which we use to this day.

By the way, on icons of Saints Cyril and Methodius they are always depicted with scrolls in their hands. On the scrolls are the well-known Cyrillic letters - az, beeches, vedi...

Here we are dealing with a long-standing and widespread misconception, says senior researcher at the Institute of Russian Language named after V.V. Vinogradova Irina Levontina: “Indeed, everyone knows that we owe our letter to Cyril and Methodius. However, as often happens, everything is not quite like that. Cyril and Methodius are wonderful monastic brothers. It is often written that they translated liturgical books from Greek into Church Slavonic. This is incorrect because there was nothing to translate into, they created this language. Sometimes they say that they translated into South Slavic dialects. That's funny. Try to come to some village where there is such a completely unwritten dialect, there is no television, and translating not even the Gospel, but a physics or history textbook into this dialect - nothing will work. They practically created this language. And what we call the Cyrillic alphabet was not invented by Kirill. Kirill came up with another alphabet, which was called “Glagolitic”. It was very interesting, unlike anything else: it consisted of circles, triangles, and crosses. Later, the Glagolitic alphabet was replaced by another letter: what we now call the Cyrillic alphabet - it was created on the basis of the Greek alphabet.”

“The debate about which alphabet is primary, Cyrillic or Glagolitic, is almost 200 years old. Currently, the opinions of historians boil down to the fact that the Glagolitic alphabet is primary, it was St. Cyril who created it. But there are many opponents to this point of view.” There are four main hypotheses about the origin of these Slavic alphabets.

The first hypothesis says that the Glagolitic alphabet is older than the Cyrillic alphabet, and arose even before Cyril and Methodius. “This is the oldest Slavic alphabet, it is unknown when and by whom it was created. The Cyrillic alphabet, familiar to us all, was created by Saint Cyril, then still Constantine the Philosopher, only in 863, he said. – The second hypothesis states that the oldest is the Cyrillic alphabet. It arose long before the start of the educational mission among the Slavs, as a letter developing historically on the basis of the Greek alphabet, and in 863 Saint Cyril created the Glagolitic alphabet. The third hypothesis suggests that the Glagolitic alphabet is a secret script. Before the start of the Slavic mission, the Slavs did not have any alphabet, at least a working one. In 863, Cyril, then still Constantine, nicknamed the Philosopher, created the future Cyrillic alphabet in Constantinople, and went with his brother to preach the Gospel in the Slavic country of Moravia. Then, after the death of the brothers, during the era of persecution of Slavic culture, worship and writing in Moravia, from the 90s of the 9th century, under Pope Stephen V, the followers of Cyril and Methodius were forced to go underground, and for this purpose they came up with the Glagolitic alphabet, as encrypted reproduction of Cyrillic alphabet. And finally, the fourth hypothesis expresses the idea directly opposite to the third hypothesis that in 863 Cyril in Constantinople created the Glagolitic alphabet, and then, during the era of persecution, when the Slavic followers of the brothers were forced to flee from Moravia and move to Bulgaria, it is not known exactly by whom, Perhaps their students created the Cyrillic alphabet, based on the more complex Glagolitic alphabet. That is, the Glagolitic alphabet was simplified and adapted to the familiar graphics of the Greek alphabet.”

According to Vladimir Mikhailovich, the widespread use of the Cyrillic alphabet has the simplest explanation. The countries in which the Cyrillic alphabet was established were in the sphere of influence of Byzantium. And she used the Greek alphabet, with which the Cyrillic alphabet is seventy percent similar. All letters of the Greek alphabet are included in the Cyrillic alphabet. However, the Glagolitic alphabet did not disappear. “It remained in use literally until the Second World War,” said Vladimir Mikhailovich. – Before the Second World War, Croatian newspapers were published in Glagolitic in Italy, where Croats lived. The Dolmatian Croats were the guardians of the Glagolitic tradition, apparently striving for cultural and national revival.”

The basis for the Glagolitic script is a subject of great scientific debate. “The origins of its writing are seen in the Syriac script and Greek cursive. There are a lot of versions, but they are all hypothetical, since there is no exact analogue, says Vladimir Mikhailovich. “It’s still obvious that the Glagolitic font is of artificial origin. This is evidenced by the order of letters in the alphabet. The letters stood for numbers. In the Glagolitic alphabet everything is strictly systematic: the first nine letters meant units, the next - tens, the subsequent ones - hundreds.”

So who invented the Glagolitic alphabet? That part of the scientists who talk about its primacy believe that it was invented by St. Cyril, a learned man, librarian at the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, and the Cyrillic alphabet was created later, and with its help, after the blessed death of St. Cyril, the work of enlightening the Slavic peoples continued by Cyril’s brother Methodius, who became Bishop of Moravia.

It is also interesting to compare the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet by letter style. In both the first and second cases, the symbolism is very reminiscent of Greek, but the Glagolitic alphabet still has features characteristic only of the Slavic alphabet. Take, for example, the letter “az”. In the Glagolitic alphabet it resembles a cross, and in the Cyrillic alphabet it completely borrows the Greek letter. But this is not the most interesting thing in the Old Slavonic alphabet. After all, it is in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet that each letter represents a separate word, filled with the deep philosophical meaning that our ancestors put into it.

Library HOME SEARCH REFERENCE Paleo-Slavic Studies \ 2. Cyril-Methodievistics \ 2.4. Slavic alphabet - Glagolitic and Cyrillic 2.4.8. The problem of the origin and relative chronology of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet. Discussion about the relationship between two alphabets Discussion about the relationship between two alphabets

The discussion about the relationship between the two alphabets - Cyrillic and Glagolitic - began in the 18th century, actively continued in the 19th century, and has an ambiguous solution in the 20th, with the disputing parties using the same arguments to prove their rightness:

The founder of Slavic studies, J. Dobrovsky, considered the Glagolitic alphabet a very late phenomenon - approximately the 11th century - and considered Croatia as its place of origin. He believed that the Cyrillic letter, which bore clear traces of Byzantine influence, was persecuted by Rome. In an effort to preserve worship in their native language, the Croats came up with the Glagolitic alphabet. This view of the Glagolitic alphabet prevailed until 1836 and was fully consistent with the scientific data of that time: Glagolitic manuscripts older than the 14th century and of non-Croatian origin were not yet known. That is why, despite the fact that such a dating of the Glagolitic alphabet raised objections, the first defenders of the antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet had to operate in their argumentation with general considerations: the specific style of Glagolitic letters, which is more consistent with ancient evidence of new scripts invented by Cyril, while the Cyrillic alphabet, based on the Greek alphabet, was more difficult to call new.

Supporters of such a relative chronology of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet were I.I. Sreznevsky, A.I. Sobolevsky, E.F. Karsky, P.Ya. Black. Moravia and Bulgaria were also mentioned as possible places of origin of the Glagolitic alphabet.

In 1836, for the first time, a real basis for thinking about the antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet appeared. A Glagolitic manuscript was found and published, known in Russian tradition as the Klotz Collection. Based on the testimony of this monument, its publisher V. Kopitar put forward the hypothesis that the Glagolitic alphabet is more ancient than the Cyrillic alphabet, considering the Glagolitic alphabet to be the invention of Cyril. In 1836 there were still not enough facts to make this conclusion unambiguous, but subsequent discoveries more and more confirmed Kopitar’s thought. In the 40s of the 19th century, the Russian Slavist V. I. Grigorovich brought from his trip to Mount Athos and the Balkan Peninsula a whole series of data that had important for the correlation between the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet. He discovered a number of Glagolitic monuments: the Count's Four Gospels, the Mariinsky Gospel, the Cyrillic monument of the 13th century, the so-called Boyana Palimpsest, in which on some pages the Cyrillic text was written over the washed-out Glagolitic, the Ohrid Apostle of the 12th century, in which individual fragments were written in Glagolitic. Grigorovich also found the Greek life of St. Clement, which reported that St. Clement invented a new "clearer" alphabet. In 1855, Prague Glagolitic passages with Czech features in the language were discovered. The analysis of this monument allowed P.Y. Safarik to formulate, on the basis of convincing arguments, a scientifically substantiated hypothesis of the correlation between the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet, recognized by the majority of Slavists: the Glagolitic alphabet is older than the Cyrillic alphabet; the Glagolitic alphabet is the invention of Cyril; the Cyrillic alphabet is the invention of Kliment Ohridski. Research of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. - the works of S. M. Kulbakin, A. Vaian, B. Velchev, V. Georgiev and others - finally established that Kirill created the Glagolitic alphabet. The position was also confirmed that the Cyrillic alphabet was formed on the territory of the first Bulgarian kingdom as a result of the synthesis of the Greek letter, which had long been widespread here, and those elements of the Glagolitic alphabet that could best convey the features of the language of the Slavic (ancient Bulgarian) population. Arguments of P.Y. Safarik in defense of the antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet

In his 1857 work “On the Origin and Homeland of Glagoliticism,” P. Y. Safarik gives the following arguments in defense of his hypothesis about the temporal correlation of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet:

In the regions, or where the preaching of the first teachers penetrated early, we find not the Cyrillic alphabet, but the Glagolitic alphabet; The language of the most ancient Glagolitic monuments is more archaic than the language of the Cyrillic monuments; In most palimpsests, the earlier text is Glagolitic; Kiev Glagolitic leaves, the only Old Church Slavonic manuscript, which, judging by according to paleographic data, dates back to the 10th century, indicating West Slavic origin; Croats from the 12th century. Only the Glagolitic alphabet has been recorded to this day. Meanwhile, already in the 10th century, at a local council, the Slavic liturgy was condemned as an evil that was firmly rooted in the Croatian regions. And at that time she could only reach the Croats from Pannonia. Consequently, the Glagolitic alphabet was brought to Pannonia by the brothers; It would be unnatural to replace the simple and clear Cyrillic alphabet with an elaborate and difficult to write Glagolitic alphabet. It is precisely because of the pretentiousness and complexity of the Glagolitic alphabet that it can more easily be imagined as the result of an individual act of creativity, such as the alphabet created by Constantine in the 9th century.

To the objections of opponents of his theory, who referred to the very name “Cyrillic alphabet” and its most logical interpretation as “the alphabet created by Cyril,” Safarik pointed to the possibility of mixing the names of both Slavic alphabets by subsequent generations, and he managed to find factual confirmation of this assumption.

Safarik P.Y. On the origin and homeland of Glagoliticism // Readings of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities. Book IV. 1860. Dept. III. pp. 1-66

Actual confirmation of the hypothesis of P.Y. Safarika

P.Y. Safarik managed to find factual confirmation of the greater antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet. In the Cyrillic copy of the Book of the Prophets, made in 1499, the entry of the original of 1047 is repeated. This entry was made in 1047 by the priest Upir Likhoy. It states:

The postscript indicates that this Cyrillic manuscript was copied from the original, written in a different script than the manuscript of Upir the Likhy, which the Novgorodians called Cyrillic; in the manuscript itself there are Glagolitic letters and even whole words, proving that the original was written in Glagolitic alphabet. Obviously, in Novgorod in the 11th century. Glagolitic was called Cyrillic.