A brief history of the Cyrillic alphabet. Who created the Cyrillic alphabet? The Cyrillic alphabet, its origin and development
The generally accepted date for the emergence of writing among the Slavs is considered to be 863, but some researchers argue that they knew how to write in Rus' even earlier.
Closed topic
The topic of pre-Christian writing in Ancient Rus' was considered in Soviet science, if not forbidden, then quite closed. Only in recent decades have a number of works devoted to this problem appeared.
For example, in the fundamental monograph “History of Writing” by N.A. Pavlenko offers six hypotheses for the origin of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet, and argues that both the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet were among the Slavs in pre-Christian times.
Myth or reality
Historian Lev Prozorov is confident that there is more than enough evidence of the existence of writing before the appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet in Rus'. He argues that our distant ancestors could not only write individual words, but also draw up legal documents.
As an example, Prozorov draws attention to the conclusion of an agreement by the Prophetic Oleg with Byzantium. The document deals with the consequences of the death of a Russian merchant in Constantinople: if a merchant dies, then one should “deal with his property as he wrote in his will.” However, in what language such wills were written will not be specified.
In the “Lives of Methodius and Cyril,” compiled in the Middle Ages, it is written about how Cyril visited Chersonesus and saw there the Holy Books written in “Roussian letters.” However, many researchers tend to be critical of this source. For example, Victor Istrin believes that the word “Rous” should be understood as “Sour”, that is, Syrian writing.
However, there is other evidence confirming that the pagan Slavs still had writing. You can read about this in the chronicles of Western authors - Helmold of Bossau, Thietmar of Merseburg, Adam of Bremen, who, when describing the shrines of the Baltic and Polabian Slavs, mention inscriptions on the bases of the statues of the Gods.
The Arab chronicler Ibn-Fodlan wrote that he saw with his own eyes the burial of the Rus and how a memorial marker was installed on his grave - a wooden pillar on which the name of the deceased himself and the name of the Tsar of the Rus were carved.
Archeology
The presence of writing among the ancient Slavs is indirectly confirmed by excavations in Novgorod. At the site of the old settlement, writing was discovered - rods that were used to write inscriptions on wood, clay or plaster. The finds date back to the mid-10th century, despite the fact that Christianity penetrated Novgorod only at the end of the 10th century.
The same writings were found in Gnezdovo during excavations of ancient Smolensk; moreover, there is archaeological evidence of the use of writing rods. In a mound from the mid-10th century, archaeologists unearthed a fragment of an amphora, where they read the inscription in Cyrillic: “Dog’s pea.”
Ethnographers believe that “Pea” is a protective name that was given by our ancestors so that “grief would not become attached.”
Also among the archaeological finds of ancient Slavic settlements are the remains of swords, on the blades of which the blacksmiths engraved their name. For example, on one of the swords found near the village of Foshchevataya you can read the name “Ludota”.
"With lines and cuts"
If the appearance of samples of Cyrillic writing in pre-Christian times can still be disputed, in particular, explained by the incorrect dating of the find, then writing with “lines and cuts” is a sign of a more ancient culture. The Bulgarian monk Chernorizets Khrabr mentions this method of writing, still popular among the Slavs even after baptism, in his treatise “On Writing” (beginning of the 10th century).
By “lines and cuts,” according to scientists, they most likely meant a type of pictographic-tamga and counting writing, which was also known among other peoples in the early stages of their development.
Attempts to decipher the inscriptions made according to the “damn and cut” type were made by the Russian amateur codebreaker Gennady Grinevich. In total, he examined about 150 inscriptions found in the territory of settlement of the Eastern and Western Slavs (IV-X centuries AD). Upon careful study of the inscriptions, the researcher identified 74 main signs, which, in his opinion, formed the basis of the syllabic Old Slavic letter.
Grinevich also suggested that some examples of Proto-Slavic syllabic writing were made using pictorial signs - pictograms. For example, an image of a horse, dog or spear means that you need to use the first syllables of these words - “lo”, “so” and “ko”.
With the advent of the Cyrillic alphabet, the syllabary, according to the researcher, did not disappear, but began to be used as a secret writing. Thus, on the cast-iron fence of the Slobodsky Palace in Moscow (now the building of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University), Grinevich read how “the Hasid Domenico Gilardi has the cook of Nicholas I in his power.”
"Slavic runes"
A number of researchers are of the opinion that Old Slavic writing is an analogue of Scandinavian runic writing, which is allegedly confirmed by the so-called “Kiev Letter” (a document dating back to the 10th century), issued to Yaakov Ben Hanukkah by the Jewish community of Kyiv. The text of the document is written in Hebrew, and the signature is made in runic symbols, which have not yet been read.
The German historian Konrad Schurzfleisch writes about the existence of runic writing among the Slavs. His 1670 dissertation deals with the schools of the Germanic Slavs, where children were taught runes. As proof, the historian cited a sample of the Slavic runic alphabet, similar to the Danish runes of the 13th-16th centuries.
Writing as a witness to migration
The above-mentioned Grinevich believes that with the help of the Old Slavic syllabary alphabet it is also possible to read Cretan inscriptions of the 20th-13th centuries. BC, Etruscan inscriptions of the 8th-2nd centuries. BC, Germanic runes and ancient inscriptions of Siberia and Mongolia.
In particular, according to Grinevich, he was able to read the text of the famous “Phaistos Disc” (Crete, 17th century BC), which tells about the Slavs who found a new homeland in Crete. However, the researcher's bold conclusions raise serious objections from academic circles.
Grinevich is not alone in his research. Back in the first half of the 19th century, the Russian historian E. I. Klassen wrote that “the Slavic Russians, as a people educated earlier than the Romans and Greeks, left behind in all parts of the old world many monuments testifying to their presence there and to ancient writing.”
The Italian philologist Sebastiano Ciampi showed in practice that there was a certain connection between the ancient Slavic and European cultures.
To decipher the Etruscan language, the scientist decided to try to rely not on Greek and Latin, but on one of the Slavic languages, which he knew well - Polish. Imagine the surprise of the Italian researcher when some Etruscan texts began to lend themselves to translation.
Chapter 14. Origin of the Cyrillic alphabet and its variants
To get acquainted with the state of affairs, let us first consider how modern Soviet science presents the issue, and for this we take two works: “The Old Slavonic Language” by A.A. Selishcheva, 1951, vol. 1–2; “History of the Old Russian language” L.P. Yakubinsky, 1953; they are a summary of modern Russian philology.
After a critical examination of the views of these authors, we will present the history of the Cyrillic alphabet as it appears to us on the basis of all the material available to us.
The following main points are shared by both mentioned authors.
1) From the very beginning of Slavic alphabetic writing, there were two systems, two alphabets: Glagolitic and Cyrillic.
2) Glagolitic was older than Cyrillic and was eventually replaced by Cyrillic everywhere (with very rare exceptions).
3) Although the Cyrillic alphabet takes its name from St. Cyril (Constantine), who allegedly invented it, in reality it was not the Cyrillic alphabet that he created, but the Glagolitic alphabet.
4) Since the Glagolitic alphabet was invented by St. Cyril, it naturally follows that Slavic writing was born no earlier than 863, when Cyril and Methodius went to Moravia with the express purpose of creating a Slavic alphabet, translating liturgical books from Greek into Old Church Slavonic (using the newly invented alphabet) and to introduce the Western Slavs to the Orthodox faith.
The material we have presented proves absolutely irrefutably that both Soviet scientists, first of all, simplified the actual past to the extreme: they took away centuries of history from the Slavic alphabet. An incredible situation turned out: scientists who profess dialectical materialism, according to which everything happens in time and space, from the old to the new, stand in the position of “there will be food!”, i.e., creation immediately from nothing. We, of course, will not consider whether dialectical materialism is good or bad, but we think everyone will agree that if we recognize it, we must be consistent.
However, both Soviet researchers not only simplified the process, but also distorted it. This is where we come to.
Yakubinsky writes: “When he (that is, Saint Cyril, aka Constantine. - S.L.) were instructed to compile an alphabet for the Slavs, he understood this task as the task of compiling a special, special Slavic alphabet.”
This reasoning, like all subsequent ones, is based only on bare assumption and takes as its basis the idea that Cyril invented the Glagolitic alphabet, but this is precisely not the case.
“For him,” continues Yakubinsky, “the question was not at all such that, compiling the Slavic alphabet, he must certainly impose Greek writing on the Slavs; If the question before Constantine had been like this, he would certainly have based the Slavic letter compiled for the translation of liturgical books on the Greek liturgical charter, but this is precisely what he did not do.”
How the question stood before Kirill is, of course, unknown to Yakubinsky, and he takes too much upon himself in attributing certain intentions to Kirill, and precisely because he does not really know the history of writing and does not understand, first of all, the main thing - that Kirill was Greek worked according to orders Greek Emperor and in favor Greek Church, therefore it would be completely unnatural to invent an alphabet against interests her.
In addition, he had to translate the liturgical books in the shortest possible time, and it follows that he could only choose the easiest cursive script. The Greek liturgical charter, with its writing out of each letter, was terribly cumbersome and required a lot of labor and time, which is why he could only take any type of cursive as the basis for the new alphabet.
“The basis of the Slavic alphabet he compiled,” continues Yakubinsky, “Konstantin put rudimentary Slavic writing(emphasized by the author. - S.L.). But this embryonic Slavic letter, as we see, was based on Greek-Latin cursive writing; This is where the connection between the Glagolitic alphabet and cursive, discovered by most scientists, comes from.
By basing the letter (Glagolitic) he was composing on the rudimentary letter already existing among the Slavs, Constantine was guided, perhaps, by fundamental considerations: the Glagolitic alphabet was already in its origins not only a letter for the Slavs, but also a Slavic letter. He was probably guided by practical considerations. He believed that an alphabet compiled on the basis of the rudimentary writing already available to the Slavs would be practically more acceptable to the Slavs, more accessible to them.”
And here it should be noted that both the “principled” and “practical” considerations attributed by Yakubinsky to Kirill are completely arbitrary. If Yakubinsky were in Kirill’s place, then perhaps he would have thought so. But Kirill was a man of a completely different era, a different mindset, a different nationality. And what he thought - only he knows. Yakubinsky’s method of guessing other people’s thoughts can hardly be considered a scientific method.
Cyril and Methodius translate books into Slavic. Radziwill Chronicle
If Yakubinsky’s statements have their own logic, then it turns against him: as we will see below, Kirill invented the Cyrillic alphabet, and not the Glagolitic alphabet at all, and all of Yakubinsky’s reasoning is completely in vain.
Yakubinsky further suggests that the Slavs had a rudimentary writing system close to Latin and Greek cursive. This assumption is quite probable, but I wanted Yakubinsky to show us at least a piece of paper, parchment, or even some kind of inscription in this “rudimentary” letter. All his reasoning is pure theorizing and unproven theorizing.
Yakubinsky does not understand that, having touched on the history of any written language, it is necessary to consider the issue historically, become familiar with archaeological data, and study the legacy of scientists who have already dealt with this topic. Yakubinsky has none of this: he did not use a single archaeological fact to prove the presence of “rudimentary” writing among the Slavs (and there is something in this regard), he did not mention a single Western European scientist from those who studied the theory of the Cyrillic alphabet, which, whatever you say, it is a product of the West, etc.
It follows further: “The rudimentary Slavic letter, which Constantine laid as the basis for the Slavic alphabet (Glagolitic) he compiled, was, as we have seen, a letter of the cursive type; It was therefore distinguished by the coherent nature of the writing (without lifting the hand), the variety in the styles of individual letters, and the general lack of formality and fluidity.”
These statements are incorrect. 1) There is not a single sample of the Glagolitic alphabet where writing is done without lifting the hand (each letter is written separately, and this requires complex movements that are impossible without lifting the hand). 2) The writing of Glagolitic letters is much more complex than both Latin and Greek cursive.
Why?! After all, Yakubinsky had just argued that it was the rudimentary cursive Slavic letter that was taken as the basis, that Cyril had his own “principled” and “practical” considerations on this matter. Positively, something is wrong with Yakubinsky’s logic and he is cruelly mistaken in believing that the reader treats everything with open ears.
We follow further: “Constantine was faced with a difficult task: on the basis of the vague and fluid material of cursive writing, he had to create a unified and clear system Slavic graphemes(graphic types), stylizing individual cursive writing; he had to transform the cursive material into the statutory letter, because he was compiling an alphabet for translating liturgical books.”
Here Yakubinsky contradicts what he said in the very first quote and throughout everything that follows. He began with the fact that Cyril abandoned the Greek charter and took as a basis a hypothetical Slavic cursive letter, and ended with Cyril making a new charter from this cursive writing! Was it worth it to fence the garden? Where is the logic?
All of the above and below quotes from Yakubinsky are complete fornication and have nothing in common with science, for science is an iron grip of facts, positions and evidence.
So, according to Yakubinsky, all the merit of Kirill is that he stylized a ready-made alphabet according to a single type. The merit is small. But just listen to what Yakubinsky writes about this!
“Konstantin compiled a special Slavic alphabet. This alphabet, according to the unanimous opinion of our and European science, represents an unsurpassed example in the history of new European alphabets and is the result of an unusually subtle understanding by the compiler of the phonetic system of the language for which it was compiled. It leaves far behind the respectable Gothic alphabet compiled by Bishop Wulfila, and cannot be compared with the Latin-shaped European alphabets, in which Latin letters were clumsily adapted to convey the sounds of various European languages.
This quote has it all: unbridled glorification backed by the most undisguised chauvinism with such fanfare expressions as “unsurpassed example”, “extraordinarily subtle understanding”, etc. - glorification flavored with lies. Why lies? 1) Latin-style fonts are no worse than Glagolitic, which is proven primarily by the fact that Glagolitic has long been supplanted by both Latin and Cyrillic. 2) Even the Cyrillic alphabet is inferior to the Latin alphabets in simplicity, convenience and clarity, and this was reflected in the fact that the further evolution of the Cyrillic alphabet went in the direction of imitation of Latin fonts. 3) The system of writing the Latin alphabet is much closer graphically, according to the principle of its construction, to both the Glagolitic alphabet and the Cyrillic alphabet (in particular) than, say, to the system of Arabic, Georgian or Armenian writing. 4) Finally (and most importantly), it’s enough to look at the Glagolitic alphabet with such ridiculous styles as, for example, “uk”, or “z”, or “ch”, or “yat”, or “i”, to understand that in The Glagolitic alphabet has neither cursive writing, nor simplicity, nor clarity, nor beauty. In short, all of Yakubinsky’s compliments are in the wrong place: he’s praising the wrong person!
Further, one of two things: either Kirill is a major scientist and innovator, then the laudatory review is justified to a certain extent, or he is a very modest philologist who only managed to polish what was already ready, and this is exactly what Yakubinsky was talking about before.
We quote further: “Konstantin performed his tasks perfectly. Glagolitic, from the point of view of both unity and clarity of graphic style, represents a very consistent system of signs and graphemes. It remains unclear where Konstantin got the very principle of the graphic style, the graphic design of the Glagolitic alphabet. There is, however, reason to think that he took it from the graphic style of local Slavic ideographic signs. In any case, the graphic style of the Glagolitic alphabet is unusually close to the graphic style of some types of ideographic signs of the Black Sea region, widespread beyond its borders; it is possible that signs of a similar nature existed in the Balkans and in other areas of the Slavs. If this assumption were confirmed, then we would have here another argument in favor of the fact that Constantine built his alphabet as a special Slavic alphabet.”
From what Yakubinsky said it follows that: 1) all his reasoning is just unconfirmed assumptions, about one of which he himself says: “.. if this assumption were confirmed.” 2) That Yakubinsky takes on the solution of a scientific question, completely ignorant in the field of comparative linguistics. It wouldn’t even occur to him to compare the Glagolitic alphabet with the alphabet of Jews, Georgians, Armenians, etc. And if he did this, he would see that some letters were entirely borrowed from the Glagolitic alphabet from Hebrew, for example, the letter “sh,” etc. d.
We continue the quotation: “The glagolic letter, intended for the translation of Greek liturgical books into the Slavic language, turned out to be sharply different from the contemporary Greek liturgical charter. This circumstance did not bother Constantine at all, and he sought to create a special Slavic alphabet. But the Byzantine ecclesiastical and secular authorities viewed this differently.”
“Fa?on de parler” (French “manner of expression.” - Note edit.) Yakubinsky is not only surprised, but even outraged. He, you see, is so well aware of what was going on in Cyril’s soul that he knows what circumstances bothered or did not bother Cyril, knows whether the “Byzantine ecclesiastical and secular authorities” were satisfied, etc.
After all, it’s audacity to tell tales of the 1001st night as applied to science. I can’t believe that such metaphysical reasoning could survive in Soviet science. Instead of a thorough analysis of specific facts, Yakubinsky treats readers to guesses about whether Byzantium was satisfied or dissatisfied with Cyril’s work. There is not the slightest historical hint of dissatisfaction in Byzantium with Cyril’s zeal. Yes, it couldn’t exist, because Kirill invented Cyrillic, and all the reasoning of the philological Vralman is idle talk.
Further: “Following this first “mistake,” Constantine made, from the point of view of the Byzantine ruling circles, a second, perhaps even more rude: he approved his Slavic letter, so unlike the Greek letter, with the Pope, the enemy and rival of the Byzantine patriarch. Liturgical books written in Glagolitic script were consecrated by the pope and allowed into circulation among the Slavs. They thus ceased to be an instrument for the spread of specifically Byzantine influence.”
It is hardly worth adding that there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim that the books approved by the pope were written in the Glagolitic alphabet. Then. Yakubinsky does not know that the pope's blessing lasted only a few years. After his death, the new pope imposed a ban, because the Cyrillic alphabet really strengthened the Greek influence in Western countries: it was the “Greek letter.” Yakubinsky does not understand that Cyril was forced to ask the pope for a blessing for all his books, being a Byzantine missionary of Christianity in the lands of sovereigns subordinate to the pope, some formally, others informally. The papal blessing was a triumph for both Cyril and Byzantium, and was therefore soon withdrawn.
Let us now move on to the most important passage: “Under these conditions, in Constantinople, as if following the Glagolitic alphabet, the so-called "Kirillov's letter". It was an adaptation of the Greek liturgical charter for the needs of the Slavic languages. One should not, however, think that the Cyrillic alphabet was a crude adaptation of the Greek charter for the Slavic languages. On the contrary, the Cyrillic alphabet was a very subtle adaptation of the Greek charter for the Slavs. The Cyrillic alphabet generally preserves the internal system of the remarkable Constantine Glagolitic alphabet. The changes consisted mainly in the fact that the Glagolitic letters were replaced by new ones similar to the Greek charter ones, and the additional letters introduced by Constantine to denote special Slavic sounds were stylized to resemble the Greek charter. This letter (Kirill's) was truly Greek in its graphic type; from the outside, Greek and Cyrillic texts sometimes give the impression of complete identity.”
We deliberately presented large quotes in their sequence in order to show the complete groundlessness of Yakubinsky’s constructions and so that no one would accuse us of taking one unsuccessful idea and directing all criticism only at it. No, we outlined Yakubinsky’s entire concept.
Let us now move on to the actual criticism and conclusions.
1. Yakubinsky completely ignores the facts we cited above that the Glagolitic alphabet existed centuries before Cyril. He doesn’t say a word about the great Western European literature, which believes that the Glagolitic alphabet was invented by St. Jerome, and therefore his conclusions are unauthorized, because they are based on insufficient knowledge of the subject as a whole.
2. Yakubinsky recognizes: 1) the high merits of the Cyrillic alphabet; 2) that it is younger than the Glagolitic alphabet; 3) that according to the internal system it was a variant of the latter, but graphically it was similar to Greek writing. Naturally, the question arises: who actually invented the Cyrillic alphabet? Yakubinsky answers: someone in Constantinople.
But to invent the Cyrillic alphabet, the high merits of which are recognized by Yakubinsky himself, the inventor must be a person of very solid scholarship. It’s hard to imagine that this inventor kept silent about his role and allowed his brainchild to be called by someone else’s name. Of course, others could not allow this either - after all, the plagiarism was obvious. We must not forget that this happened when Slavic writing had already been created, and there were already special works (for example, Brave) about its history. But in these works there is not a word about the Glagolitic alphabet or the two rival Slavic alphabets.
3. Next. If the Cyrillic alphabet, which belonged to some unknown creator, began to supplant the Glagolitic alphabet, the disciples of Cyril and Methodius, who could not help but honor Cyril, could not help but react to this. Consequently, an official struggle in the church was inevitable, but there is not the slightest trace of it.
4. Finally, such an important event as the transition from the Glagolitic alphabet to a completely new alphabet (Cyrillic alphabet) could not fail to be reflected in Byzantine, Roman or Slavic literature. After all, in fact, this nullified all the work of Cyril and Methodius. It’s a joke to say: translate liturgical books for several years, use them for at least 20 years (i.e. after the death of Methodius) and suddenly give up everything and start rewriting all the literature into “Cyrillic”.
After all, it would be a colossal cultural revolution that would not leave the slightest trace!
Such a revolution was bound to provoke a fierce struggle between supporters of the innovation and its opponents. Yakubinsky completely forgets the era and the literal fanaticism in religion that reigned everywhere at that time: because of whether to write “consubstantial” or “similar in essence,” people were anathematized, killed, burned at the stake!
If until now the “firm sign” or “yat” are ready to become almost the banner of the struggle of two antagonists, then what can we say about that era when they were attached to every point and comma. So the transition to a new font was impossible without convening a special church council, without debates, disputes, differences of opinion and decisions. There is not a word about this in history! It’s interesting to know whether Yakubinsky (and others like him) consider us to be some kind of cretins who know nothing about the past?!
The entire church tradition, not only of Byzantium, Rus', but also of Rome, considered and still considers Cyril the inventor of the Cyrillic alphabet. Are we really supposed to take the entire clergy and scientists of past centuries as ignoramuses and klutzes who could not figure out who invented the Cyrillic alphabet?
We chose Yakubinsky’s idle talk on purpose to show that philology, in particular in Soviet philology, is far from prosperous: it is enough to say something stupid to someone, and it will be picked up - and only because it is new.
Let us now move directly to the consideration of the Cyrillic alphabet, or, as it was otherwise called, “church alphabet,” etc. First of all, we note that the name “Cyrillic alphabet” comes, of course, from the name of St. Cyril. There is absolutely no reason to see anything different in this name (Zhunkovich, 1918). It is true that the word “Cyrillic” has many variants: “Kurillic”, “Cyrulica”, etc. But these variants come from the same root: in ancient times they wrote: Cyril, and Kurill, and Kur, and Cyrus, and etc., therefore word production is not in doubt, especially since everyone understands that this alphabet is associated with the name of the inventor.
However, in the light of all the data that we now have, we cannot attribute to Kirill the role of the inventor of the “Cyrillic alphabet”. His role is more modest: he is a reformer of the alphabet that existed before him. And only such a large and important action as the translation of sacred books into the Slavic language in Slavic script gave everyone reason to consider him the inventor of the Cyrillic alphabet.
Already the theoretical formulation of the question of the “invention” of a new alphabet at a certain point in time (around 863) is extremely doubtful. The need for writing among the Slavs did not appear in 863, it existed centuries earlier. And there can be no doubt that, knowing about the existence of runic, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, etc. writing, the Slavs could not help but try to use foreign alphabets, adapting them for their needs, or gradually develop their own. It could not be otherwise if we do not deny the Slavs that they were people.
This postulate is confirmed by the testimony of the monk Brave, the discovery by St. Cyril in Korsun of the “Korsunitsa” invented by some Rusyn, the tradition of the Russian church (“the diploma of the Rus appeared. Given by God, in Korsun to the Rusyns, from her Konstantin the Philosopher learned”), and finally, “ Vlesovitsa,” which will be discussed later.
Even before Cyril, the Slavs used both non-Greek and Greek alphabets. Therefore, he really acted “practically” (according to Yakubinsky) - he took as a basis the Greek-type alphabet that already existed among the Slavs in circulation, but supplemented it, and most importantly, created an entire church literature on it.
He could not take the Glagolitic alphabet as a basis: it was unsuitable for cursive writing, behind it were Ulfila, Eusebius, Jerome, etc. - persons, from the point of view of the Orthodox Church, either outright or suspected heretics. Finally, the Glagolitic alphabet did not bring the Greeks closer to the Slavs, but separated them.
Rome's attitude towards the Glagolitic alphabet has always been more tolerant. And perhaps because it was officially associated with the name of St. Jerome. This is indirectly indicated by the Reims Gospel, which was located in the cathedral in Reims from 1554 (the French kings swore allegiance there upon their accession to the throne).
From this it is clear how reverent the Gospel was. It has 45 leaves, written on both sides, and consists of two parts: the 1st, of 16 leaves, written in Cyrillic and contains readings from the New Testament on Sundays according to the Slavic rite; Byzantine manuscript ornament, 9th–10th centuries; The 2nd, of 29 leaves, in Glagolitic alphabet, contains readings from the New Testament on Sundays (from Color Week to the Annunciation) according to the Catholic rite.
The Glagolitic text has 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".
Thus, it is indirectly indicated that the Cyrillic alphabet was written by Saint Procopius, and the Glagolitic alphabet by Saint Jerome. Saint Prokop, abbot of the monastery in Sazava, died on 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 allegiance to this Gospel was Philip I, the son of Henry and Anna, daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, who were married in 1048. It is believed that the Gospel may have belonged to Anna. And her son, Philip I, swore allegiance to him out of reverence for his mother. In any case, the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet coexisted peacefully for many centuries in the Roman Catholic Church.
Things were different in the Orthodox Church in Rus'. Absolutely indisputable traces of the Glagolitic alphabet were found here, but not a single monument written in it. The Glagolitic alphabet was known, but it was deliberately avoided and was sometimes used as secret writing.
We will focus on one detail to highlight the history of the Glagolitic alphabet in Rus'. In 1047, the Novgorod priest Upyr Likhoy (what a suitable surname for a priest!) rewrote the “Book of Prophets with Interpretations.” In the postscript he wrote: “Glory to you, Lord, the Heavenly King, for you have made me worthy to write this book to Prince Volodimer of Kouril, Prince of Novegrad, son of Yaroslavl Bolshemou.”
The meaning of the expression “is kourilovice” does not seem to us as clear and convincing as it seems to Angelov (see his work mentioned above). He believes that “the scribe wanted to emphasize that his book is a translation or copy not from the Greek original, but from a Slavic book. With the words “is kourilovice” the copyist tried to raise the authority of his book.”
This explanation seems completely unconvincing and even illogical to us. In fact, what does it matter if a person rewrites some document written in Cyrillic in the same Cyrillic alphabet? There is no authority or just logic in this.
Another explanation is possible: “is kourilovice” meant not “from Cyrillic”, but “Cyrillic”. Even to this day you can hear in the south the incorrect, but popular, “with your hand” instead of “with your hand.” In this case, the postscript becomes clear and appropriate: the copyist indicates that he did not just rewrite the text, but transliterated it into Cyrillic from another alphabet (obviously, Glagolitic), by this he can really emphasize the value of his work.
Since this postscript was preserved not in the original, but in a copy of 1499, i.e., after 452, and, perhaps, is not the first copy, but a copy from a copy, it was enough for the copyist to make a small typo or “correct” the text according to the spelling of his time - and we could get what we have. If our guess is correct, this shows that already in the time of Yaroslav the Wise the Glagolitic alphabet was on the decline, being replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet.
It is worth touching on the only supposed documentary evidence that Cyril invented the Glagolitic alphabet. In one of the chronographs of 1494 there is an entry: “In the days of Michael the king of the Greek(European) and in the days of Prince Rerek of Novgorod... Saint Constantine the Philosopher, called Cyril, created a letter in verbal (obviously, Slovenian) language, verb lititsa.”
It is assumed that it was written “Glagolitsu”, that is, it was written “g” with a title, but in the correspondence the title disappeared or was not deciphered, and the following edition was published.
Of course, no one is prohibited from guessing, but if the guess is not confirmed and contradicts all available data, then such a guess should disappear.
In contrast, we will cite an excerpt from the “Anthology of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra”, 1619, under the day of February 14: “To the Holy Memory of Cyril, Bishop of Moravia, Apostle of the Slavs and Bulgarians, who created the Slavic alphabet from the Greek letter and baptized the Slavs and Bulgarians.”
The same source under May 11 says: “To the holy memory of Methodius, Bishop of Moravia, who was the brother of Cyril the Philosopher, Apostle of the Slavs, who invented the Slavic letter and explained it to Basil the Macedonian.”
The first passage directly says that Cyril created the Slavic script from Greek, Glagolitic has nothing in common with Greek. The second passage clarifies the time of creation of the Cyrillic alphabet.
Thus, in the citadel of Russian Orthodoxy - the Kiev Pechersk Lavra - they looked at things clearly and definitely back in 1619, and the text does not require any “amendments”. If we take into account what the monk Brave says in the 1st half of the 10th century, then there is no doubt that Cyril invented the Cyrillic alphabet. We do not present further evidence (and there is a lot of it) as it is completely unnecessary.
Thus, we can claim that the Slavs have had it since at least the 4th century. had its own alphabet - the Glagolitic alphabet, most likely invented by Ulfila. In addition, there is a lot of evidence that before the Cyrillic alphabet there were many attempts (and serious ones) to write the Greek type in a script very similar to the Cyrillic alphabet, i.e. that the Cyrillic alphabet had predecessors.
It is interesting to note the opinion of D.S. Likhacheva (“Questions of History”, 1951, No. 12, p. 14): “The ancient alphabet could have been the Glagolitic alphabet, but this does not mean that next to the Glagolitic alphabet the Russian population of the northern Black Sea region, which was in close contact with the Greek colonies, could not use the letters of the Greek alphabet for writing in Russian. It was these letters that could give rise to the later Cyrillic alphabet.”
Such sensible thoughts of a Soviet historian are especially pleasant to read after Yakubinsky’s nonsense.
The idea that the Cyrillic alphabet, so to speak, was in use long before Cyril, has many convincing considerations in its favor. Re-reading Caesar recently, we came across his categorical statement that the Celts in France used Greek letters for their writing (this is despite the presence of a Latin culture nearby!). And that was still BC.
If the influence of Greek culture even reached the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, then it is even more likely that it was experienced by other peoples very nearby or who were subordinate to the Greeks.
We have already talked about geth. Monk Brave wrote that the Slavs used Greek and Latin letters, but the Slavic text: “kanas (obviously, prince) Omortag.” This prince Omortag left behind a whole library of inscriptions on stones and columns in which he talks about his successes. These inscriptions deserve special work, but in the presence of the Yakubinskys and Selishchevs it is difficult to expect action in this direction. There are other inscriptions: for example, “kanes Malamir” is a vivid example of writing “without dispensation”.
Let us turn to a more extensive example that requires comment. In the 18th century, in the hands of the Montenegrin house of princes Chernoevich there was a diploma of Pope Leo (Lev) IV (847–855), written in Cyrillic, with the following content (we transmit the text according to Zhunkovic): “Bozieju milostiju mi Leon cetverti papa vethego Rima, i sudija selenski (omitted „v“), namjestnik svetago verhovnago apostola Petra: daem I razdelaem episkopate po pravilom svetih apostolov. I daem vlast preozvestenjeisemu mitropolitu Albaneskomu, da imjeet silu i vlast duhovnu i nikotorim carem ili vlastitelem da ne budet otemljeno po potvrzeno i sederzano po pravilom svetih apostol Petra i Pavla i procih. I da budut semu episkopu granice ili kufini od istoka od Olbanie kako sostoit Skadar do Bielogo polja, od zapada kako sostoie adrianickoe more do Ragusii, od severa da imjeet do Zahlmie. Sila duhovnie vlasti da imjeet vezati i resiti. Dato v Ljeto Hristovo 843 va vethom Rime.” The letters meaning numbers in the original were replaced by Zhunkovic with Arabic numerals.
This document was declared false for the following reasons.
1. The document was written in Cyrillic before the invention of the latter by Cyril in 863. This argument should disappear, since imperfect Cyrillic was undoubtedly written even before Cyril. And historical sources cannot be discarded just because someone has convinced themselves that Kirill unexpectedly invented the Cyrillic alphabet. In fact, he only improved it.
2. The word “dato” is used in the text. It is seen as the Latin “date”. And you should say “given” in Slavic. And this argument means absolutely nothing, because the document was given in Rome, and the inclusion of the most ordinary formal Latin word is a normal phenomenon. However, the word “dato” itself is a correct Slavic expression. We have the word “udatny” of the same root. Further. It is a complete analogue of the words “killed”, “taken”, etc. This option is quite natural. And we have no evidence that it was not used in the 1st half of the 9th century. The argument is not at all conclusive.
3. The date of publication of the decree does not coincide with the time of Pope Leo IV. Some read the date written in Slavic letters (Karaman) as 443, others (Zhunkovich) as 843, which is 4 years earlier than the papacy of Leo IV. The argument is also weak, since it is quite clear that there is some kind of misunderstanding with the date: Karaman read “443”, but could the alleged forger have been mistaken by 400 years? After all, “falsification” is supposed to be for a time close to the pope. Otherwise, why falsify a document whose content is completely outdated and worthless? But if the falsification is close in time to the decree, then an error of 400 years is completely excluded. By this, the argument is made not “against”, but “for” the authenticity of the document. Because it is obvious that there is some kind of misunderstanding with the date. We know that in those days they did not use Arabic numerals, but instead wrote conventional letters with dots above them, but in the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet the same Slavic letters meant different numbers. This means that you need to have a document and re-examine the date. Its authenticity is established by its content. And there is absolutely nothing in the content that would make one doubt its authenticity.
Finally, one cannot proceed from the assumption that the falsifier was so stupid that he did not really know the duration of the papacy of Leo IV. In any case, we have before us an official document written in Cyrillic even before Kirill.
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 UBRUS?” Details are in the brochure A.S. Petrushevich, 1860, “On ancient icons with Cyrillic inscriptions located in Rome,” Lvov.
Ubrus is still called a face towel in some places. What is remarkable about the inscription is that in two places a solid sign is clearly distinguishable. Then there are the usual religious abbreviations. Finally, some letters are made in a variable shape: sometimes they face to the right, sometimes to the left - a characteristic feature of many ancient inscriptions, reflecting runic practice. For example, they wrote one line from left to right, the next one from right to left (the so-called “boustrophedon” method). Moreover, going from right to left, the letters were written facing the opposite direction. So it is here: in the word “image” the letter “b” is with the convex part facing to the right, as usual. And in the word “ubrus” it is convexly turned to the left.
Why the inscription is made in Cyrillic, in the Slavic language and is kept in Rome is unknown. One can guess that these relics survived from the times when the southeastern part of Italy, for example, Bari, was spiritually subordinated to Constantinople. When, in the course of history, all of Italy came under the supremacy of Rome, these relics were sent to the Vatican for preservation, but they were considered inconvenient to destroy, although they concerned a different Christian church.
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 AD. e. They say that it was located until the 6th century. in one of the altars of Peter's Church, but was subsequently moved to the relics department. It bears the (obviously later) inscription: “Pervetusta effigies SS Petri et Paul, qual custoditur inter S. reliquias in Vaticana ecclesia.” In the central part of the icon at the top is an image of the Savior with the Cyrillic inscription “IСХС”. On the left (and on a much larger scale) is an image of St. Peter with the inscription: “STAYS OF PETER.” On the right is an image of St. Paul with the inscription: “STY PAUL.”
Obviously, the Cyrillic inscriptions were the reason why the icon was moved to the relics department. The use of the Cyrillic alphabet centuries before Cyril is undoubtedly. Thus, historical documents with “Cyrillic-like” inscriptions must be approached very carefully, without attributing them indiscriminately to the 9th or later centuries. The inscriptions may also be from pre-Cyril times.
We have so far considered the issue of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet only from a purely historical point of view, without touching on their construction and relationships. Let's move on to this now.
The analysis leads us to the following conclusions.
1. Both alphabets have gone through a very long history of development, the stages of which are little known to us. Therefore, they cannot be considered as a single whole. Each of them gradually acquired additions and variants, moreover, not along the same line of development: they strived for writing in different corners of the Slavic world.
2. Both alphabets were compiled specifically for the Slavic language, i.e. they also include letters that reflect sounds characteristic of the Slavs and absent from other peoples or not so common.
3. The Cyrillic alphabet, although radically different graphically from the Glagolitic alphabet, being a variant of the Greek letter, which is why it was often called “Greek writing,” in its structure is an imitation of the Glagolitic alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet is a combination of two alphabets: as a system of phonemes it copies the Glagolitic alphabet, and as a system of styles (graphemes) it copies the Greek letter.
4. That the Cyrillic alphabet has gone through a long path of changes is evident from the fact that the Monk Khrabr (beginning of the 10th century) wrote that it “had 24 letters according to the order of Greek letters, and 14 according to the ‘Slavic speech’,” i.e. only 38.
If we count the number of letters in the alphabet (see, for example, Vaillant, 1948, Manuel du vieux slave), there are 44 of them. In reality, their number was even higher, because there were also variants, for example, not only “and” with a dot , but also “and” with two dots, etc. These additional letters developed, of course, after Cyril. Equally, the styles changed or new variants appeared for existing old letters.
5. For both the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet it is difficult to name their inventor, they are so old and at the same time they include everything basic that makes us consider them Glagolitic or Cyrillic. It should be noted that the Glagolitic alphabet is rather a product of the West. There it developed, there it became more and more established, and there it still exists.
Let's move on to listing the most characteristic features of the Glagolitic alphabet.
1. The absence of letters from the Greek alphabet in the Glagolitic alphabet is striking, and specifically “xi” and “psi”, which are present in the Cyrillic alphabet. Both of these letters do not reflect independent sounds, but are only a common combination of two in Greek speech, i.e. “k+s” and “p+s”. The author of the Glagolitic alphabet turned out to be more independent, more Slavic and a logical inventor than Kirill.
Since both letters are just combinations of two sounds that already had a letter designation, why invent a third, special letter? The author of the Glagolitic alphabet knew the Slavic language more subtly than Kirill. He understood that in the Slavic language the combinations “ks” and “ps” are extremely rare, and therefore he did not use special letters for them. He adhered to the principle of simplicity and clarity more than Kirill.
2. In the Glagolitic alphabet there are two letters to indicate hard and soft “g”. In this regard, the Glagolitic alphabet more subtly conveys the phonetics of Slavic speech. Greek has one "g", although the aspirate sign replaces the soft "g" to a certain extent. In this respect, the Cyrillic alphabet with one “g” is closer to the Greek model and at the same time artificially simplifies Slavic phonetics.
3. In the Glagolitic alphabet there are two different letters for the sounds “dz” and “z”. The Cyrillic alphabet originally contained only the letter “z”. But later the sound “dz” (diphthong) began to be conveyed by the crossed out letter “z”. Here the Cyrillic alphabet followed the Glagolitic alphabet. Or rather, the Cyrillic alphabet was improved to the level of Glagolitic in the transmission of Slavic sounds.
4. In the Glagolitic alphabet there is no sound and letter “e”, i.e. iotated “e”; this is a root vowel, like: a, o, u, i, e, - and not the same, but iotized: i, e, yu, i (Ukrainian “yi”), e. Pronounced: earth, zeleny, etc. d.
Of all the Slavic languages, the only feature of modern Russian is the increased development of iotation, which has led to the fact that the overwhelming number of words with the archaic “e”, characteristic of all other Slavic languages, have turned into “e”, i.e. in й+е. Of all the words, it seems that only the word “this” with its derivatives retained the “e” without iotation. All other words: floor, electricity, crew, etc. are of foreign origin.
It turns out a strange phenomenon: the sound “e” has not been forgotten in the Russian language, but it no longer exists in Russian words.
In the Glagolitic alphabet, the sound “e” (naturally) corresponded to a letter very similar to the existing “e”, but with its points facing not to the left, but to the right, therefore our new (from the time of Peter I) “e” was called in the old days “e reverse” , i.e. turned in the opposite direction.
We will not dwell on other differences, because we are not writing a philological treatise.
Let us move on to a very important issue for history, to which until now, unfortunately, too little attention has been paid.
Both the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet copied the Greek alphabet in the sense that they gave the letters in its order a certain numerical value (they did not use today's Arabic numerals). Hence the letter “a”, as the first letter in the alphabet, meant 1 if a dot or a special symbol was placed above it, etc.
Persons who have studied the Church Slavonic language, of course, remember its alphabet: a - “az”, b - “buki”, c - “vedi”, d - “verb”, d - “good”, etc. This order was canon Slavic writing, hence the word “alphabet”.
In Greek, however, there is no letter “v” at all. In the Cyrillic alphabet it is located in the same order as in the Glagolitic alphabet, but has no numerical meaning. Or rather, for the same number you can optionally use both “b” and “c”.
The numerical value of the letters in the Glagolitic alphabet was: a=1, 6=2, c=3, g=4, d=5, f=6, g=7, z=8, dz=9, i=10, i=20 etc.
In Cyrillic: a=1, b or c=2, g=3, d=4, e=5, g, z=6, dz=7, i=8, fita=9, i=10, etc. d.
There was complete agreement only in the cases a=1, i=10. Now the discrepancy in some dates of the chronology becomes clear: if the original was written in Glagolitic alphabet, but was copied in Cyrillic, but the copyist, mechanically repeating the letters of the original, actually changed the numbers, as we showed in the example with the Treaty of Svetoslav.
This fact can be of particular importance in monumental short inscriptions: dates can diverge by decades from reality if we do not take the above into account.
Thus, the ancient Slavs used two radically different (graphically and numerically) alphabets. No matter how they try to get clever, trying to convince us of the similarity of the graphics of these alphabets (see, for example, Selishchev, I volume, p. 47), even deliberately selected letters for comparison convince us of one thing: graphically these are completely different systems.
On the contrary, everyone agrees that the similarity between Greek letters and the Cyrillic alphabet is so great that when opening and reading a Slavic Cyrillic manuscript, it seems as if it is a Greek text. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Cyrillic alphabet was called the “Greek letter”.
However, the Glagolitic alphabet is centuries older than the Cyrillic alphabet and is phonetically more perfect. The Glagolitic alphabet was undoubtedly composed by a Slav and a deeply educated person, for the Glagolitic alphabet also reflects the Hebrew alphabet. Hence the main conclusion: the Slavic culture, which had already reached the stage of writing, existed at least 500 years earlier than Cyril. The development of this writing took place in different places of the Slavic world and followed different paths. Independent variants based on the graphics of Greek writing developed especially successfully. It fell to Cyril’s lot only to lead and finally formalize what was in general use, but had no rules and no known canon. Kirill gave not only this, but also the basis for church writing, creating it with his own hands.
Further research will undoubtedly provide a lot of new, additional evidence for the scheme we have sketched for the development of Slavic writing. It is interesting to note that the Latin alphabet did not have so many imitations and perfect examples.
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And now the history of the origin of the Cyrillic alphabet contains many not entirely clear points. This is, first of all, due to the fact that very, very few historical monuments related to ancient Slavic writing have survived to our times. And on this scarce historical material, scientists have to build many theories, often contradicting each other.
Usually the appearance of Slavic writing is associated with the adoption in the 10th century. Christianity. But in the book “The Legend of Slavic Letters,” written at the end of the 9th century. The Bulgarian writer Chernigorian the Brave proves that the Slavs also had their own letter signs back in the era of paganism. After the adoption of Christianity, Greek and Latin letters appeared in Russian writing, although they could not accurately convey many of the Slavic sounds (b, ts, z).
A harmonious system of signs that was completely adequate to Slavic phonetics was created by Cyril (Constantine) and his brother Methodius, educational missionaries. Such a system (alphabet) was required in order to promote the spread of Christianity by translating Byzantine religious books into the Slavic language.
When creating the Slavic alphabet, the brothers took the Greek alphabet as a basis. The alphabet, supposedly compiled by 863, began to be called the Glagolitic alphabet (from the Slavic “to speak” - “to verb”). The main monuments of the Glagolitic alphabet are considered to be the Sinai Psalter, the Kyiv Leaves and a number of Gospels.
The origin of the Cyrillic alphabet (from “Kirill”), the second alphabet of the Slavs, is very vague. As a rule, it is believed that the followers of Cyril and Methodius created it at the beginning of the 10th century. a new alphabet based on Greek with the addition of a number of letters from the Glagolitic alphabet. There were 43 letters in this alphabet, 24 of them were borrowed from the statutory Byzantine script, and 19 were newly invented.
Dating back to 893, the inscription on the ruins of the Preslav Church in Bulgaria is considered the oldest monument of the Cyrillic alphabet. The shape of the letters of the new alphabet was simpler, so gradually the Glagolitic alphabet ceased to be used, and the Cyrillic alphabet became the main alphabet.
During the period X-XIV centuries. the form of writing in Cyrillic was called the charter. The distinctive features of the charter are clear and straightforward writing, lengthening of the letters at the bottom, large sizes and the absence of spaces between words.
The most striking monument of the charter is the book “Ostromir Gospel”, which was written by Deacon Gregory in 1056-1057. It is a true work of ancient Slavic book art and a classic example of writing of those times. As a significant monument, the “Izbornik” of Grand Duke Svyatoslav Yaroslavovich, as well as the “Arkhangelsk Gospel” should be noted.
From the charter came the development of the next form of Cyrillic letters - semi-ustav. It was distinguished by letters that were more rounded and sweeping, but smaller in size, with many upper and lower extensions. Superscripts and punctuation marks appeared. Together with ligature and cursive writing, semi-ustav was actively used in the 14th-18th centuries.
The emergence of cursive writing is associated with the unification of Russian lands into a single state and the resulting more accelerated development of Slavic culture. Then there was a need for a simplified, convenient writing style. Formed in the 15th century. cursive writing allowed me to write more fluently. The shape of the letters, partially connected to each other, became round and symmetrical. The straight and curved outlines of the letter shapes were balanced.
Elm was also common along with cursive writing. It was characterized by an ornate combination of letters and an abundance of decorative lines. They used ligature mainly to design headings and highlight individual words in the text.
The subsequent development of the Cyrillic alphabet is associated with Peter I.
If in the 16th century Ivan the Terrible laid the foundations of book printing in Russia, while Peter I brought the country's printing industry to the European level. Peter I carried out a reform of fonts and the alphabet, which resulted in the approval in 1710 of a new civil font. It reflected both changes in the shape of letters and changes in the alphabet. Most of the letters acquired the same proportionality, which made reading much easier. The Latin characters i and s began to be used. The letters of the Russian alphabet, which have no correspondence in the Latin alphabet (ь, ъ, etc.), differed in height.
From the very middle of the 18th century. and until the beginning of the 20th century. The Russian alphabet and civil style developed progressively. In 1758, the redundant letters “psi,” “xi,” and “zelo” were removed from the alphabet. At Karamzin’s suggestion, the old “io” was replaced with ё. An Elizabethan typeface developed, characterized by its great compactness, which established the modern style of the letter b.
In 1910, the Bertgold foundry developed an academic font that combines elements of the style of Russian fonts of the 18th century. and “sorbonne” - in Latin script. Later, the use of Russian variants of Latin fonts became a trend that prevailed in Russian book printing until the beginning of the October Revolution.
In 1917, changes affected not only the social structure, but also the Russian typeface.
A broad spelling reform abolished the letters Θ (fita), ъ (yat) and i. In 1938 In the USSR, a font laboratory was created, which was then transformed into the Department of New Fonts as part of the Research Institute of Polygraphmash (Printing Engineering). In this department, such talented artists as G. Bannikov, N. Kudryashov, E. Glushchenko created fonts. It was here that the fonts for the headlines of the newspapers Izvestia and Pravda were developed.
Now the significance of the font is not disputed by anyone. A large number of works have already been written about the role of fonts in the perception of information, the emotional component they bring and how this can be applied in practice. Artists actively use the centuries-old experience of book printing to create new types of fonts, and designers skillfully use an abundance of graphic forms to make the text more readable.
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 “proper name” of the alphabet; perhaps it was 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 across museums in 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 Chersonesos to translate liturgical books - Crimea at that time was a crossroads where communication between Russia and the Byzantine Empire usually took place. 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. The Glagolitic alphabet among the Western Slavs (Czechs, Poles, etc.) did not last long 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 accustomed 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. The Glagolitic text has 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 alphabet coexisted peacefully for many centuries in the Roman Catholic Church, in contrast to the Orthodox Church, 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.
If you ask foreigners what causes them the most difficulties when learning the Russian language, many will answer – the Cyrillic alphabet. And indeed, it is very different from the Latin alphabet familiar to many. Why did this happen, what is the history of the Cyrillic alphabet and the modern Russian alphabet - we will answer these questions in this article.
Many questions related to the emergence of the Cyrillic alphabet still remain open, and the scientific community cannot come to a consensus. Therefore, we will describe here the most common version among scientists.
In the second half of the 9th century, Byzantium (Eastern Roman Empire) included a fairly large number of Slavic population. This prompted Emperor Michael III to create a new alphabet for the Old Church Slavonic language in order to translate Greek religious texts into it. He entrusted this task to the brothers Cyril and Methodius. Subsequently, the new alphabet was named after one of them. But, most likely, Cyril initially invented the so-called Glagolitic alphabet - an alphabet that differed in the writing of letters from the Cyrillic alphabet, which was later invented by one of his students.
At the end of the 10th century, Cyrillic became the church language of Kievan Rus, began to spread throughout all Russian lands and became the main type of writing. At that time, the Cyrillic alphabet consisted of letters of the Greek alphabet and some additional ones, which were intended for Slavic sounds that were absent in the Greek language.
Since the appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet on Russian lands, it has not undergone any fundamental changes for quite a long time. The first major update of the alphabet took place at the beginning of the 18th century, when Peter I undertook a writing reform. The Emperor decides to get rid of some letters and introduces a new way of writing - the civil script. It is since then that lowercase variants of letters have appeared in the Russian language (previously, all text was written in capitals). The new spelling is intended for secular texts: textbooks, periodicals, military, educational and fiction. The use of the old version of the letter was limited to spiritual literature. It is still used in the church today.
The introduction of a civil font made it possible to bring the appearance of Russian books closer to European ones. This was able to facilitate the publication of new books on printing presses from Western Europe. The first book printed in civil type was a textbook on geometry, published in 1708.
Also, starting with the reforms of Peter I, Arabic numerals began to be used in Russia. Before this, letters from the Cyrillic alphabet were used instead.
The next major reform took place only at the beginning of the 20th century, in 1917-1918, although preparations for it began much earlier. After it, the Russian alphabet got rid of unnecessary letters and acquired its current form.
What other languages use the Cyrillic alphabet?
In the 20th century, based on the Cyrillic alphabet, linguists created a written language for many small nations living on the territory of the USSR, so more than a dozen languages use the Cyrillic alphabet. It is used as the official alphabet in many Slavic and non-Slavic countries. For example, in Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Kazakhstan and some others.
If you have any questions while reading, ask them in the comments, we will be happy to answer!
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