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.
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 book 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.
When we try to imagine the beginning of Russian literature, our thought necessarily turns to the history of writing. The importance of writing in the history of the development of civilization can hardly be overestimated. Language, like a mirror, reflects the whole world, our whole life. And reading written or printed texts, it’s as if we are getting into a time machine and can be transported to both recent times and the distant past. The possibilities of writing are not limited by time or distance. But people did not always master the art of writing. This art has been developing for a long time, over many millennia. First, picture writing (pictography) appeared: some event was depicted in the form of a picture, then they began to depict not the event, but individual objects, first maintaining the similarity with what was depicted, and then in the form of conventional signs (ideography, hieroglyphs), and, finally, learned to depict not objects, but to convey their names with signs (sound writing). Initially, only consonant sounds were used in sound writing, and vowels were either not perceived at all, or were indicated by additional symbols (syllabic writing). Syllabic writing was used by many Semitic peoples, including the Phoenicians. The Greeks created their alphabet based on the Phoenician letter, but significantly improved it by introducing special signs for vowel sounds. The Greek letter formed the basis of the Latin alphabet, and in the 9th century the Slavic letter was created by using letters of the Greek alphabet. The great work of creating the Slavic alphabet was accomplished by the brothers Constantine (who took the name Cyril at baptism) and Methodius. The main merit in this matter belongs to Kirill. Methodius was his faithful assistant. Compiling the Slavic alphabet, Kirill was able to discern in the sound of the Slavic language he had known since childhood (and this was probably one of the dialects of the ancient Bulgarian language) the basic sounds of this language and find letter designations for each of them. When reading Old Church Slavonic, we pronounce the words as they are written. In the Old Church Slavonic language we will not find such a discrepancy between the sound of words and their pronunciation, as, for example, in English or French. The Slavic book language (Old Church Slavonic) became widespread as a common language for many Slavic peoples. It was used by the Southern Slavs (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats), Western Slavs (Czechs, Slovaks), Eastern Slavs (Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians). In memory of the great feat of Cyril and Methodius, the Day of Slavic Literature is celebrated all over the world on May 24. It is celebrated especially solemnly in Bulgaria. There are festive processions with the Slavic alphabet and icons of the holy brothers. Since 1987, a holiday of Slavic writing and culture began to be held in our country on this day. The Russian people pay tribute to the memory and gratitude of “the teachers of the Slavic countries...”
Cyrillic- a term that has several meanings:
Old Church Slavonic alphabet (Old Bulgarian alphabet): the same as the Cyrillic (or Cyrillic) alphabet: one of two (along with Glagolitic) ancient alphabets for the Old Church Slavonic language;
Cyrillic alphabets: a writing system and alphabet for some other language, based on this Old Slavic Cyrillic alphabet (they talk about Russian, Serbian, etc. Cyrillic alphabet; calling the formal unification of several or all national Cyrillic alphabet “Cyrillic alphabet” is incorrect);
Statutory or semi-statutory font: the font in which church (Orthodox) books are traditionally printed (in this sense, the Cyrillic alphabet is contrasted with the civil, or Peter the Great, font).
Belarusian language (Belarusian alphabet)
Bulgarian language (Bulgarian alphabet)
Macedonian language (Macedonian alphabet)
Rusyn language/dialect (Rusyn alphabet)
Russian language (Russian alphabet)
Serbian language (Serbian Cyrillic alphabet)
Ukrainian language (Ukrainian alphabet)
Montenegrin language (Montenegrin alphabet),
as well as most of the non-Slavic languages of the peoples of the USSR, some of which previously had other writing systems (on a Latin, Arabic or other basis) and were translated into Cyrillic in the late 1930s. For more details, see the list of languages with Cyrillic-based alphabets. Read more → Wikipedia.
Is it true that the alphabet used in about 50 countries is called the Cyrillic alphabet, and it is believed that it was introduced and invented by the Bulgarians (or Slavs) missionaries and Saints Cyril and Methodius.
Bulgarian linguist Ivan Iliev wrote a research paper “A Brief History of the Cyrillic Alphabet” (Ivan G. Iliev / Ivan G. Iliev), where he notes that Kirill is believed to be the author of the Glagolitic alphabet, which was used for writing in those days (the Slavic alphabet itself), and which was very unlike the Greek alphabet (and others). The Cyrillic alphabet was created in order to add letters to record the sounds of Slavic speech that were not available in the Greek alphabet, so in general it was a kind of modification of the Greek alphabet with the addition of the Glagolitic or Latin alphabet. It is named after Cyril due to his merits.
The numbers opposite the letters are the numbers used to denote the account, so the letters also had a digital meaning (except for names-words).
Another feature of the early alphabet is the absence of capital and lowercase letters.
What we call the Cyrillic alphabet now is a distant image of the original Cyrillic alphabet, which was simplified (reformed) several times, the last time after the 1917 revolution.
The alphabet of Peter 1, or the civil script, was introduced in 1708 as a counterweight to the church Cyrillic alphabet (or alphabet) for the purpose of simplification.
In 1707, the word writer Anton Demey, who arrived from Holland, brought with him “newly invented Russian letters 8 alphabet with punches, matrices and forms, and two mills on the move with all kinds of controls.” The font introduced by Peter the Great differed from the Slavic one in that it completely excluded letters (similar to Greek) and removed powers and titles. The remaining letters received the style they have today, with the following exceptions: the letter d at first resembled the Latin g, but the capital letter retained its previous form; instead, з and SLatin s were introduced; instead of i,ib y - one letter I without any sign at the top; m, n - like Latin m, n; the letters c, f, ъ and ь, as well as r, ь and ы had some differences in outline from the current ones. Three books were printed in this font in Moscow in 1708: “Geometry of Slavic land surveying with new typographical embossing,” “Applications of how complements are written,” and “Book about methods of creating free flow of rivers.” But, probably, experience convinced that this font is not entirely convenient, and therefore in “The Victorious Fortress for the happy congratulations of the glorious victory over Azov - for a happy entry into Moscow” (op. by engineer Borgsdorff), printed in the same 1708, already concessions reminiscent of the previous alphabet: in the book there are Slavic over ï there are dots everywhere - a style that was preserved in our press almost until the beginning of the current century, at the same time powers (emphasis) were introduced over the words. Further changes followed in 1709. E and I appeared, restored; And it was used in three cases: in a combination of two and (ïi), at the beginning of Russian words and at the end of words. At the same time, z (earth) began to be used in all cases, instead of the canceled s (zelo); d received a modern style; b, c, f, t, p received outlines more suitable to the current ones .
In Kievan Rus, the use of the Cyrillic alphabet has been noted since the beginning of the 10th century, and it is believed that it appeared there with Bulgarian church books; there was no printing in Rus' at that time. Church Slavonic is considered the closest to the Bulgarian language, and had a serious influence on the formation of the Russian language (although Bulgaria and Muscovy were far from each other).
Ivan Fedorov Muscovite is the first Russian printer, publisher of the first accurately dated printed book “Apostle” in the Russian kingdom (1564). However, for church books (and these were predominantly published) Church Slavonic (almost Bulgarian) was still used for several centuries.
Returning to Cyril and his elder brother Methodius, most famous historians of the Byzantine era assume that they were Greeks from Thessalonica, although the Bulgarians continue to believe that they were Bulgarians or South Slavs (Macedonians). Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki) was a Greek-Macedonian city within the Byzantine Empire. However, try to figure out the ethnic origin there, in fact, since there was quite a decent Slavic migration to Thessaloniki from the 6-7th century (it was a noble city at that time).
23.05.2013On May 24, the Slavic world celebrates a big holiday - the 1150th anniversary of Slavic writing. The geography of the holiday, as always, is vast - all of Russia (not only its traditionally Slavic regions, this includes North Ossetia, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, etc.), Serbia and Montenegro and, of course, Bulgaria and Greece. In fact, the holiday will be celebrated wherever the Russian world is alive, where there are communities of people from Slavic countries who write in Cyrillic.
The importance of the Cyrillic alphabet is difficult to overestimate, because with the advent of common Slavic writing in the 9th century, a new, huge cultural space arose - the Cyrillic civilization. Only at first it consisted only of Slavs (and even then not all). Over time, many peoples who were far removed from the Slavs on the tree of humanity, but until that time did not have their own written language, became part of this unity.
The beginning of Slavic writing
The Slavic alphabet, which we still use today, arose on the basis of Greek. There is nothing unusual in this, because most of the alphabets in the world are secondary. The Greeks also did not invent their own writing, but created it on the basis of Phoenician, adapting it to their speech. Exactly the same story happened with the Slavic alphabet. As we know, the Latin alphabet also arose on the basis of the Greek letter, only earlier.
The first Slavic alphabet was invented by Byzantine missionaries - the brothers from Thessaloniki Constantine (when they were tonsured into monasticism, before their death, they took the name Cyril, which was entrenched in tradition) and Methodius. This legend is not disputed by any scientist now. However, the main inventor of the alphabet was still the younger of the two brothers, Kirill. Methodius became his faithful assistant, but his services to subsequent generations are no less, because after the death of his brother he continued his educational work, translating Greek books into the Slavic language.
Saints Cyril-Constantine and Methodius
The brothers came from Thessaloniki (now Thessaloniki), from a very wealthy family, and received an excellent education. Constantine, already in childhood, showed his extraordinary mental abilities and was taken to court, where he studied with the famous scientist Photius, the future Patriarch of Constantinople. A brilliant career awaited Constantine at the imperial court, but he chose a different path, retiring to Mount Olympus and becoming a monk in the same monastery as his brother Methodius. Nevertheless, his abilities were in demand. As the best theologian, he is often sent to neighboring countries to participate in disputes, because for many surrounding nations the 9th century became the time of choosing a new faith. Life in constant travel undermined the already weak health of Constantine, who later received the very honorable nickname Philosopher. At 42, he became very ill and died on February 14, 869. This happened in Rome, where the brothers sought support from the Pope in the spread of Slavic writing. Methodius outlived his brother by 16 years. All these years he continued to translate holy books into Slavic and preach Orthodoxy among the Slavs.
And yet one mystery in the activities of the holy brothers has not been fully resolved. The fact is that all the Slavic manuscripts of the early period that have reached us, which are the 10th and 11th centuries, are written in two different alphabets - Cyrillic and Glagolitic. Apparently, the Glagolitic alphabet arose earlier. Firstly, the language of texts in Glagolitic is more archaic. In addition, often in ancient times, when paper and parchment were at a special price, the old text was scraped off and a new one was written on top - such manuscripts are called palimpsests. So, all known Cyrillic-Glagolic palimpsests always contain Cyrillic text written over the erased Glagolitic alphabet and never vice versa. Consequently, the Glagolitic alphabet arose somewhat earlier.
Almost any of us, even without special knowledge, can read at least a few words from the Cyrillic text, the letters of which are very recognizable. The letters used in Glagolitic are very different from Cyrillic and are not similar to any other script. Over time, the Glagolitic alphabet was lost - among the Western Slavs and Croats, in whose lands it was widespread, it was replaced by the Latin alphabet.
So what kind of alphabet did Constantine the Philosopher invent? Today, most scientists are sure that it was Glagolitic. But does this mean that today we honor “the wrong saints”, because the Glagolitic alphabet, invented by the Slavic enlighteners, has gone into oblivion, while we, obviously, use a different invention? In fact, the merit of Cyril and Methodius is more than just the creation of the alphabet. After all, writing is, first of all, texts written using the alphabet. Cyril and Methodius were the first Slavic “scribes” - they translated the texts of the Holy Scriptures from Greek. In the process of translation, they enriched and modernized the Slavic language, finding the necessary correspondence to Greek words, sometimes inventing new terms, and sometimes, when there was no other possibility, introducing Greek words into Slavic speech. We still use many of them today.
One way or another, it was Cyril and Methodius who created the first Slavic alphabet. It is very likely that the brothers’ mother was Slavic, which is why they managed to cope perfectly with the difficult task of finding their letter designations for each of the sounds of the ancient Slavic language. Anyone who has studied English or French is familiar with the situation when half the letters in a word are simply unreadable. This does not happen in our speech; we pronounce words the way they are written. And this is the merit of Cyril and Methodius, because the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet differ almost exclusively in the style of the letters, but not in the composition of the alphabet.
In the end, it was they who stood at the origins of Slavic writing and in this sense are its symbols. Through the efforts of the holy brothers, over time, a cultural community arose with a single written language (Old Church Slavonic), which included Czechs and Slovaks in the west, Bulgarians, Serbs and Croats in the south, and the inhabitants of Kievan Rus in the east, who over time were divided into Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians.
The emergence of the Cyrillic alphabet
If the Glagolitic alphabet was invented in the 60s of the 9th century, then the Cyrillic alphabet was invented several decades later. The center of the new alphabet was Preslav, the capital of the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon. Over time, the new script replaced the Glagolitic alphabet in all Slavic countries, and only the Croats in Dalmatia used it until the 17th century.
The appearance of the new alphabet is associated with the activities of the Bulgarian school of scribes. It is very likely that the main creator of the Cyrillic alphabet should be considered the student of the brothers Cyril and Methodius, Saint Clement of Ohrid (840-956), whose life directly states that it was he who invented the new writing. The rapid spread of a new, more convenient alphabet was also not an accident - the Cyrillic alphabet did not have to re-conquer the “minds and hearts” of the Slavs, because it already had a predecessor sister - the Glagolitic alphabet.
Heirs of the Cyrillic alphabet
The new letter was created on the basis of a very clear and understandable Greek statutory alphabet, supplemented by Glagolitic letters that denoted sounds that were absent in the Greek language. It is no coincidence that the first Cyrillic books were written in a straight font, in which the letters are located at equal distances from each other.
The oldest book in Rus' written in Cyrillic, the Ostromir Gospel, dates back to 1057. This Gospel is kept in St. Petersburg, in the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
From the middle of the 14th century, semi-ustav became widespread, which was less beautiful than the charter, but allowed you to write faster. In the 15th century, semi-ustav gave way to cursive writing. But all this is just a writing style, while the Cyrillic alphabet itself existed practically unchanged until the time of Peter the Great, during which changes were made to the style of some letters, and 11 letters were excluded from the alphabet. The new alphabet was simpler and better suited for printing various civil business papers, which is why it received the name “civil.” A new reform of the alphabet took place in 1918, when the Cyrillic alphabet lost four more letters.
In recent years, the Day of Slavic Literature and Culture has been increasingly celebrated in Russia, although the holiday originated in Bulgaria back in the 19th century, and to this day it is celebrated especially solemnly in this country. We don’t have many common holidays that extend beyond the post-Soviet space. In fact, now this is all that remains of the once popular idea of Slavic brotherhood. Let now only a part of the Slavic peoples be included in this unity, but they are united not by an abstract idea, but by a concrete historical reality. For this reason alone, the importance of the Day of Slavic Literature and Culture is difficult to overestimate.
Alexander Ryazantsev