The 10th-century Bulgarian writer monk (monk) Khrabr dedicated a small (but for us, descendants, immeasurably valuable!) essay to the beginning of Slavic writing - “Tales of Letters,” that is, about letters.
Brave says that in ancient times, when the Slavs were still pagans, they did not have letters, they read and told fortunes “with devils and cuts.” “Characters” and “cuts” are a type of primitive writing in the form of drawings and notches on wood, known among other peoples in the early stages of their development. When the Slavs were baptized, Khrabr continues, they tried to write down their speech in Roman and Greek letters, but “without structure,” without order. Such attempts were doomed to failure, since neither the Greek nor the Latin alphabet was suitable for transmitting many of the special sounds of Slavic speech. “And so it was for many years,” notes the first historian of Slavic writing. This was the case until the time of Cyril and Methodius.
Cyril (secular name Constantine) and his older brother Methodius were born in the Byzantine city of Thessalonica on the Aegean coast (now Thessaloniki in Greece), which the Slavs called Thessaloniki. Therefore, Cyril and Methodius are often called Thessaloniki brothers
. Thessalonica was the largest city of the Byzantine Empire; many Slavs had long lived in its vicinity, and, obviously, even in childhood the boys became acquainted with their customs and speech.
The brothers' father, Leo, was a middle-ranking military leader in the imperial troops and was able to give the children a good education. Methodius (about 815 - 6. IV. 885), having completed his studies brilliantly, was appointed governor in one of the Slavic regions of Byzantium in his youth. As the pages of the “Life of Methodius” tell, he learned “all Slavic customs” there. However, “having experienced many of the disorderly unrest of this life,” he abandoned his secular career, became a monk around 852, and later became abbot of the Polychron monastery in Asia Minor.
Cyril (about 827 – 14.II.869) from a young age was distinguished by his thirst for science and exceptional philological abilities. He was educated in the capital of the empire, Constantinople, by the greatest scientists of his time - Leo Grammar and the future Patriarch Photius. After completing his studies, he served as a librarian in the rich patriarchal book depository in the Cathedral of St. Sophia and taught philosophy.
In medieval sources, Constantine is often called the Philosopher. Highly appreciating Constantine's learning, the Byzantine government entrusted him with important tasks. As part of diplomatic missions, he traveled to preach Christianity in the Baghdad Caliphate in 851–852. And around 861, together with Methodius, he went to Khazaria - a state of Turkic-speaking tribes that converted to Judaism. The capital of Khazaria was located on the Volga, above modern Astrakhan.
The ancient “Life of Cyril,” created by a man who knew the brothers well, tells us about the activities of the enlighteners and the circumstances of the emergence of Slavic books. On the way to Khazaria, in the city of Chersonese - the center of the Byzantine possessions in the Crimea (within the boundaries of modern Sevastopol), Cyril found the Gospel and the Psalter written in “Rush script”, met a man who spoke that language, and in a short time mastered the “Rush script” tongue. This mysterious place in life has given rise to various scientific hypotheses. It was believed that “rusky writings” are writing of the Eastern Slavs, which Cyril later used to create the Old Slavonic alphabet. However, it is most likely that the original text of the life contained “Sur”, that is, Syrian, writing, which the later book writer mistakenly understood as “Rush”.
In 862 or 863, ambassadors from the prince of Great Moravia Rostislav arrived in the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople. They conveyed Rostislav’s request to the Byzantine Emperor Michael III: “Although our people have rejected paganism and adhere to the Christian law, we do not have such a teacher who could expound the right Christian faith in our language... So send us, lord, a bishop and such a teacher.”
Great Moravia was a strong and extensive state of the Western Slavs in the 9th century. It included Moravia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, as well as part of modern Slovenia and other lands. However, Great Moravia was within the sphere of influence of the Roman Church, and the dominant language of church literature and liturgy in Western Europe was Latin. The so-called “trilinguals” recognized only three languages as sacred – Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Prince Rostislav pursued an independent policy: he strove for the cultural independence of his country from the Holy Roman Empire and the German clergy, who performed church services in Latin, incomprehensible to the Slavs. That is why he sent an embassy to Byzantium, which allowed services in other languages.
In response to Rostislav's request, the Byzantine government sent (no later than 864) a mission led by Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia.
By that time, Cyril, having returned from Khazaria, had already begun work on the Slavic alphabet and translating Greek church books into the Slavic language. Even before the Moravian embassy, he created an original alphabet well adapted to recording Slavic speech - Glagolitic. Its name comes from the noun verb, which means word, speech. The Glagolitic alphabet is characterized by graphic harmony. Many of its letters have a loop-like pattern. Some scientists derived the Glagolitic alphabet from Greek minuscule (cursive) writing, others looked for its source in the Khazar, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian and other ancient alphabets. Cyril borrowed some letters of the Glagolitic alphabet from the Greek (sometimes with a mirror image) and Hebrew (mainly in its Samaritan variety) alphabets. The order of letters in the Glagolitic alphabet is oriented towards the order of letters in the Greek alphabet, which means that Cyril did not at all abandon the Greek basis of his invention.
However, when creating his own alphabet, Kirill himself comes up with a whole series of new letters. For this he uses the most important Christian symbols and their combinations: the cross is a symbol of Christianity, atonement for sins and salvation; triangle - symbol of the Holy Trinity; circle is a symbol of eternity, etc. It is no coincidence az , the first letter of the ancient Slavic alphabet (modern A ), created specifically for recording sacred Christian texts, has the shape of a cross -
, letters izhei And word (our And , With ) received the same outlines, connecting the symbols of trinity and eternity: respectively, and etc.The Glagolitic alphabet was used at the site of its original use in Moravia in the 60–80s of the 9th century. From there it penetrated into western Bulgaria (Macedonia) and Croatia, where it became most widespread. Glagolitic church books were published by Verbal Croatians back in the 20th century. But in Ancient Rus' the Glagolitic alphabet did not take root. In the pre-Mongol period, it was used here occasionally, and could be used as a kind of secret writing.
Here comes the time for the second oldest Slavic alphabet - Cyrillic alphabet. It was created after the death of Cyril and Methodius by their students in Eastern Bulgaria at the end of the 9th century. In terms of the composition, arrangement and sound meaning of the letters, the Cyrillic alphabet almost completely coincides with the Glagolitic alphabet, but differs sharply from it in the shape of the letters. This alphabet is based on the Greek solemn letter - the so-called charter. However, the letters necessary to convey the special sounds of Slavic speech absent in the Greek language were taken from the Glagolitic alphabet or compiled according to its samples. Thus, Kirill is directly related to this alphabet and its name Cyrillic quite justified. In a slightly modified form, it is still used by Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians and other peoples.
What books were the first to be translated into Slavic?
The first book translated by the brothers, presumably even before the Moravian embassy, was the Gospel. It was followed by the Apostle, the Psalter, and gradually the entire order of church services was donned in a new outfit - Slavic. During the translation process, a the first common Slavic literary language, which is usually called Old Church Slavonic. This is the language of Slavic translations of Greek church books made by Cyril, Methodius and their disciples in the second half of the 9th century. The manuscripts of that distant era have not reached our time, but their later Glagolitic and Cyrillic copies of the 10th–11th centuries have been preserved.
The folk basis of the Old Church Slavonic language was the South Slavic dialect of Thessalonica Slavs (Macedonian dialects of the Bulgarian language of the 9th century), which Cyril and Methodius met as children in their hometown of Thessalonica. “You are Thessalonians, and the Solunians all speak pure Slavic,” Emperor Michael III sent the brothers to Great Moravia with these words. We also learn about this from the Life of Methodius.
From the very beginning, the Old Church Slavonic language, as well as the rich translated and original literature created in it, had above national and international character. Old Church Slavonic literature existed in various Slavic lands; it was used by Czechs and Slovaks, Bulgarians, Serbs and Slovenes, and later by our ancestors, the Eastern Slavs. The continuation of the Old Church Slavonic language became its local varieties - of water, or editors. They were formed from the Old Church Slavonic language under the influence of living folk speech. There are Old Russian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Croatian Glagolitic, Czech, Romanian versions. The differences between different editions of the Church Slavonic language are small. Therefore, works created in one linguistic territory were easily read, understood and copied in other lands.
The origin of writing in Rus', the time of its origin, its character are one of the most controversial problems in Russian history. For a long time, the traditional point of view was dominant, according to which writing was brought to Rus' from Bulgaria in connection with the official adoption of Christianity in 988. But already in the middle of the last century, scientists became aware of certain facts, mainly of a literary nature, indicating the presence of Christianity and writing in Rus' long before official baptism.
In the legends of the monk Khrabra “On Writings” (late 9th - early 10th centuries) it is reported that “first of all, I did not have books, but read and read with features and cuts.” Researchers date the emergence of this primitive pictographic writing (“lines and cuts”) to the first half of the 1st millennium. Its scope was limited. These were, apparently, the simplest counting signs in the form of dashes and notches, family and personal signs of ownership, signs for fortune telling, calendar signs that served to date the start of various economic works, pagan holidays, etc. Such a letter was unsuitable for writing complex texts, the need for which appeared with the emergence of the first Slavic states. The Slavs began to use Greek letters to write their native speech, but “without arrangement,” that is, without adapting the Greek alphabet to the peculiarities of the phonetics of the Slavic languages.
This is mentioned in the same “Tale of Writings” by Brave. According to Brave, the Slavs began using Latin and Greek writing to record their speech after they adopted Christianity, but before the introduction of the alphabet developed by Cyril. At the same time, initially Latin and Greek writing was used, according to Khrabr, “without arrangement,” that is, without supplementing it with new letters necessary for the special sounds of Slavic speech. Khrabr attributes the processing of the Greek letter in relation to the phonetics of Slavic speech to Kirill. However, in reality the situation was more complicated. By the time Cyril created the alphabet, i.e. by the middle of the 9th century, Greek letters had been used to record Slavic speech for a long time; This is confirmed by Brave, pointing out that “I’ve been so mad for many summers.” But over such a long period of time, the Greek letter had to gradually adapt to the transmission of the Slavic language and, in particular, be replenished with new letters. This was necessary for the accurate recording of Slavic names in churches, in military lists, for recording Slavic geographical names, etc. The Greeks are the teachers of the Slavs, in the 9th century. already adhered to a well-known system when transmitting Slavic sounds in Greek letters. Thus, the sound “b” was conveyed by the Byzantine letter “vita”, the sound “sh” - by “sigma”, “ch” - by a combination of “theta” with “zeta”, “ts” - by a combination of “theta” with “sigma” , "y" - a combination of "omicron" with "upsilon". This is what the Greeks did. The Slavs undoubtedly advanced even further along the path of adapting the Greek letter to their speech. To do this, ligatures were formed from Greek letters; Greek letters were supplemented with letters from other alphabets, in particular from the Hebrew, which was known to the Slavs through the Khazars.
Thus, the “proto-Cyril” letter was gradually formed. If alphabetic writing had not existed among the Slavs long before they adopted Christianity, then the unexpected flowering of Bulgarian literature at the end of the 9th and beginning of the 10th centuries, and the widespread spread of literacy in the everyday life of the Eastern Slavs of the 10th and 11th centuries, and the high mastery that was achieved in Rus' already in the 11th century. the art of writing and book design (example - the Ostromir Gospel, rewritten for the Novgorod mayor Ostromir in 1055-1057).
There are indications about the use of writing in Rus' at the beginning of the 10th century. in the treaties of the Russian princes Oleg and Igor with Byzantium. Thus, in Oleg’s treaty with the Greeks (911) there is an indication of the existence of written wills among Russians. The treaty between Igor and the Greeks (944) speaks of gold and silver seals and messenger letters that were handed to Russian ambassadors and guests traveling to Byzantium. The inclusion in treaties with Byzantium of special clauses on wills, messengers, guest letters and seals proves not only that all this already existed in Rus' at the beginning of the 10th century, but also that by the 10th century. this has become common.
So, by the time Russia adopted Christianity, and with it writing, writing already existed in Rus' in some rudimentary form, and this created the prerequisites for the perception of the introduced written culture.
The creation of the Slavic alphabet is associated with the names of the Byzantine monks Cyril and Methodius. But the most ancient monuments of Slavic writing know two alphabets - Cyrillic and Glagolitic. There has been a long debate in science about which of these alphabets appeared earlier, and the creators of which of them were the famous “Thessaloniki brothers” (from Thessaloniki, the modern city of Thessaloniki).
At present, it can be considered established that Cyril in the second half of the 9th century created the Glagolitic alphabet (Glagolitic), in which the first translations of church books were written for the Slavic population of Moravia and Pannonia. At the turn of the 9th-10th centuries, on the territory of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, as a result of the synthesis of the Greek script, which had long been widespread here, and those elements of the Glagolitic alphabet that successfully conveyed the features of the Slavic languages, the alphabet arose, which was later called the Cyrillic alphabet. Subsequently, this easier and more convenient alphabet supplanted the Glagolitic alphabet and became the only one among the southern and eastern Slavs.
The adoption of Christianity contributed to the widespread and rapid development of writing and written culture. Of significant importance was the fact that Christianity was accepted in its Eastern, Orthodox version, which, unlike Catholicism, allowed worship in national languages. This created favorable conditions for the development of writing in the native language.
The development of writing in the native language led to the fact that the Russian church from the very beginning did not become a monopolist in the field of literacy and education. The spread of literacy among the democratic strata of the urban population is evidenced by birch bark letters discovered during archaeological excavations in Novgorod and other cities. These are letters, memos, training exercises, etc. Writing, therefore, was used not only to create books, state and legal acts, but also in everyday life. Inscriptions on handicraft products are often found. Ordinary townspeople left numerous notes on the walls of churches in Kyiv, Novgorod, Smolensk, Vladimir and other cities.
A new stage in ancient Russian book culture is associated with the name of Yaroslav the Wise. The story about his educational activities and his establishment of a translation center at the Church of St. Sophia is dated in the “Tale of Bygone Years” to 1037, when the metropolis was founded in Kyiv:
(“And Yaroslav loved church statutes, he loved the priests very much, especially the monks, and he loved books, reading them often at night and during the day. And he gathered many scribes, and translated from Greek into the Slavic language. And they wrote many books, learning from them , believers enjoy divine teaching.")
All rewritten and translated books were kept, by order of Yaroslav, in the Church of St. Sophia of Kyiv, which he created on the model of the famous St. Sophia of Constantinople. This book depository is considered the first library of Ancient Rus'.
During the time of Yaroslav the Wise, not only translation work was carried out, but ancient Russian chronicles already existed, and brilliant oratorical works were compiled. Not earlier than 1037 and not later than 1050, the famous “Sermon on Law and Grace” by Metropolitan Hilarion was created.
In 1056-1057, the oldest surviving accurately dated Cyrillic manuscript on parchment was created - the Ostromir Gospel with an afterword by the scribe Deacon Gregory. Gregory, together with his assistants, rewrote and decorated the book in 8 months for the Novgorod mayor Ostromir (baptized Joseph), which is where the name of the Gospel comes from. The manuscript is luxuriously designed, written in large calligraphy in two columns and is a wonderful example of medieval book-writing art.
Among the other oldest East Slavic handwritten books, one should name the Izbornik of Svyatoslav of 1073 - a large-format tome with luxurious artistic design, containing more than 380 articles of various contents by 25 authors (including the essay “On Images,” that is, on rhetorical figures and tropes, by the Byzantine grammarian George Khirovosk), a small Izbornik of 1076, the Archangel Gospel of 1092, service menaions written in Novgorod: for September - 1095-1096, for October - 1096 and for November - 1097.
These seven manuscripts exhaust the circle of ancient Russian books of the 11th century that have the date of writing stamped on them by the scribes themselves. The remaining manuscripts of the 11th century either do not have an exact date, or were preserved in later copies, as, for example, the book of 16 Old Testament prophets with interpretations, rewritten in Cyrillic in 1047 from the Glagolitic original by a Novgorod priest named Ghoul Likhoy, has reached our time in the 15th century copies. . (In Ancient Rus', the custom of giving two names, Christian and “secular,” was widespread not only in the world, compare the name of Joseph-Ostromir above, but also among the clergy and monasticism.)
Already in the oldest written monuments the features of the Old Russian translation of the Church Slavonic language are reflected, distinguishing it from the Old Church Slavonic. By the middle of the 11th century, the adaptation of the Old Church Slavonic language on Old Russian dialect soil was close to completion.
The emergence of writing, translations of Holy Scripture and liturgical texts, as well as some others, gave impetus to the formation of literature in the Church Slavonic language, which actively developed in the pre-Mongol period. It is thanks to these factors that we now have information about the early stage of ancient Russian history, recorded in the Tale of Bygone Years.
In the history of the emergence of writing on Old Russian soil, and with it the perception of a whole corpus of texts created in a literary language, had a huge influence on the development of both the language and the entire Old Russian, and then Russian culture as a whole.
Photos from open sources
As noted by many scientists, such as E. Klassen, F. Volansky, V. Georgiev, P. Chernykh, V. Istrin, V. Chudinov, G. Belyakova, S. Lesnoy, A. Asov, G. Rinevich, M. Bor , A. Ivanchenko, N. Tarasov and others, the Slavic tribes and ancient Rus had their own writing in the form of “lines and cuts” or “Slavic runic” long before the “creators of Slavic writing”, the Byzantine monks Cyril and Methodius, came to Rus'.
And it is not at all by chance that the famous Bulgarian monk Chernorirets Khrabr wrote in his “Tale of Letters”: “Before, the Slovenians did not name books, but with lines and cuts, chetehu and gadakha (i.e., they read and guessed), the real trash (i.e., while still pagans). Having been baptized, I needed to write (write) Slovenian letters in Roman and Greek letters speech without dispensation... And so I raged for many years. Then God, the lover of mankind... sent them Saint Constantine the Philosopher, called Cyril, a righteous and true man, and created in his name 30 letters and os, after all, according to the order of Greek letters, ova. according to Slovenian speech."
Thus, even Christian monks recognize the presence of writing among the Slavs before the baptism of Rus' - “runitsa”. But “runitsa” was not the only ancient Russian writing. There was also the Glagolitic alphabet, written in which the Gospels and Psalter were discovered in Crimea in 869 by Cyril and Methodius. It was this “Glagolic alphabet” that they reformed, transforming it into the “Cyrillic alphabet”. The essence of this reform has already been written many times before, and therefore this time we will dwell in more detail on the Slavic (Old Russian) runitsa.
Here is what O. Miroshnichenko writes about it in his book “Secrets of the Russian Alphabet”: “Currently, the most ancient monuments of writing on planet Earth are clay tablets found during excavations in 1961 on the territory of Romania in the village of Terteria, and tablets from the town of Vinca (Serbia) in Yugoslavia, dating back to the 5th millennium BC.
The famous Yugoslav scientist R. Pesic, based on archaeological finds on the right bank of the Danube near the Iron Gate, dating back to the 7th - 10th millennium BC, carried out the first systematization of the Vincan script. R. Pesic looked at it through the prism of the Etruscan-Pelasgian alphabet, adhering to the Slavic method of reading this writing, according to which the old Slavic language has its roots in Etruscan soil.
The same point of view was shared by remarkable Russian and Western European researchers, such as Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Fine Sciences, State Councilor Yegor Klassen (1856), the outstanding Polish linguist and ethnographer Thaddeus Wolansky, who deciphered the inscription on the grave of Aeneas, the leader of the Trojans (1846), and in our days - the Slovenian scientist Matej Bor, G.S. Belyakova, many of whose works are devoted to this topic, G.S. Grinevich, A.S. Ivanchenko, A. Asov and some others.
Huge work on systematization and decipherment of runic signs and inscriptions dating back to the era of the Tripoli Slavic archaeological culture (III - XI millennium BC), clay tablets from the island of Crete, numerous Etruscan inscriptions and texts, writing of Ancient India, Yenisei runic inscriptions and much more were done by the modern outstanding Russian scientist G.S. Grinevich.
Runic writings, similar to those that were discovered in the town of Vincha, were found in Tripoli in the layers of the 3rd - 11th millennium BC. and later in Troy, in Sumer, on the island of Crete, in Etruria, Parthia, on the Yenisei, in Scandinavia. The same letter existed in the Caucasus, as well as in North Africa and America. In short, there is reason to believe that we have before us, as it were, the first alphabet, or rather the proto-alphabet, which served as the basis for a number of well-known alphabets: Phoenician, ancient Greek, Celtic, Gothic, Proto-Indian, Latin, Hebrew, Cyrillic and Glagolitic.
The Slavic runitsa, like all ancient writing, was a syllabic letter in which a stable set of syllabic signs was used, and these signs conveyed syllables of only one type - open, consisting of combinations of consonant + vowel (C + G), or from one vowel ( G). This type of writing did not allow double consonants. But since the sound structure of the language of the ancient Slavs was still somewhat more complex, they used a special sign - an oblique stroke - viram (a sign that now exists in the Indian syllabary writing "Devangari" - "language of the gods"), which signaled double syllables, double consonants type SG + SG = SSG.
The remarkable Russian scientist G.S. Grinevich, who managed to decipher this ancient writing, proves that the oldest monuments on planet Earth are the monuments of Proto-Slavic writing. He emphasizes that among the written monuments discovered in our century, the most interesting are the inscriptions made using the “draw and cut” method, otherwise known as “Slavic runes,” because they are the most ancient on Earth.
Among the written monuments deciphered by G.S. Grinevich, dating back to the period of the Trypillian culture and made with “Slavic runes”, attention is drawn to numerous inscriptions on household items, pots, spinning wheels, etc., for example, an inscription on a spindle whorl from the village of Letskany (348 AD), an inscription on a pot from the village of Ogurtsovo (VII century AD), pots from Alekanov (IX-X centuries AD), etc. etc.
Another scientist who proves the existence of writing before the arrival of Cyril and Methodius is Professor N. Tarasov, who notes: “The assertion that there was no writing in Rus' before Cyril and Methodius is based on one single document - the “Tale of Writings” by the monk Brave, found in Bulgaria. There are 73 copies from this scroll, and in different copies, due to translation errors or scribe errors, completely different versions of the key phrase for us. In one version: “the Slavs before Cyril did not have books,” in another - “. letters,” but at the same time the author indicates: “they wrote with strokes and cuts.”
It is interesting that Arab travelers who visited Rus' back in the 8th century, that is, even before Rurik and even more so before Cyril, described the funeral of one Russian prince: “After the funeral, his soldiers wrote something on a white tree (birch) in honor of the prince, and then, mounting their horses, they departed.” And in the “Life of Cyril,” known to the Russian Orthodox Church, we read: “In the city of Korsun, Cyril met a Rusyn (Russian), who had with him books written in Russian characters.” Kirill (his mother was Slavic) took out some of his letters and with their help began to read those same Rusyn books. Moreover, these were not thin books. These were, as stated in the same “Life of Cyril,” the “Psalter” and “Gospel” translated into Russian. There is a lot of evidence that Rus' had its own alphabet long before Cyril. And Lomonosov spoke about the same thing. He cited as evidence the testimony of Pope VIII, a contemporary of Cyril, which states that Cyril did not invent these writings, but rediscovered them.
The question arises: why did Kirill create the Russian alphabet if it already existed? The fact is that the monk Cyril had an assignment from the Moravian prince - to create for the Slavs an alphabet suitable for translating church books. Which is what he did. And the letters with which church books are now written (and, in a modified form, our printed creations today) are the work of Cyril, that is, the Cyrillic alphabet...
There are 22 points that prove that the Glagolitic alphabet was older than the Cyrillic alphabet. Archaeologists and philologists have such a concept - palimpsest. This is the name of an inscription made on top of another destroyed, most often scraped out with a knife, inscription. In the Middle Ages, parchment made from the skin of a young lamb was quite expensive, and in order to save money, scribes often destroyed “unnecessary” records and documents, and wrote something new on the scraped sheet. So: everywhere in Russian palimpsests the Glagolitic alphabet is erased, and on top of it are inscriptions in Cyrillic. There are no exceptions to this rule.
There are only five monuments left in the world written in Glagolitic alphabet. The rest were destroyed. Moreover, in my opinion, the records in the Glagolitic alphabet were destroyed deliberately. Because the Glagolitic alphabet was not suitable for recording church books. The numerical meaning of the letters (and then there was a very strong belief in numerology) in it was different from what was required in Christianity. Out of respect for the Glagolitic alphabet, Kirill left in his alphabet the same letter names as they were. And they are very, very complex for an alphabet that was “born” in the 9th century, as stated. Even then, all languages strived for simplification; the letters in all alphabets of that time denoted only sounds. And only in the Slavic alphabet are the names of the letters: “Good”, “People”, “Think”, “Earth”, etc. And all because the Glagolitic alphabet is very ancient. It has many features of pictographic writing."
So, not only the Slavs, but also the ancient Rus, long before the arrival of Christianity in Rus', had “runitsa” and “gragolitsa” as writing. Thus, the Christian myth that it was allegedly Byzantine monks who taught the “dark” and “wild” Vedic Rus to write is one of the many falsifications that make up the entire official version of history.
Inscriptions of the “devils and cuts” type, or “Slavic runes”, are dated within the time interval covering the 4th - 10th centuries. AD Thus, the existence of writing before Cyril and Methodius is actually proven. This writing, relatively recent, has its roots in the writing of Tripoli from the 3rd - 11th millennia BC. and even further, into the pictographic writing of the Vinca-Turdashi culture, which is the most ancient on planet Earth."
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” N.A. Pavlenko offers six hypotheses for the origin of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet, and argues in favor of the fact that both the Glagolitic alphabet and the 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 a 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 middle of the 10th century, despite the fact that Christianity penetrated into 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: “The 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, 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 be translated.
If you follow the generally accepted version, writing appeared among the Eastern Slavs only in the 9th-10th centuries.
Allegedly, there was no written language in Kievan Rus until the 9-10 centuries and there could not have been. But this erroneous and dead-end conclusion has been refuted many times.If we study the history of other countries, we will see that while any state system appeared, it always had its own written language. If there is a state, but there is no written language, then this complicates, of course, all the processes taking place in it. How can any processes take place in a state without writing? Don't you think this is strange? Therefore, the opinion that Cyril and Methodius are the founders of our writing is erroneous, there is evidence for this.
In the 9th-10th centuries, Kievan Rus was already a state. By this time, many large, for those times, cities, huge centers of trade, including with many other countries, had formed. A large number of different artisans lived in these cities (blacksmiths, woodcarvers, potters, jewelers); these craftsmen made products from metal, clay, wood and precious metals at a very high level, which could well compete with the products of craftsmen from other countries. In large cities there was a wide selection of all kinds of goods from other countries. This means that foreign trade was at a high level. In the presence of developed trade, how were contracts concluded? This all proves that the appearance of writing in Rus' occurred even before the appearance of Cyril and Methodius.
Here it is also worth remembering Lomonosov, who wrote that the Slavs had writing long before the new faith. In his evidence, he referred to ancient sources, including Nestor the Chronicler.
There are written sources where Catherine the Great argued that the ancient Slavs had their own written language even before Christianity and were taught to read and write in cities and small settlements. And she had an excellent education for that time.
Creation of Slavic writing by Cyril and Methodius
The history of the creation of Slavic writing by Cyril and Methodius has become overgrown with a large number of false facts, and now it is difficult to figure out where the truth is. Who were the brothers Cyril and Methodius? They were born into a noble family in the city of Saluni (Greece, Thessaloniki). Later they both became monks of the Orthodox Church. Now they would be called missionaries who brought a new religion to the masses. Monasteries were centers of education, monks were very educated people, so it is not surprising that they created the Slavic alphabet, which we know as the Cyrillic alphabet.
The creation of Slavic writing, the Cyrillic alphabet, was necessary not in order to bring writing to Kievan Rus (our ancestors already had it), but in order to:
- Translate all spiritual scriptures (Gospel, Psalter, text of the Liturgy) into a language understandable to the Slavs. Which made them accessible to a huge number of people. Translating them from Greek into Cyrillic was much easier. In Europe, spiritual books were written in Latin, so this caused certain difficulties and misunderstanding among the broad masses.
- After the introduction of the new written language, church services in the Orthodox Church were conducted in the Slavic language. Which gave impetus to the speedy introduction of a new faith into the masses.
The beginning of the writing of Ancient Rus' in the 10th century, the Cyrillic alphabet, helped the spread of the new religion among the Slavs, after which it became the written language for the state and the church. This is, of course, according to the official version. Well, in fact, the introduction of Christianity was extremely difficult. The Slavs were extremely reluctant to abandon paganism. Therefore, it is likely that ancient Russian books in the ancient Russian language were simply burned. This was destroyed in order to quickly make the Slavs of Kievan Rus Christians.
Slavic writing before Cyrillic
Now everything suggests that writing already existed in Rus' before Cyril and Methodius; it is no longer possible to ignore it. Presumably the Old Russian script was Glagolitic. Evidence of its earlier appearance:
- On the parchment manuscripts (specially tanned leather) that have come down to us, we can see that the original text was scraped off and another was placed on top. In those days, they often resorted to this technique, because processing leather was not an easy task. The text that was scraped off is written in Glagolitic alphabet. The text on top was Cyrillic. And to this day, not a single parchment has been found where the Glagolitic alphabet would have been applied over the Cyrillic alphabet.
- The oldest Slavic text that has come down to us is written in Glagolitic alphabet.
- There is a lot of evidence, subsidized by different centuries, and they say that the Slavs had writing and counting back in pagan times.
There are several opinions about when the Glagolitic alphabet appeared. The most famous opinion is that the creator of the Glagolitic alphabet was Cyril, and the Cyrillic alphabet was created later, after the death of Cyril, by his student. Opinions also differ about which of his students exactly is here.
But if we analyze the entire history of Ancient Rus', then the opinion that the Glagolitic alphabet is much older, and was created even before Cyril and Methodius, seems more plausible. Well, as for the more specific time of its origin, everything is very confusing. According to some unofficial data, this is approximately 3-5 centuries, and some are trying to argue that the Glagolitic alphabet was created much earlier.
It is also unclear which language group the Glagolitic alphabet belongs to. How did Old Russian writing originate? More and more ancient languages, in their origin, started from even more ancient ones, so each language is included in some kind of language group. The Glagolitic alphabet is not similar to any of the scripts and is not included in any of the language groups. Its origin is still not clear.
But there is also a different opinion in historical circles. Pre-Christian Rus' had its own written language, but it was not Glagolitic or Cyrillic. The Slavs have had writing since ancient times, perhaps even for several thousand years. And it really looked like runes. Sometimes during excavations strange writing-symbols are found. But this happens extremely rarely. Why do we have a lot of written evidence of the Christian era, and extremely rarely of the pre-Christian era? Yes, because to eradicate ancient Russian writing, books, chronicles, and birch bark letters were burned. Just like they eradicated paganism.
Writing and literacy in Ancient Rus'
Even from school textbooks, we were taught that after the adoption of the Christian faith, the rise of culture in Rus' began. Prince Vladimir opened many schools where they taught literacy, where they brought a large number of children. Many schools were opened at the monasteries, where monks taught literacy. The princes themselves were highly educated people of their time, fluent in 4-5 languages, as well as many other sciences (Prince Vladimir, Yaroslav the Wise). In Kyiv, a girls’ school was opened at one of the monasteries, where girls were taught literacy and other sciences.
But long before Christianity, people in Rus' were literate. Before the adoption of Christianity in Kievan Rus, great importance was paid to literacy. There were schools where children learned writing and arithmetic. In large cities and small settlements, people were taught to read and write. And this does not even depend on the origin: noble and rich Slavs or ordinary artisans. Even women, for the most part, were literate. Kievan Rus was a strong and developed state, and the Slavs were taught to read and write.
And there is confirmation of this in the form of many birch bark letters, which were subsidized long before the adoption of the Christian faith; there are even very ancient ones. They were written by both noble Slavs and ordinary artisans. There are letters written by women about the rules of housekeeping. But, most interestingly, there is a birch bark letter written by a six-year-old child. That is, in those days, at such a young age, children knew how to read and write. Doesn't this prove that our ancestors in Ancient Rus' were never dark and illiterate?
Results
The history of the creation of Slavic writing has been forcibly changed for many centuries. Ancient Rus' was shown as a state that for a long time did not have its own written language, and the majority of the Slavs were illiterate and downtrodden. It was believed that women in general, no matter what level of society they belonged to, were illiterate and dark. And literacy, supposedly, was inherent only to the upper class: princes and noble Slavs. But we already see that this is far from the case. Rus' has never been a barbaric state without its own written language.
When writing appeared in Rus' is now unknown for certain. Perhaps someday historians and linguists will reveal this secret to us. But she appeared long before Cyril and Methodius. And this is a fact. They could not give us what our ancestors owned long before them. After all, by the 9th-10th centuries Kievan Rus was already an established and quite influential state.
And it is quite possible that Old Russian writing is, in fact, very ancient. Perhaps we will find out the truth about this someday.
There is a lot of evidence that there was writing in Rus' long before Cyril and Methodius. Moreover, the writing of our ancestors was more complexly organized and developed than it is now. Also important is the fact that Rus' was completely literate - everyone could read, count, and write - from the peasant to the prince.
Here are some facts to support this statement:
- “The Slavs had letters long before the Nativity of Christ,” - Catherine II.
- “Indeed, the Slavs long before Christ and the Slavic-Russians actually had a letter before Vladimir, as many ancient writers testify to us...” - Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev.
– In Ancient Rus', almost every peasant was literate! And the Novgorod birch bark letters, which, in fact, are letters from ordinary people, are proof of this! And in medieval Europe, many kings and members of the nobility could not read and write at all...
– A Roseau stone with Russian writing was found in the USA, which is more than 200,000 years old.
– Sanskrit is an ancient Russian language frozen in time, which our ancestors transmitted to the Hindus more than 4000 years ago. A professor from India, who came to Vologda and did not know Russian, refused a translator a week later. “I myself understand the Vologda residents quite well,” he said, “since they speak corrupted Sanskrit...” (“Northern Cradle of Humanity” Svetlana Zharnikova)
– Gold plates with the runic script of the Slavic-Aryans were found in 1875 in Romania! They have a meaningful form of dialogue and were made several thousand years ago!
– The Ukrainian language is a dialect of the Russian language. It appeared in the 19th century, when T. Shevchenko recorded the Little Russian dialect of the Russian language in the pre-revolutionary Russian alphabet. You will not find a single document in Ukrainian earlier than the 19th century!