Russian writing has its own history of formation and its own alphabet, which is very different from the same Latin that is 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 pretty simple.
The history of the Cyrillic alphabet begins in the 9th century, when the Emperor of Byzantium, Michael III ordered to create a new alphabet for the Slavs in order to convey religious texts to believers.
The honor to create such an alphabet went to the so-called "Solun brothers" - Cyril and Methodius.
But does this give us an answer to the question of what is Cyrillic? Partly yes, but there are still some interesting facts. For example, the fact that Cyrillic is an alphabet based on the Greek statutory letter. It is also worth noting that with the help of some letters of the Cyrillic alphabet numbers were indicated. For this, a special diacritical mark was placed above the combination of letters - titlo.
As for the spread of the Cyrillic alphabet, it came to the Slavs only with the adoption of Christianity. For example, Cyrillic appeared in Bulgaria only in 860, after the Bulgarian Tsar Boris converted to Christianity. At the end of the 9th century, the Cyrillic alphabet penetrates into Serbia, and after another hundred years into the territory of Kievan Rus.
Along with the alphabet, church literature, translations of the gospel, the Bible, and prayers begin to spread.
In fact, from this it becomes clear what Cyrillic is and where it came from. But did it reach us in its original form? Not at all. Like many other things, writing has changed and improved along with our language and culture.
Modern Cyrillic has lost some of its designations and letters during various reforms. Thus, such diacritical signs as titlo, iso, kamora, letters ery and ep, letters yus big and small, Izhitsa, fita, psi and ksi disappeared. In modern Cyrillic alphabet consists of 33 letters.
In addition, a long time ago, the numeral not used, it is completely replaced by Arabic numerals. 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 - an alphabet created by the enlightening monks Cyril and Methodius on the orders of Tsar Michael III. Having adopted a new faith, we have at our disposal not only new customs, a new deity and culture, but also an alphabet, a multitude 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.
In the course of time and under the influence of various reforms, the alphabet changed, improved, unnecessary and unnecessary letters and symbols disappeared from it. The Cyrillic alphabet that we use today is the result of all the metamorphoses that occurred over more than a thousand years of the existence of the Slavic alphabet.