There are many glorious dates in the history of our country. Many of them are confined to the events of ancient times. One of such memorable events, which lasted for many years, was the emergence of Slavic writing. Do you know the names of the holy brothers who created the Slavic alphabet? If not, then this article was written specifically for you!
Who was that?
If at least you listened to the teacher at the lessons of history, you can probably remember them yourself. Yes, the names of the holy brothers who created the Slavic alphabet are Cyril and Methodius. These are Slavic preachers whose role in world history is such that they were canonized not only by the Orthodox, but even the Catholic Church. Moreover, references to their life and work are found in the writings of Muslim leaders.
It is believed that Cyril (years of life - approximately 827–969) received his Orthodox name in Rome just 50 days before his death. All his life he was known to contemporaries as Konstantin the Philosopher. Methodius (years of life 820–885) was also baptized under a new name at the end of life. What his real name was, historians and theologians do not know, but suggest that the preacher was originally called Michael.
Cyril and Methodius (photos of their recreated images are in the article) were siblings. In addition to them, the family had eight more boys. Nothing is known about their future fate. They were born in Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki). At that time, the city was part of Macedonia.
Childhood and youth
Methodius, although rarely mentioned in historical sources, was in military service. Moreover, for 10 years he was the manager of some area (most likely Slavic), after which he left the ranks of the soldiers and went to the monastery of Olympus, which was located in Asia Minor. Around 860, he refuses the rank of archbishop, becomes hegumen of the Polychron monastery, located on the shores of the Sea of Marmara.
Unlike Methodius, Cyril never differed in bodily health, but from the youngest years he found signs of an unusually keen mind. Mikhail Methodius often had to defend and patronize his beloved younger brother, who could not properly fend for himself. The brothers will stick together their whole lives.
At only 14 years old, young Cyril was already in full swing reading the revelations of Gregory the Theologian. The boy attracted the attention of Emperor Michael III, after which he was taken to his court as a study friend for his son. Under the leadership of Photius, later the famous patriarch, as well as other experienced mentors, the young men learned the secrets of grammar and rhetoric, dialectics, astronomy and other sciences.
The “Life” of Cyril testifies that the theologian knew well about ten of the most widely spoken languages then. He refused a prominent post at the imperial court, did not give consent to a profitable marriage, preferring to become a librarian in the Hagia Sophia. A little later, he secretly leaves for the monastery, and after returning from him he teaches sophistry at universities. It was then that he received the nickname Philosopher, who will remain with him until the end of his days.
What is known from their biography?
The faith of Konstantin (Cyril) was so great that in scientific disputes he always prevailed over heretical iconoclasts. However, the emperor Constantine often sent a smart and experienced philosopher even to the Saracens (Muslims), where he also showed himself to be a talented interlocutor who in a theological dispute can easily defeat the enemy with his own weapons.
We hope that you remember the names of the holy brothers who created the Slavic alphabet.
Beginning of work on the alphabet
Around 858, the brothers went to the Khazars. In Korsuni, missionary monks stopped to study Hebrew in depth. Here they found the holy relics of Clement of the Pope. The brothers took some of them with them on a further journey. Alas, the missionaries did not succeed in achieving any significant successes among the Khazars, who professed to profess Judaism. However, they still baptized about 200 Khazars, and also saved many Greeks from captivity. Methodius went to Polychrony, becoming hegumen in the monastery, Cyril returned to Constantinople.
It was in the silence of some cell that the first prototype of a single Slavic script was created: Cyril took the old Greek script as its basis, simplifying and supplementing it somewhat. By the way, the Greek alphabet itself was borrowed from the Phoenicians, who developed it back in the seventh century BC. Thus, the creation of the Slavic alphabet is inextricably linked with the transformation of the Greek language.
What happened before Cyril?
Most likely, before Cyril, our ancestors had written language based on "features and cuts". Accurate information has not been preserved, and therefore historians have to be content with merely mentioning in the works of contemporaries who cannot give much information. However, this problem is extremely ambiguous: there are still heated debates among philologists and historians, since the ancient Slavic writing is a very complicated topic, in which there are thousands of times more white spots than more or less reliable facts.
Most likely, it was Cyril - the creator of the Slavic alphabet in its modern form.
Cyrillic and Glagolitic
If we already began to discuss the problem of the emergence of Slavic writing in the form that is familiar to us today, we cannot but mention the heated and heated debate. It occurs between historians, linguists and archaeologists, which has been going on for ten years now. The subject is not only the creation of the Slavic alphabet as such, but also a discussion of its variants that were circulated throughout the whole of Ancient Russia.
We are talking about the fact that at the same time two writing systems were in circulation all over Ancient Rus at one time: the Cyrillic alphabet, already known to us, and the Glagolitic alphabet, the existence of which few today know. Was there at that moment any other, ancient Slavic alphabet? Everything is possible ... The difficulty in determining which one was the original one is the complete absence of reliable archaeological evidence.
Some research was carried out by many domestic scientists (especially in the 19th century), but due to the extremely turbulent history of our country, their results were completely lost. It is only known that the scientists of Tsarist Russia still believed that the Cyrillic alphabet was developed specifically by the brothers Cyril and Methodius. Briefly described theses are still found in the archives.
What alphabet did Cyril create?
Scientists still have not come to a consensus about what Cyril invented: glagolitic or cyrillic? Note that in the 10-11 centuries in the Cyrillic alphabet there were immediately 43 letters: 25 of them were borrowed from the old Greek alphabet. We can say that the rest came from the same place, but were significantly modified so that with their help it was possible to transmit sounds more characteristic of Slavic speech. This is characteristic of the creation of the Slavic alphabet: despite the artificial origin of many letters, it is based on the ancient language, which had the widest circulation in the ancient world.
The oldest written monuments
On the ruins of the church of Simeon in Pereslavl (Bulgaria) there are inscriptions of the end of the ninth century. From the same series are records from the city of Dobrudja dated 943. In the mound dating from the tenth century, a jug with the inscription "peas" was found. There are also birch bark Novgorod letters of the 11th century. One can only speculate how many such testimonies that were written earlier were simply destroyed by time. Finally, the Ostromir Gospel, written between 1056-1057 years (from Novgorod), is widely known.
Where did the cyrillic alphabet come from?
Despite numerous studies, scientists were not able to find out where this writing came from. Many of them believe that Cyril created it nevertheless, since there is no more or less clear evidence of its ancient origin. Others believe that Cyril developed only the Glagolitic alphabet, and the Slavic alphabet of Cyrillic originates somewhere in Ancient Bulgaria.
The last assumption is not without reason. The fact is that in 864-865 the Bulgarians converted to Orthodoxy, and Clement of Ohrid immediately went there, who was one of the most prominent and talented students taught by Saints Cyril and Methodius. He became the first Slav to take the high rank of bishop.
Some researchers consider him the developer of Cyrillic writing. But still, most of the historians, theologians and ministers of the Church consider the creator of it is Constantine the Philosopher, that is, St. Cyril. This opinion is very thorough, since many of the words, letters and phonetics, our language was borrowed from the Greeks. It is not surprising that the natives of Macedonia were indeed able to systematize knowledge of Slavic dialects, and then based on this information create the Slavic alphabet, which turned out to be really native to us.
Opinions on the origin of the Glagolitic
Glagolitic is considered by many scholars as a form of the Latin alphabet, since it is very similar to phonetics and the meaning of letters. The differences lie in the somewhat more complex form of the latter. Perhaps this way of drawing came from the Samaria language. In the 10-11 centuries, it was actively used by the inhabitants of Moravia, Dalmatia, and in Bulgaria itself the glagolitic was actively used. What can we say about Croatia, in which this alphabet was used until the 18th century! As for the oldest written monuments written by her, the Zograph Gospel, created at the end of the 10th century, immediately comes to mind.
If there are any guesses about the origin of the Cyrillic alphabet, then all theories about the origin of the Glagolitic alphabet are based solely on opinions and assumptions, since there is not a single documentary evidence that could confirm or refute at least one theory. Most likely, the history of the Slavic alphabet originates long before the 10th century, but so far these theories have not been supported by anything.
A rather large group of scientists, to which I. Taylor, I. V. Yagich and others belong, stood to death: this alphabet was founded all the same by Cyril on the basis of the Byzantine cursive method! Domestic researchers in the pre-revolutionary period (A.I. Sobolevsky, I.I. Sreznevsky, E.F. Karsky) advanced the theory that the Glagolitic originates in Moravia of the X century, where it was actively planted by the students of the omnipresent Cyril. This group did not come to a consensus about its creator, but they definitely guessed with the place of distribution.
The last statement is based on the fact that the local Catholic Church began the persecution of the Glagolitic in Moravia, beyond which it was then used much longer. This persecution itself began because the new alphabet was suspiciously like the Byzantine, which cast doubt on the "ancient origin" of Catholicism itself. As you can see, the history of the Slavic alphabet is very complicated and confused.
Some scholars even argued that the Glagolitic alphabet is nothing more than a sort of “cryptographic” form of the Cyrillic alphabet. In the Soviet period of time, the version that (largely for political reasons) that the Glagolitic alphabet was an ancient Slavic script, on the basis of which (mixed with Greek) the Cyrillic alphabet was created, was widely spread. Thus, Soviet scientists assumed that Cyril and Methodius (photos of their images are in our article) only transformed the existing version of writing. Modern research suggests that this is clearly not the case.
Concurrent use alphabet
Until the 12th century, both writing systems were used everywhere. But due to the fact that the Cyrillic alphabet was much simpler in style, it soon replaced the rival. Whatever it was, but today more than 70 languages around the world are built precisely on the basis of Cyril’s invention. However, in some of them (including Russian), you can still notice traces of the Glagolitic alphabet.
Many scientists believe that the latter died out artificially. Allegedly, the creators of the Slavic alphabet deliberately banned it, destroying books written on it. Most likely, this is not so. Just look at the ancient texts written in Cyrillic and Glagolitic. In the first case, almost any representative of the Slavic nation will be able to easily understand at least part of the words, even if the Church Slavonic alphabet was used in writing (in many respects it is the same
ancient Greek language).In the case of the glagolitic, one can confidently say that all the subjects will not be able to identify a single letter: the style and style are so complicated that it is almost impossible to understand. Simply put, she must have been defeated just because of the complexity of the style. In principle, the official version also says the same.
Perhaps Methodius is the creator of the Slavic alphabet of this model? Most likely, this is not so. Memoirs of contemporaries say that only Cyril could create a new writing system (even if based on Greek). Methodius was an excellent organizer, but without his brother he would hardly have been able to do something like that.
What books were translated into new writing?
Whoever created the Cyrillic and Glagolitic, his main goal for sure was to educate and convert all Slavic peoples to a single Orthodox faith. In any case, Saints Cyril and Methodius first translated the Gospel-Apracos, Apostle Apracos, the Psalter. Most likely, they also transferred to the Cyrillic alphabet and Paremynik.
As the "Life" testifies, Cyril began the translation of Holy Scripture also into Old Bulgarian. In general, everything is simple: any enlightened clergyman "on the ground" sought first and foremost to translate into clear and accessible scriptures, first of all, sacred books in order to make faith more accessible. By the way, the Church Slavonic alphabet mentioned above is probably not related to the brothers at all, since it was clearly created in the Slavic churches.
Transformation of Cyrillic writing and speech
Some "especially gifted" people often say that the Russian language has remained unchanged for hundreds of years, and now it is artificially distorted and spoiled. Of course, a sharp increase in the number of English terms, which have quite distinct synonyms in our language, is not a very good phenomenon.
But here’s the phrase you said around the 10th century (in modern transcription, of course): “Oh, Russian greens are already behind us.” Do you understand everything? Is that a combination of "Russian land." Meanwhile, this passage literally says the following: “The Russian land hid behind a hill”, “The Russian land hid as if covered with shell”. In fact, our ancestors quite recently, only before Peter I, spoke a language that we hardly understand today. Add to this the fact that many old letters of the Slavic alphabet do not have transcription into the modern language at all!
And all this happens due to the fact that the Russian language is perfectly modified, rapidly changing under the influence of environmental factors, but at the same time it remains a quality and understandable means of verbal and written communication. However, about the same thing can be said about any dialect, which today speaks at least three to four million people around the world.
conclusions
Remember that the inability of language and writing to absorb and assimilate new words and concepts testifies to his death. Not one million doctors, biologists and lawyers speak Latin today, but he is dead. It does not change; new rules do not appear in it.
No matter who the creators of the Slavic alphabet are, their merit is a brilliant writing system, each letter of which initially had multiple meanings, having a simple and understandable style. In addition, it was this writing that has stood the test of centuries, today is actively changing and continuing to serve as a means of communication for millions of people around the world.
Summing up, it should be said that Cyril and Methodius are not only the names of the holy brothers who created the Slavic alphabet, but the names of those outstanding thinkers who really could unite the Slavic peoples, giving them a common writing system.