Short History of the Cyrillic Alphabet

7/27/2019 Short History of the Cyrillic Alphabet

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Hrabar. On the Balkan peninsula, between the 7-9th C AD.' theSlavs lived together with the (Proto)Bulgarians (and under theirrule) till the former assimilated the latter. The Bulgarians camefrom Asia, and at that time used to speak a non-Slavic language(most probably Turkic), and used to write their official documentsin Greek, with Greek letters (using at the same time undecipheredrunic signs as well). The Bulgarians also faced difficulties inwriting some sounds with Greek letters, for instance, the sounds[tJl and [g] were written by the Greek r( and (. The Arab Ibn-Fadlan wrote in the l0th century AD that the Slavs who lived inpresent-day Russia used to put on the grave poles, bearinginscriptions with the names of the dead people. However, it is notclear what letters were used for that purpose. If it is true, as D.Cheshmedzhiev supposes, that the passage h Life of Saint Cyrill,in which the so-called loyrutca nhcMNA 'Rush letters' werementioned (which Constantine-Cyrill was said to have seen inKherson, in Crimea,, during his mission trip to lhe KhazarKhaganate, in the year 860, and which were considered by someRussian scientists to be an original script of the Russian Slavs),was inserted in that literary work not earlier than the 72th century(when the Russians already knew the Cyrillic letters), there will beno point in arguing what the national character of these letters was.At the end of the 9th century AD, the Slavs in Moravia, Panonia,and Bulgaria began writing in the newly created by St. Cyrilloriginal Glagolitic script. However, the Glagolitic alphabet wasreplaced little by little by other alphabets, and only the Croats usedit for several more centuries, alongside with the Latin and theCyrillic scripts.The so called Cyrillic alphabet (a misleading name), whichoriginated in the First Bulgarian Kingdom at the beginning of the10"' century, and replaced the ofhcial Bulgarian Glagolitic script,was created by Constantine the Philosopher lSaint Cyril), andaccepted by the Bulgarian ruler Boris I, at the end of the 9'hcentury. The change took place in the reign of Boris's son, Tsar


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Simeon I, who was strongly influenced by Greek culture' After aoeriod of parallel use of the Glagolitic and the cyrillic scriptsdrring th; l0-1l'h centuries in the f,rrst Bulgarian kingdomlsomJtimes even in mixed texts), since the 1lth century, the latterhas been an official Bulgarian, Russian, and Ukrainian alphabet(while the other Slavic peoples have used the Latin script duringcertain periods or unceasinglY).

B. THE NAME OF THE ALPHABETThere was a supposition by Pavel Saf6rik (Shafarik) that first theGlagolitic alphabet was called Cyrillic, and then' when it wasn't inuse anymore, tnis name was transferred to the invented later

alphabet, currently called Cyrillic. This supposition was based on anot" by the Russian scrivener Upir Lihyi, from the year 1047, whowrote that he had transcribed a book hc Kylll^oq'h lis kurilotsya].However, as Ivan Dobrev explains, the meaning of this phraseis 'from the original', and not 'from Cyrillic'' Although theinterpretation was wrong, it was supported by many Russianschoiars. As a consequence, even modern Westem authors (such asSchenker) cite this passage wrongly (uc rcorlgn'rosrq'8)' On the otherhand, the modem term Glagoliric (designating the original Slavicalphabet) originated in Croatia where the word for a scrivener wasglagolash (from r,raroa,arn 'to speak" rAAl'oAB 'word'), but thealphabet itself was called there bukvitsa (from the word for'letter').During the Bulgarian Renaissance, the Medieval Cyrillicalphabet was called slavenski pravopis'slavic writing', and later,from Russian was accepted the term Cyrillic alphabet, alongsidewith the simple but true balgarska qzbuka'Bulgarian alphabet'. Inthe same way, in Ukraine the alphabet is called ukrainska abetka,Ukrainian aiphabet', although in different periods, it was calledafter the .ru-., of several orthography reformers (see further). TheCyrillic varianl, used in Bosnia and Croatia, was calledbisanchit s a, Bosnian alphabet' or arvatits a' Croatian alphabet'. In


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some other Slavic countries, the name of the alphabet is also givenafter a certain person: vukovitsa in Serbia, after Vuk KaradLic(Karadzich), tarashkevitsa in Belorusia (after B. Tarashkevich).C. THE CREATOR OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABETAND THE TIME WHEN IT WAS CREATEDThere are no ceftain data about who and when has created theCyrillic alphabet, although some scholars say that it was created byConstantine-Cyril himself (who presumably created bothalphabets) or his disciples Clement of Ochrid and Konstantine ofPreslav. However, there is no proof of that. The first accretion isnot serious, and the other two are not supported by the facts, eventhe opposite is more likely (see the wonderful article by IvanDobrev in The Cyrillo-Methodian Encyclopedia).In Life of of St. Clement of Ochrid or The Legend of Ohrid (inwhich, according to K. Mirchev, one can find a number of

distorled facts), it was mentioned that the latter made someamendments to the alphabet, which his teacher (Constantine-Cyril)had created. That is why, it is more likely that the changes relatedto the Glagolitic alphabet; according to Chernorizets Hrabar, at theend of the 9th century or at the beginning of the 10th century, thelatter was still being amended. Besides, it is a fact that in South-Western Bulgaria (Macedonia) the Glagolitic script prevailed overthe Cyrillic. Nevertheless, Saf6rik (Shafarik) thought that thesecond Slavic alphabet, which is now called Cyrillic, was createdby St. Clement. According to Dobrev, it is hardly probable thatConstantine of Preslav could possibly be the creator of the Cyrillicscript since, inhis Alphabetic Prayer (893), the acrostic was builtafter the order of the Glagolitic letters, and not of the Cyrillic ones.This shows also that the latter were created after that year. That iswhy, although some scholars (Emil Georgiev) consider the Cyrillicalphabet to have been invented even before the Glagolitic one,there are no preserved written data about that. Moreover, in Life ofCyril ft was written that when the Byzantine emperor asked

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Constantine the Philosopher (St. Cyril) to create an alphabet for theSlavs (the Glagolitic one), the former complained to Constantinethat the previous two emperors had not been able to cope with thattask.D. NUMBER, NAMES, AND ORDER OF THE FIRSTCYRILLIC LETTERSThe Cyrillic letters have names (the same as the Glagolitic), andboth alphabets differ in some cases because the Cyrillic lettersresemble the number values of the Greek alphabet). Unfortunately,the question of the choice of names for the Slavic letters is still

open. The first letter is called ary laza) and literally means 'l' (butthere may be another motivation for that naming see below).Other letters literally mean 'people' (rro4,rre)., 'good' (prosgo), 'how'(rcarc0), 'word' (croao), and so on. The modem names of the Cyrillicletters are simplified. For instance, the letters in the Russianalphabet are pronounced like this: [a], fbel,fve],lgel,ldel ...The Cyrillic alphabet first consisted of 43 letters (according to K.Mirchev). 24 of them were the letters of the Greek alphabet, andthe other letters were forthe rest of the Slavic sounds: B, x, qr, u, e,ur, , [,, .b, ]0, A, 6, s, etc. Six of the characters were used only inGreek words (for example, 0 in 0eo4'oja, 'a female name').

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A table with the most of the Medieval Cyrillic letters (Kyrillisch). In thefirst three columns are the Greek model letters. Columns 5-6 contain theletters of the Cyrillic civil script ofPeter the Great, called Grazhdanka qseefurther). In the last column are the original names of the Medieval Cyrillicletters (Source: Trunte 2001).Some of the letters had variants: for the nasal [g] were used theletters A, A, a, and even in one manuscript, written by several

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persons, different variants of one letter were sometimes used. Notall of the letters (for example, inthe Enina Apostle, there is only z,[e], and not s ['e]) were used in other manuscripts. The sound [o]was written with different letter (0, w) according to its position inthe word. Some ietters could be written backwards (e - e, s - a,etc.). Generally speaking, the orthography was more fixed in EastBulgaria.Several tables, called abecedaria, conlaining the letters of thealphabet, have been preserved. In them, as well as in the acrosticworks, the order of the letters is shown (there are somediscrepancies, too). Constantine of Kostenets, who lived in the 14-i5th centuries, placed the letter s and the rest of the non-Greekletters at the end ofthe alphabet in order to show his respect to theGreek original.

E. THE MODBL FOR THE ALPHABETThe alphabet itself is not a completely new invention. Like theGothic (t\lblr l>1e...) and Coptic (a/S/r/}./r...) alphabets(source for the fonts - Wikipedia.org), the Cyrillic alphabet,invented after the year 893, is an expended Greek uncial writingsystem, and not an original alphabet like the Glagolitic one. In it,there are some supposed borrowings from other alphabets for theletters that are missing in the Greek alphabet.

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A text written in mixed Giagollitic and Cyrillic letters from South-EastBulgaria (Source: l4men 2005).

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t a A 1 rlt I a dt3b6 t! 2 b troryl{tl

p p a 2 tt -) V stA&f T r J % 4 g TAATOAh*, d A 4 Jt 5 d A0690g a C 5 3 6 e ECA"t( ;6 7 z rua{rye

Comparison between the Greek letters in column 1'2; the Cyrillic lettersin column 3; and the Glagolitic letters in column 5 (Source: * lKang] 2005).

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Borrowings from and through the Glagolitic alphabet:Lu ) Lu (the letter was first borowed from the Samaritanalphabet);o)r{l

v ) q (lessprobably).Bonowings from the Latin alphabet:x)N;i)s(?).Ivan Dobrev thought that the letter x was also borrowed from

the Glagolitic script (from ao) but later he suggested that it couldhave also been influenced by the Latin x because, in Dalmatia, itwas used like x [g] in Latin inscriptions: xeua (- xeNa,) 'woman',xivot (: xrsorr) 'life'. In the Freising folia (a Slavic text from the10-111h centuries, written in Latin letters), s is designated by i.Besides, Dobrev supposes that the Merovingian letter for thecapital A (A) is the model for n, which stands for the nasal o.

Borrowings from the Gothic alphabet (?):Q)q.There is also an opinion (by Rossen Milev) that the Cyrillicalphabet was also influenced by the Gothic one' created by bishopWulfila (311-383 AD) in the 4th century, also on the territory ofpresent-day Bulgaria (the Gothic alphabet like the Coptic, is basedon the Greek alphabet, with some exha letters from the Latin andRunic alphabets, that is why there is a visual resemblance betweenthem). Both Gothic and Old Bulgarian ,r [lfl correspond in

numerical value to the digit 90 (as it was mentioned, in oldalphabets the numbers were designated by letters). Similar are alsothe names of some letters - the Slavic ary, laza) resembles the

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Gothic aza'God',, while in Greek, there is Alpha from olderPhoenician Aleph.Other opinions look for connection between the Cyrillic letters(*, ,u) and the Chinese characters: mi (*) 'rice', shan (l-Jl)

'mountain', transferued to the Balkan Peninsula by the Bulgarians(Slavi Donchev); or with old Thracian-Balkanic writing traditions(Sv. Popov).

2. CHANGES IN THE BULGARIAN CYRILLICORTHOGRAPHY AND SPREAD OF THE CYRILLICLETTERS TO RUSSIA, SERBIA, BOSNIA, CROATIA,DALMATIA, AND ROMANIA (WALLACHIA ANDMOLDOVA)From Bulgaria, the Old Bulgarian literary language and theCyrillic alphabet were transferred to Russia (the Glagolitic

alphabet was also transferred there and used as cryptography) andthe Serbian principalities, where during the 11-12"' centuries OldRussian and Old Serbian literatures were bom. The Cyrillicalphabet was also used in the lands of present-day Romania, whichwere under Bulgarian rule. After the Romanian principality ofWallachia became independent in the 12-13 centuries, the Cyrillicalphabet was still in use there, as in the principality of Moldova forseveral centuries more. A Bulgarian tombstone inscription fromthe 1lth century (Here lies prince Presian...) was found even inthe town of Michalovce, Slovakia.

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An inscription on a tombstone from Preslav, Bulgaria (Source: Xa4Nraen,Kapagrzlaurpoea, MenaMe,q 20 I 0).

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A coin of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan-Assen II (Source: Xa4Nuee,Kapa4urraarpora, MeraMeg 20 I 0).

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A. KIEVAN RUSSIA, THE RUSSIAN PRINCIPALITIES,LITHUANIA, AND THE URALIC PEOPLESAt the end of the 10th century, the Kievan ruler Vladimirbaptized Kievan Rus' and the Bulgarian books came to Kiev seeIv. Dobrev, Insights into the Bulgarian Past.Liletature flourished.In Novgorod, besides books, birch bark documents were written inCyrillic, too.

7 d (:4-Y:jT.r1 rt'j, $a^jj'", y \^ e A.U\ r,r.,h ^ Trf tl^6EAg'r'%-t [n r\^ on.zr,qgigon

rQg,Er{a Ka EPdroY^losnoY

HCoYXH'E' I/ilHr HroY^lgN H noYlc^ry.AaI A /d np4ud'/tz'

A Novgorod birch-bark document (Source: Trunte 2001).

@,v\ a rc a 677ru y -rp c n@-rr c,'Y K'!E-"F?'1i" c n I n u a r.-a. p t\r r'r -t sac n, lv( r7r tr t r,/__rrne N N ( r r ly.::_! T l#' f A }n=fA Brz\ n lLo fA ru Z, -Jrp.g a nAffi Zru r-.,n a. f c K 110^H 0 \KoNnffa$ r \^r)yffrNt ra6r|n.c::=-.rAA.X,r,f JF6Z.,r/Tt. I{a(,0p0 M 7AAH0 Xc,='rl^HnfraMN A K A,nurf- Fi T1 0 rcnF'r*,ffi H C /\ TPALJ\ Yf /'.\0HNOKddHANHg O

,gojfN'8Bd ca.Nt pdcnpdulca, Nf, nocE

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^wr+ 6+4 T ;1hl iJTP c+fffif[+{'Yuz\'tl''t' ' *unA birch- bark abecedarium from Novgorod (Source: Wikipedia)'


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After Vladimir's death, several independent Russianprincipalities appeared (Kiev, Pereyaslavl, Smolensk, Polotsk,Galicia, Volinia, Vladimir, etc., as well as the Republic ofNovgorod), and little by little separate East-Slavic peoples beganto dweiop: the Ukrainian (with centre in Kiev, and later, in the 12-th century - in Galicia and Volyn)' the Russian (with centre inMoscow), and the Belorusian (with centre in Polotsk)' Inneighboring Lithuania, which later conquered the Ukrainian andBel,orusian lands (the Latvian people were under the rule of theLivonian Order), and then unified with Poland, the Ruthenian(Westem-Russian, Ukrainian-Belorusian) language was used 1poffi"iul, as well as the Cyrillic alphabet, in the period of the l4-17'ncenturies (in 1696, it was replaced by Polish).However, not only the Slavic and some of the Baltic peoplesused the Cyrillic alphabet at thal time. So did some of theneighbouring Uralic peoples: the Karelians and the Komi' AKarelian document numbered 292 from the Novgorod excavations,which was written in Cyrillic, is the oldest known document in anyFinnic language, written on birch bark. It is dated to the beginningof the 13th century.In the 14th century the Old Permic script appeared, sometimescalled Abur or Anbur (derived from the names of the first twocharacters). It is an original ancient Permic writing system for theKomi people, derived from Cyrillic and Greek', and Komi tribalrunes. The alphabet was introduced by a Russian missionary,Stepan Khrap (apparently of a Komi mother), also known as SaintStephen of Ferm, tn 1372, in Veliky Ustyug' The alphabet was inuse until the 16th century, when it was superseded by the Cyrillicscript with certain modifications for affricates. Abur was also usedas ciyptographic writing for the Russian language, alongside withthe Glagolitic scriPt.

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F11\[il r\ bs N t{ fy\,t{ )k11lo r 11 r 12 r 13 r I{ r 15

The Karelian birch-bark document N: 292 (Source: Wikipedia.l.

It is possible that the Khazars have also used a modification ofthe Cyrillic alphabet. The Arab Fakhr ad-Din wrote in 1206 thatthey also had a writing system (writing from left to right), whichderived from the Russian one.

After the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Moscow graduallyemancipated from Mongol-Tatarian rule, and became the centre ofthe Russian lands. The German Schweipolt Fiol (Sebald Vehl)published, in l49I in Cracow, the hrst book ever printed inCyrillic script, in Church Slavonic (a literary language whichoriginated in Russia on the basis of Old Bulgarian literarylanguage) The Oktotkh or Octoechos (however, in the Wikipediaarticle about Boiidar Vukovi6 (Bozhidar Vukovich) athttp://en.wikipedia.org it is writtenz The oldest printed book inSerbian-Slavonic was first issued in 1483, from the printing-pressof Andreas Torresanus de Asula in Venice - if this were true, thenFiol's book wasn't the hrst one). The Russians began printingbooks in their own country, too - the first one, in 1564, was TheApostle, printed by Ivan Fyodorov.

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$ oronrana fi l gr,nrnnndn m n x0 r,l b rpa;*o yxpam ntn f il & r I .?ria r*sr n mrA r 0 x o I ! n a n 0/r clt4r$at*r { n 4r n pa, } "1 axo n-ra na firry t rpa n nrr6kp n r o NaCr&ttl hurna fl ng^ ro$b r **:n u, nqrr *4rg bilr{tntx0r0po10y:*pdnxb, niNonra r&nrrskrrr$naf 0)ltfltttt.gh.r$ fb?b'It$rttyb*f th ir? at?6.Fiol's Book (Source: frouuen 1964).

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B. SERBIA AND MONTENEGROAt the end of the 12th century, Stefan (Stephen) Nemanja createda unified Serbian state (Rascia), which also included thePrincipality of Zeta (present-day Montenegro), and other smallerprincipalities which were under Bulgarian rule during the 10-1lthcenturies (which meant they knew both the Glagolitic and Cyrillicscripts), and later under Byzantine rule. After a period of gloryunder Tsar Stefan Du5an (Stephen Dushan), in the l4th century,Serbia was once more divided into several feudal principalities,and later conquered by the Turks. An important role for thedevelopment of the Serbian culture played the Bulgarian,Constantine of Kostenets, who settled in Stefan Lazarevic's Serbia,probably around 1402. He was warmly welcomed and was giventhe position of educator at the palace in Belgrade and the Manasijamonastery, where he helped establish the Serbian Resava School ofLiterature. During that time, the historical memory changed, andhe himself thought that the first Slavic books had appeared inRussia (not in Moravia and Bulgaria), and considered the Russianlanguage to be the finest Slavic language.Several decades later, The Serbian nobleman BoZidar Vukovi6(Bozhidar Vikovich) bought a printing-press in Venice andestablished it at Obod in Montenegro, from which he issued in1493 the Octoechos in Church Slavonic.C. BOSNIA, CROATIA, AND DALMATIAIn the 9th century, Trpimir created unified Croatia, whichreached its apogee at the beginning of the 10th century underTomislav. Although the Glagolitic alphabet survived in Croatia,and even books were printed in it up to the 20th century, theCyrillic script penetrated into that country, as well as into Bosnia,which became independent in the l4th century (after a period ofCroatian and Hungarian dominance). For several centuries, theCyrillic alphabet was widely used in Bosnia and Croatia (including


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in Bosnian and Croatian is bosaniica or bosanica, which canliterally be translated as Bosnian script. Croats also call it Croatianscript - at'vatica or Western Cyrillic. Paleographers consider thatthe Humac tablet is the hrst document of this type of script anddates back supposedly to the 10th-1lth century. Bosnian Cyrilliclasted continuously until the 18th century, with sporadic uses evenin the 20th century. Today it is preserved in a Franciscan monasteryof Humac near Ljubu5ki in Herzegovina.

Dubrovnik the Republic of Ragusa, where Serbo-Croatian wasspoken along with the Romance Dalmatian language; and thePoljica principality near Split). Its name

D. THE CYRILLIC SCRIPT DURING THE TIME OFTHE SECOND BULGARIAN KINGDOM, AND THE TIMEoF THE OTTOMAN RULE OVER BULGARTA (t2-tgthCENTURIES)From 1018 till 1187, Bulgaria was under Byzantine rule but theCyrillic tradition wasn't interrupted. It even flourished again in theyears of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom. However, there weresome changes. Besides the backwards letters (u - e.' s - a) the

accent and aspiration marks, which were in use even in printedCyrillic books, were introduced from Greek.

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The Bosnian/Croatian Cyrillic alphabet - columns I and 3 (Source:Wikipedia).

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dqdrtr npH,u6fipo;d dt(Hpd novsile.-io uo[oI,lh novHde,+ro c^otro npH,,t464po;o dltHpd. p^rlu ura


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During the Middle-Bulgarian period, because of the languagechanges, there were several unnecessary letters which were usedafter artificial rules (for instance, always r atthe end of the word:rja4's 'town' instead of npa.4u). An important literary Slavic centreduring the 14th century was Mount Athos in Greece. Later,Euthymius of Turnovo founds and heads the Turnovo literaryschool. He is said to have conducted a language reform, although,these days, its opponents are more than its supporters. After the fallof the Bulgarian kingdoms and principalities (Momchil'sDespotate of Xanthi, Kingdom of Tumovo, Principality ofKarvuna, Kingdom of Vidin) under the Turkish rule (the last one -in 1396), many Bulgarian writers (Gregory Tsamblak, Konstantineof Kostenets, etc.) went to Serbia, Walachia or the Russianprincipalities, and played an important role in cultural life there.

The overloaded Middle Bulgarian orthography was used andin the period of the 16-l8th centuries, when Bulgaria was ruled bythe Ottoman Turks, and the damaskin literature flourished.Between 1566-1510,, Jacob Krajkov printed several books inVenice (Book of Hours, Psalter, Prayer Book), withoutabbreviated words (previously, instead of sorz 'God' was used sFa,for instance), and using elements of the colloquial Bulgarianlanguage. The traditional orthography was also used in the printedbooks during the Bulgarian Renaissance (after 1762 - when Paisiiof Hilandar wrote also in Church Slavonic mixed with Bulgariancolloquial elements his Slavonic-Bulgarian History) - for example,in Peter Beron's Primer from the year 1824. During the 17-18thcenturies, the literature of the Bulgarian Catholics, which wasdeveloped on the basis of the so-called Illyrian literary language(an artificial South-Slavic language on Croatian basis, with Serbianand Bulgarian elements, used by the Catholic priests as commonSouth-Slavic language - not to be taken for Ancient Illyrian)flourished also. In Illyrian, on the basis of the Bosnian Cyrillicscript, Filip (Philip) Stanislavov wrote the miscellany Abagar, and

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had it printed in Rome in I 65 I . The period of the 17- I 9th centurieswas characterizedby chaotic use of different letters (old and new)by different authors. Yoakim Karchovski in Different InstructiveDirections (1819) and Beron inhis Primer use the letter u for thesound [dg]. Instead of t, at that time was written d. ln 1825, inHoly History by V. Nenovich was restored n for [a]. In this waythat sound was written in three ways: b, 6, 6. N. Gerovdistinguished between o and r on etymological basis in 1849.

E. WALLACHIA, MOLDOVA, AND TRANSYLVANIA

The independent Romanian principalities of Wallachia andMoldova appeared in the 14th century. For about five centuries, theCyrillic script was the liturgical and administrative script in thesetwo states - first in Slavic, and later in Romanian language, and theWallach and Moldavian rulers used the Cyrillic alphabet forwriting their official documents. Several Bulgarian books, printedin the Wallachian city of Targovishte, are particularly precious,among them, a Gospel printed by Macarius, in 1512, by order ofthe ruler John Basarab. This Macarius printed earlier Liturglt(1508) and Octoeclzos (1510). In Szeben (Cibinium, Sibiu),Transylvania, the printing of liturgical books for the orthodoxchurch began in 1544.They were also printed with Cyrillic script,and their language was either Slavic or native Romanian. TheCyrillic books printed in Transylvania were transpofted and sold inthe Romanian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. A printerworking in Szeben with Cyrillic types was Philip deacon whofollowed the tradition of early liturgical books.

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A page from the book Abagar (Source: PaAes, Ka6axqrzen 2006).

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The earliest known text in Romanian dates from 1521 and is aletter from Neacgu of CAmpulung to the Mayor of Bragov(Brashov). Neacgu wrote in a version of the old Cyrillic alphabetsimilar to the one for Old Bulgarian, and which was used inWalachia and Moldova until 1859. From the late 16th century aversion of the Latin alphabet using Hungarian spelling conventionswas used to write Romanian in Translyvania. Then in the late 18thcentury a spelling system based on Italian was adopted. In 1860-1862, the Cyrillic was officially replaced by a Latin-basedRomanian alphabet. Cyrillic remained in occasional use until circa1920 (mostly in Bessarabia). It was not the same as the Russian-based Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet. Between its discarding and thefull adoption of the Latin alphabet, a so-called transitionalalphabet was in place for a few years (it combined Cyrillic andLatin letters, and included some of the Latin letters with diacriticswhich came to be used in Romanian spelling).3. TSAR PETER'S ORTHOGRAPHIC REFORM INRUSSIA, AND ITS INFLUENCE OVER OTHER SLAVICAND ORTHODOX PEOPLES

A. RUSSIA

In 1708, the Russian Tsar Peter I the Great conducted anorthographic reform, introducing a new type of Cyrillic letters,called civil script, modelled in a Dutch work shop. It was helpedby the spread of the Latin script among the educated people inRussia in the period between 1680-1690. The reform was acompromise between the supporters of the old Cyrillic traditionand the suppofters of West-European culture. Many of the oldCyrillic letters were replaced by newer ones,.similar to them, andaccentuation marks and abbreviations as well as the differentletters for designating one sound in a different position in the word


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were no longer used'. The letter a was replaced by ,a. The use ofthe backwards e instead of e (which was borrowed from Bulgarianbooks) began to designate the hard [e] in borrowed words: ,rzep'mayor'. from French maire.

T,irsar Hdrrg/ x\ede iryn 4 ripogri, cQiiq,irrrre n{ue,re mC: ftl{rfrfzr1,il ri: fre r6a 'ri, nfr Kfarr 4\ rifro, ui nfs nsnXHrL. Ihir{ut udnrrpl{ 6e roa're 3ilene, Al}rw Hdaw ln-r3fi. Iilri fl rifrr H6aw ,1aro1ir{,rrHddnfr ny, x/,L. uri udr{ irl,rzat Adry6frnyr,rwp Hdrygri: IIfti HC xe 4/rnp Hrir{ 4 Hrndrr, ri ue n3r,rr{ryr 6r riar pC. ilr a'ri mffr 4nrfrqla, tuiIl/r{gt" uri ,nzgrilt.1 atrri, dnilHr.

The Lord's Prayer in Romanian Cyrillic (Source: Wikipedia).

A text in Romanian transitional alphabet (Source: Wikipedia)34


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The letters s' 0, E, \.t, v were thrown out. The civil script is thebasis of all modern Cyrillic alphabets. The first book, printed withthe new script was |EOMETPIA'geometry'.

SEI"$.E EItrI I&I*isteq t{rudmmeqF.'r*drir**} mwmr$$}.

nour,r. 6rr r;*'cb {I* +r-srrnrit rFrI aLA{r l f s rof y,i r p;yItAulrag rlnFi. t l{.lFi{if, qrrt}t. t L"PA KCI&Atr{S.,Itarr ;i,i;r; ,. , {!,..!.r ! S}llit f*{,&t {rEl$ttr,{}"npr d.rrrtla,rx hrufxh tocyi*pt rrrrurxb l{.rFrrrr b .I tt,ltKs}{b *tirrf^t^EKf,rr nETpoBr{til rlrperry*,r,+r;l rr vi"rrf r;,l61 t*t.,r}.

r! rl*o r'+1.gr,-. I.!f.,, ?1l fiig".*|r rt hs r.lrr 64rarrdra !?!.!l . [r-l.rqr halria.' ,.*,4l'n.;+_ '

The first book printed in civil script (Source: Wikipedia).

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Beron' s Bulgarian Primer (Source: Wikipedia).

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B. BELORUSSIAThe Russian principalities on the territory of present-dayBelorussia were not affected by the Mongol invasion. However,they were included in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and later, inthe Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in these lands theOrlhodoxy and the Cyrillic alphabet were losing ground till the18"' century when they became part of the Russian Empire. TheBelorussian typography had a long tradition even before Peter I theGreat. The Belorussian F. Skaryna was one of the first to publish inthe Cyrillic script. In 1517, he established a printing pressin Prague, where he printed his first book, The Psalter,, in the sameyear, in a mixture of Church Slavonic and Belarusian. Since 1560sthe Nesvizh Cyrillic Typography, established by Symon Budny,began to work. The Kutein Typography, established by SpiridonSobol (who probably was Ukrainian) in 1630, near Orsha, became

a centre of the Belorussian book printing.The modern Belorussian Cyrillic alphabet was made up at theend of the 19th century, and several stightly different versions wereused informally. During its evolution, fifteen letters were dropped,the last four of them going after the introduction of the hrst officialBelorussian grammar in 1918.C. UKRAINE

In the period of the l2-l7th centuries, Ukraine was under therule of the Mongols, then of the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom, andfinally - of Bohdan Khmelnytsky's Cossacks, till it became parl ofthe Russian kingdom in the 17th century. Several scholars workedin the l6-nth centuries. Lavrentiy Zyzaniy, a Ukrainian andBelorussian scholar, published a Church Siavonic Grammar in1596 in Vilnius, Lithuania. So did Meletius Smotrytsky in 1619,

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another Ruthenian (Ukrainian and Belorussian) linguist. HisSlavonic Grammar, published in 1619, was very influential on theuse ofChurch Slavonic, and codified the use ofthe letters fl (ia)'E(e), and I (g).

irr0lloxrxr lcrt crd\ Kxxrt, Hc$cl cxur {ingxIt

jjjrpiuro hl6au 6,rtr< r icrruXt lk Sr{rxa,dorrof {$prtiqHcru Grcornxnxtr cuxl 6no,reqrcr . Scalexo,ilrlrrrr llrricxo,i " itr; norfilri,i xar*,,Tucrfxorr tl*drorcrr Hcejnuroxrp,urnd r*

Xou frycrrrHfi/t/filrt{Hr r ftrqo,ffn ilrHrrtrocr u,rndr,,r,rrgH;cTnr({(t . tnt ictuuyi*r^ Scryt 6oe gr,,gllrmort c!t(f0st"ll1tr *itn ..lfui'ioexH!{t r 6no,,ro,y,ri6rgoirqn 8;,ntrto 60ru . }{ itu lkfixrT oe ]rl*r'rxlrhn*r . flas*arxH;'mr llgrqr ri iifi*,nur6u*"Grrgo,utxrtxllH.lrlrcqr -d.rxlsrH,* dHn fl,nroro l*One of Skaryna 's printed books (Source: froHven 1964).

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rf*frfiJ*tfrTI*{{efrsg#HeffisGlrrieritirl #rnt'irr*,ii*rfrri$Tiri rr{rr . *#r*fffiff*ff"'Itd*.,r**ffF"?ni.fr, e *

E EM#H[IEllt'rjinx Epr'#r*r,i.tl Frn . ii ;3...1 a'o . it #-.l ainr*'li?r. _iifi,Fhr** C, ** "Zyzaniy' s Grammar (Source: Wikipedia).

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Another great name was the Kievan and All-Rus' MetropolitanPeter (seculai name Petro Mohyla) who was born inaMoljavianboyarfamily. In the 1620s, Mohyla traveled toUkraine, and settled in Kyevo-Pechers'ka Lavra in Kiev - thepolitical and cultural centre of Ukraine. In 1632, Mohyla becameih. birhop of Kiev and abbot of pecherska Lavra. There hefounded i school for young monks where the tutoring wasconducted in Latin. Later this school was merged with the KievBrotherhood school and turned into the Mohyla collegiums orthe Kyiv Mohyla Academy. Mohyla significantly improved theprint shop atLavrawhere orlhodox books were published in Latin,and for over 20 years, he played a leading role in Ukraine's bookprinting, being one of the first to print in the Ukrainian language.iUotiyla wanted to preserve the Ukrainian nation's identity that hadbeen experiencing inormous pressure from the Polish and Russian,egimes. He initiated the publication of sermons for the laity inULainian, Biblical texts in Church Slavonic, and scientihc booksin Ukrainian, Polish, Greek, and Latin. One of his most importantpublications was catechesrs (1640). Another notable worksincluded Trebnyk or Euchologion (1646). There are data that hefirst used the civil script letters, which later Peter I of Russiaintroduced in 1708.

various alphabet reforms were influential in ukraine, besidespeter the Gieat's civil script of 1708 (the Grazhdanka), whichinfluenced Mykhaylo Maksymovych's nineteenth-century GalicianMaksymovyciivkt scripr, and its descendent, rhe Pankevychivka,whichisstillinuse,inaslightlymodilredform,fortheRusynlanguage in carpathia Ruthenia. Several other reforms attemptedto "intioduce a phonemic Ukrainian orlhography during thenineteenth century, based on the example of Vuk Karadzhich'sSerbianCyrillic.TheseincludedoleksiyPavlovskiy'sGrammar,panteleimon Kulish's Kulishivkct, lhe Drahomctnivka, promoted byMykhailo Drahomanov. In Galicia, the Polish-dominated localgovernment tried to introduce a Latin alphabet for Ukrainian'


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which backfired by prompting a heated War of the Alphabets,bringing the issue of orthography into the public eye. The Cyrillicscript was favoured, but conservative Ukrainian cultural factions(the Old Ruthenians and Russophiles) opposed publications whichpromoted a pure Ukrainian orthography. In 1876, the Ems Ukaz(decree) banned the Kulishivkq and imposed a Russian orthographyuntil 1905, called the Yaryzhka, after the Russian letter or (yery).The Yevhen Zhelekhivsky's Zhelekhivka, which standardized theletters i Qi) and r (g) became official in Galicia in Austro-Hungaryin 1893, and was adopted by many eastem Ukrainian publicationsafter 1977.

D. POLAND AND LITHUANIA

The Kingdom of Poland, informally known as CongressPoland or Russian Poland, was created in 1815 by the Congress ofVienna. It was a personal union of the Russian part of Poland withthe Russian Empire. It was gradually politically integrated intoRussia over the course of the 19th century, made an official part ofthe Russian Empire in 1867, and finally replaced during the GreatWar by the Central Powers in 1915 with the theoreticallyexisting Regency Kingdom of Poland. Though ofhcially theKingdom of Poland was a state with considerable politicalautonomy guaranteed by u liberal constitution, its rulers,the Russian Emperors, generally disregarded any restrictions ontheir power. Thus effectively it was little more than a puppetstate of the Russian Empire. The Cyrillic script was used for shorlperiod during the Congress Poland era because requiredby Russian law. In the middle of the 19th century, the Russian TsarNicholas I tried to replace the Polish Latin alphabet with theCyrillic one but the effort was not successful. Here is a sample textof that time:

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Il6ildsuqe o dsnmxu, n6ildsaqe swucmKe panM3a nncmo, nodu ctynu ua eze6pext,Taut' npddu qydozHbtMb rctgxuuiiqe o6paseut,Ilo6ocrcue sn6etle naqpercu... (lloep6mz' Temu, np"e:r A.Muqrenuua).Another variant of the same text:Ilyiidume o dnmxu, nyildome sraucmKe pa33.M3a uncmo, nod cnyn Ha $?ypoK,Tatt nped qydoeuwu rcnmrcuu me o6pasen,I l o6ocrue iMy6me na mdptrc.The idea of introducing the Cyrillic alphabet for the Polishlanguage has suppoders even now - see the site Opmoepa$nqbtpwnu4Ka dm Asuma norbcKezo in the bibliography.

After the Uprising of 1863-1864 in the North-West part of theRussian Empire, the general-governor M. Muravyov forbadeprinting in Latin letters for the Lithuanians, and everything had tobe printed in Cyrillic up to 1904.E. THE URALIC PEOPLESBesides being in use among the Russians, the Ukrainians, theBelorussians, the Polish, and the Lithuanians, the Cyrillic scriptkept on spreading through the Uralic people during the 18-191hcenturies: the Mordvins (Erzya and Moksha), the Mari in the l8thcentury, the Karelians in the l9'h century, and the Nenetsp at the

same time. However, it was used mainly for religious purposes -for creation of orthodox texts and dictionaries. Works of nationalliteratures were not created. The first Erzya religious textsappeared in 1803. In 1884, a Primer was printed, too. A Gospel of

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John in the Moksha language was published in 1901 (the modemalphabet was created in the second half of the 18th century). In the19th century, a few books were published in Karelian usingthe Cyrillic script, too, notably A Translation of some Prayers anda Shortened Catechism into North Karelian and Olonets (Aunus)dialects in 1804, and the Gospel of St. Matthew in South KarelianTver dialect, in 1820.

F. SERBIA, MONTENEGRO, AND ALBANIAWhile the people in Croatia used the Latin (and to some extentthe Glagolitic) alphabet, and in Bosnia even books in the Arabicscript appeared during the 18-19th centuries, in Serbia the literarylanguage was the Church Slavonic (and its variant, the Serbian-Slavonic). At the beginning of the 19th century, Sava Mrkal

simplified significantly the Serbian Cyrillic script (the RussianCivil script was accepted first in that country).In the middle of the lgth century, Vuk Stefanovii KaradLi(,(Karadzhich) conducted an orlhographic reform: the unnecessaryletters a and a were discarded and the letters ,,o, rb, u, jr wereintroduced. After that reform, the Serbian Cyrillic script was calledafter Karadzhich: vukovitsa. In 1850, the so-called Vienna LiteraryAgreement was signed. It was the first step to the creation of astandardized Serbo-Croatian language on the basis of Vuk's reform(representatives from Serbia and Croatia took part in signing theAgreement).Although the oldest surviving Albanian document of the 15thcentury was written in the Latin script, and early Albanian writers

also used a Latin-based script, adding Greek characters to representextra sounds, Christophorids published a book in Cyrillic. in 1872.

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A Lithuanian Cyrillic textlrom 1866 (Source:Wikipedia).

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A modern Mongolian banknote (Source: Wikipedia).

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Documents

Short History of the Cyrillic Alphabet