History of Russian writing. The emergence of Slavic writing in Rus'

INTRODUCTION

Writing plays an extremely important role in human society, it is a powerful engine human culture. Thanks to writing, people can use the vast store of knowledge accumulated by humanity, further develop the heritage of the past and preserve the experience of many generations for the future.

The letter is the most important means transmitting speech over a distance or fixing it in time, carried out using graphic signs or images that convey certain elements of speech - entire messages, individual words, syllables and sounds.

The global development of writing proceeded in the direction of transmitting in written signs more and more small elements of language, which made it possible to get by with fewer and fewer different signs. At the same time, written signs lost their original pictorial character.

Main goal of the work– consider the history of the development of world writing and the appearance of the first documents.

Based on the goal, the following tasks can be formulated:

Consider the stages of the emergence of writing;

Consider the first documents that have reached us.

Structurally, the work consists of an introduction, two chapters and a conclusion. The first chapter talks about the stages of emergence (pictographic, ideographic and syllabic writing) and the evolution of writing, the second chapter discusses the issue of the appearance of the document.

When writing the test, the works of leading domestic and foreign scientists on the problem under study were used.

Chapter 1 The emergence of writing

1.1 The main stages of writing development

Writing has come a long way in development, spanning a period of several thousand years. Representing, in addition to sound language, a means of communication between people, arising on the basis of language and serving to transmit speech over a long distance and consolidate it in time with the help of descriptive signs or images, writing appeared at a relatively late stage of human development. The history of writing is closely connected with the development of language, the history of the people and their culture.

The appearance of writing was caused by the practical need to expand connections between people when communicating over long distances and the need to store and transmit knowledge to future generations.

The actual letter, i.e. descriptive writing is writing associated with the use of graphic signs (pictures, letters, numbers) to record and convey sound language.

In the development of descriptive writing, several types have historically changed. Each of these stages was determined by which elements of the sound language (whole messages, individual words, syllables or phonemes) served as the unit of written designation.

Typically, four types of letters are established in sequence:

· pictographic;

· ideographic;

· syllabic;

· letter-sound.

This division is to a certain extent arbitrary, since none of the indicated types appears in a “pure” form. Each of them includes elements of a different type of letter. For example, pictography already contains the rudiments of ideography, and ideographic writing reveals numerous elements of syllabic and letter-sound writing. In turn, alphabetic writing often combines ideas in texts graphic signs– numbers, mathematical, physical and chemical formulas etc. But such a division makes it possible to see the sequence of main stages in the history of writing, to identify the uniqueness of the formation of its main types and thereby imagine the overall picture of the formation and development of descriptive writing.

There are other classifications of writing types. According to one of them, five varieties are established:

Phrasography is the most ancient type of writing, conveying the content of entire messages with symbolic and descriptive signs without graphically dividing them into individual words;

Logography is a subsequent type of writing, the graphic signs of which convey individual words;

Morphemography is a type of writing that arose on the basis of logographic to convey in graphic signs the smallest significant parts of a word - morphemes;

Syllabography, or syllabary writing, the signs of which indicate individual syllables;

phonography, or sound writing, the graphic signs of which usually designate phonemes as typical sounds.

According to another classification, the evolution of writing is presented as follows:

pre-writing: semasiography, including the most ancient conventional signs, pictography and primitive ideography;

writing itself: phonography, which appears in the following varieties:

verbal-syllabic writing;

syllabic writing;

alphabetic letter.

However, these classifications have not yet become widespread in educational literature, where the traditionally established classification is more often used.

From the fact that four main stages are consistently established in the history of writing, it does not at all follow that every people, having entered the path of civilization, had to necessarily go through all these stages in the development of writing. The situation here was much more complicated than it seems at first glance. This or that people due to various reasons related to both the peculiarities of the grammatical structure of its language and the circumstances historical nature, could have stopped at any of these stages. This, for example, happened with the Chinese, who settled on using ideographic writing, or with the Japanese and Koreans, who, along with ideography, used the national syllabary systems kana in Japan and kunmun in Korea. On the other hand, many peoples were able to step directly from a lower stage in the development of writing to a higher one, for example, from pictography directly to alphabetic writing, bypassing the ideographic and syllabic stages. It's about about the Chukchi, Eskimos, Evenks, Nenets and other peoples of the Far North, who had the opportunity to make such a leap after the October Revolution.

1.2 Pictographic writing

The oldest, most original type of writing is pictographic writing (from Latin pictus “picture, drawn” and Greek grapho “writing”). The main means of this writing were more or less complex drawings of a plot, narrative nature, or a series of drawings. It is a deliberate depiction of objects, actions, events, etc. on stone, wood, clay. for the purpose of communication. With the help of such drawings, various messages were transmitted over a distance (for example, military, hunting) or any memorable events were fixed in time, for example, the terms of a trade exchange or messages about military campaigns (on tombstones leaders).

Pictographic writing through a drawing, which is called a pictogram, conveys the statement as a whole, without dividing it into individual words by the graphic elements of the pictogram. In accordance with this, the individual elements of the pictogram act as parts of a single whole and can only be correctly understood in connection with each other. Sometimes this letter also used the simplest conventional signs, for example, dashes indicating the number of items in question, symbols of tribal property, calendar designations of months, etc.

The pictogram was a schematic drawing, the artistic merit of which was not significant. Here it was only important that the drawing communicated something, and that what was drawn was correctly recognized by those to whom it was addressed.

The pictography conveyed only the content of the statement, without reflecting linguistic features transmitted message (sound of words, their grammatical forms, sequence of words, etc.).

When and from what sources did the original pictographic writing arise? The most important source its formation was served by primitive painting (the first traces of primitive art date back to the Upper (Late) Paleolithic era (40-25 thousand years BC). Many drawings have reached us, but not all of them are writing. Many of them served to express and satisfying only aesthetic needs primitive people or were used for magical cult purposes.

The appearance of pictographic writing is associated with the period when primitive drawings began to be used not only for aesthetic and religious-cult needs, but also as a means of communication, i.e. as a means of conveying messages to complement oral storytelling and to cement messages in the memory of the storyteller or listener. This is believed to date back to the Neolithic era, which began for most peoples from the 8th to 6th millennium BC.

Judging by the information that has reached us from distant eras, as well as taking into account the ethnographic data of most peoples, we can conclude that pictographic writing performed a wide variety of functions.

The following types of pictograms are known:

various records of the conditions for the exchange of hunting, fishing, etc. items;

reports of military campaigns, skirmishes, hunting;

various letters, including love letters;

tribal chronicles;

gravestone memorial inscriptions;

records of magical and spell formulas, legends, customs, commandments.

Instructions

Less than 100 years have passed since they stopped teaching children the Slavic alphabet. Meanwhile, it was she who was the storehouse of knowledge that formed the child’s correct understanding of the world around him. Each letter is at the same time an image with the help of which knowledge was transmitted. For example, the initial letter Az (Азъ) has the following images: source, beginning, fundamental principle, reason, worthy, renewal.

Features of the Slavic alphabet

The alphabet changed with the introduction of Christianity in Rus'. In order to be able to study the Bible, Greek initial letters were introduced into the Russian alphabet, replacing them. They were required for a more correct reading of the holy books from the point of view. Cyril and Methodius, having changed and shortened the alphabet by 6 initial letters, predetermined the loss of the deep meaning of the Russian language, which was mastered not by writing letters (letter combinations), but by connecting images. This can be seen in the example of many native Russian words, for example, conscience (joint message, knowledge), education (calling of an image, its creation, va(ya)nie). So in the 10th century, Russian writing, in many ways corresponding to the modern one. But there was also an older one, Slavic.

The appearance of writing in Rus'

The question of the origin of writing in Rus' has not yet been finally resolved. The traditional point of view is this: it came into life with the emergence of the Cyrillic alphabet. But the debate among scientists around this theory has been going on for a long time, and the research of Doctor of Philology Chudinov, Doctor of Historical Sciences Natalya Guseva, academicians Vinogradov, Govorov, Sidorov and many other researchers convincingly prove that the first inscriptions in Proto-Slavic were made on stones and clay tablets.

In the 70s of the last century, the Sofia alphabet (Greek) was discovered, which included three Slavic initial letters. Consequently, writing in Rus' appeared long before the activities of Cyril and Methodius. The most ancient was the nodular, or ligature, nauz. Subsequently, runes appeared. The Old Russian Magi were written in the Holy Russian runic script. These texts are inscribed on tablets made of oak, cedar and ash.

Later cultural monuments, for example, Kharatya, are written in Glagolitic alphabet, which is very close to the Old Slavic alphabet. It was used as a trade letter, and the features and cuts were used to convey short messages for economic needs. In the history of the Greeks and Scandinavians, documentary information has been preserved that already in the 2nd-4th centuries the Slavs were an educated people and had their own written language. Moreover, every child was taught it.

The most ancient monuments Slavic writing found in 1962 in the village of Terteria (Romania). They are written in Slavic runic and date back to the 5th century BC. Before this discovery, the earliest artifact confirming the presence of writing among the ancient peoples of the East were Sumerian tablets. But they turned out to be 1000 younger than the ancient Slavic ones.

It is no secret that the formation of ancient Russian church literature began after such a process as Christianization. According to certain data, literacy in Rus' appeared thanks to Bulgaria, after the well-known religious act took place in 998. This version turned out to be not entirely correct. Historians have proven that Old Russian letters, as well as Old Russian writing, appeared thanks to Cyril and Methodius.

Many people know that in Rus' they already had writing before 988, and this is a recognized fact. Some researchers argue that writing began to appear during the Bronze Age. According to the treatise of Chernorizets Khrabra, which is dedicated to the appearance ancient Slavic writing, this process had several main stages. One of the main stages was the borrowing of letters from the Greek and Latin alphabets. That is why Old Russian letters have known origins.

http://artgarmony.ru/

Features of the development of writing in Rus'

Also, the development of writing was influenced by the signs of many local peoples. If we talk about total number the main such signs, there were about two hundred of them. According to historians, the bearers of the so-called Chernyakhov culture supported quite good relationship with the Greeks and Romans. Many representatives of this culture often visited ancient cities, where they acquired certain writing skills.

In the Cathedral of St. Sophia, the Sophia alphabet was discovered, which was drawn on the wall in quite high quality and in large, expressive letters. According to some researchers, this alphabet is an ordinary Cyrillic alphabet. The only main difference is that the Sofia alphabet is unfinished. By the way, the ancient Russian letters are depicted here quite neatly. This suggests that the Sofian alphabet deserves the full right to be called pre-Cyrillic; it ideally reflects the initial stage of the emergence of Slavic writing.

Creating the first library

It is worth noting that in the 11th century, Yaroslav the Wise created a cultural and educational center in Kyiv, where the first library appeared. In this library, according to historians,
very important political documents, various texts of treaties, etc. were stored. You can also see here large number books, mainly literate translations of Christian literature, church documentation, etc.

Modern research has learned that East Slavic writing appeared exclusively thanks to the missions of Cyril.

http://hvrax.ru/

Sources of Old Russian writing

The main source of the emergence of Old Russian writing was still Greek sources. Old Russian symbols also contributed to this. The first Cyrillic alphabet had several variants. One option consisted of 38 letters, and the other of 43 letters. Many historians are trying to answer the following question: what exactly was the alphabet that Cyril invented?

If we talk about the Glagolitic alphabet, then this is one of the most mysterious problems of the entire period of formation of Old Russian writing. By the way, the origin of the Glagolitic alphabet is unknown to this day. Today, the ancient Russian alphabet, writing and reading, is also a kind of mystery for researchers.

Most importantly, scientists have proven that Cyril put a lot of effort into the appearance of the first alphabet, alphabet and writing in Rus'. Of course, this topic has been quite discussed for many decades, since, unfortunately, there are not many facts about the emergence of writing in Ancient Rus'.

Video: The history of the birth of Slavic writing

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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, Slavic tribes and the ancient Rus had their own writing in the form of “lines and cuts” or “Slavic runitsa” 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 Tripoli 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. different versions key phrase for us. In one version: “the Slavs before Cyril did not have books,” in another - “letters,” but the author indicates: “they wrote with lines 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 Russian Orthodox Church, we read: “In the city of Korsun, Kirill 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 Rimsky Pope VIII, a contemporary of Cyril, which claim 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 inscription, most often scraped out with a knife. 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."

Municipal budgetary educational institution

"Solginskaya Secondary School No. 86"

ORTHODOX LOCAL HISTORY EPHINY READINGS

Research topic:

"The emergence of writing in Rus'"

Rogutkina A., student

6th class MBOU

"Solginskaya School No. 86"

Supervisor:

Kulagina A. N.

teacher of Russian language and literature

2016

I. Introduction

As a result of communicating with a wide range of my peers, I found out that some of them think that the topic of the emergence of Slavic writing in modern world irrelevant; that it has been studied so much that there are no “blank spots” left in it; some do not understand the significance of the appearance of writing for the Slavs.

I want to show how important and fateful the creation of their own alphabet was for the Slavic peoples; tell how Slavic writing developed.

Russian writer and historiographer Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin said: “The history of the mind represents two main eras: the invention of letters and printing; all others were their consequences. Reading and writing open a new world to a person, especially in our time, with the current advances of the mind.”

IN beginning of XXI centuries, it is unthinkable to imagine modern life without books, newspapers, indexes, flow of information, and the past - without an ordered history, religion - without sacred texts... The advent of writing became one of the most important discoveries in the history of mankind. In terms of significance, this step can perhaps be compared with making fire or with the transition to growing plants instead of a long period of gathering. The formation of writing is a very difficult process that lasted thousands of years.How did the invention of the letter happen? What do people know about this?

The road to writing was long and difficult. It all started, as some scientists think, with bears. It was a very long time ago. In those distant times, people lived in caves, because there were no houses yet. But some caves were inhabited by bears.

One day, people drove bears out of a cave, looked around and saw some mysterious signs on the walls of their new homes. These were scratches that the bears made when they sharpened their claws on the wall. Then people realized that they could scratch some image on a flat surface. This is how the road to writing arose.

This is a pictorial letter. But the drawing can be misread. If the writer gave one meaning to the signs, and the reader another, then nothing good could come of it.

Picture writing was replaced by “sacred signs” - hieroglyphs. And then the Phoenicians, who lived two thousand years ago, invented letters - symbols only for consonant sounds. Based on Phoenician script In Greece, the Greek alphabet appeared, which gave rise to both Latin and Slavic writing. Our Russian alphabet appeared in Rus' along with liturgical books of the New Testament.

PurposeOur work is to study the history of the emergence of writing in Rus'.

Tasks research:

1. Find out why there was a need for writing?

2. Who are they - the creators of Slavic writing - Constantine and Methodius?

3. Cyrillic and Glagolitic are two Slavic alphabet. What do they have in common and what are the differences?

4. Study the composition of the Cyrillic alphabet.

5. Trace what reforms were carried out in the Russian alphabet?

The object of study is the Russian alphabet.

The subject of the study is the history of its origin and development.

II. Main part

1. Versions of the origin of writing in Rus'

The main sources for studying the history of the Russian language are its ancient written monuments. The question of the time of the emergence of writing in Rus' has not yet been finally resolved. It is traditionally believed that writing in Rus' arose with the adoption of Christianity, that is, in the 10th century.

There are several versions of the appearance of writing in Rus'.

One of the versions is that before baptism in Rus' it was used so-called"Velesovitsa". This name is given conditionally, already in the 20th century, named after the god Veles, patron of wisdom and knowledge.

The second version says that in ancient pagan times there was almost 100% literacy in Rus'.

Numerous excavations (birch bark letters dating from the pre-Christian period) confirm the fact that almost every city dweller

Possessed basic arithmetic skills;

He knew how to write a household message on birch bark;

By means of the then “mail”, send it to the address.

Not only in cities, but also in villages, many children were taught the simplest literacy necessary in everyday life by “witches” (community hierarchs).

According to the third and most common version, writing in Eastern Slavs did not exist, and the first Russian alphabet was the Cyrillic alphabet, created by the Thessalonica brothers Cyril and Methodius. According to the chronicle, it follows that they simply added to the already existing Greek alphabet some new symbols, resulting in an alphabet named after one of the brothers.

2. Cyril and Methodius

In the 9th century. the state union of the Western Slavs was known - the Moravian Principality, located on the territory of present-day Slovakia. German feudal lords sought to subjugate Moravia politically, economically, culturally. German missionaries were sent to Moravia to preach Christianity in Latin. In an effort to maintain independence, the Moravian prince Rostislav sent an embassy to the Byzantine Emperor Michael III with a request to send teachers (preachers of Christianity according to the Byzantine rite) to Moravia who would teach the inhabitants of Moravia Christianity in their native language, because in Moravian churches, services were performed in Latin. How many Slavs knew Latin? Almost everyone standing in the church did not understand what was being read and sung, and could not read a single line from the Gospel themselves.

Patriarch Photius sent two missionaries to Moravia, brothers Methodius and Constantine.

They became the educators of the Slavs and the creators of the Slavic alphabet, which later became the basis of the modern Russian alphabet. The brothers were born in the Macedonian city of Thessaloniki, which then belonged to the Byzantine Empire. Their father Leo was a Greek and served in the Byzantine army, almost nothing is known about their mother, Maria, although some authors believe that she was Bulgarian. The eldest son Methodius (in total, Leo and Mary, according to the Life of Cyril and Methodius, had seven children, the names of five are unknown) was born in 820, the youngest Constantine, a monk Cyril, was born in 826.

Initially, the brothers' life paths diverged.

Methodius entered military service, continuing family tradition, and had a successful military career. He was tall, handsome in face and strong in body, and had a strong-willed and ardent character. While still a young man, he distinguished himself in military operations, and the emperor granted him control of the Strymon region, inhabited by the Slavs.

It came as a complete surprise to everyone sudden departure Methodius's resignation and his taking monastic vows. “The good of our soul does not lie in worldly honors,” he said.

Konstantin, from the very beginning, followed the scientific path. Since childhood he was weak health, and children's he was not interested in fun. But the boy loved to think, read, and early showed an aptitude for all kinds of sciences. He received an excellent education in Constantinople.

From the beginning of the 850s Constantine began missionary activity in neighboring countries where he preached Christianity. Trips to Bulgaria, Syria and other countries gave Konstantin a lot in terms of studying the languages ​​and cultures of these peoples. This is how he mastered the Hebrew letter, which he later used to create the Slavic alphabet.

The brothers' character and life are similar. They both lived a mainly spiritual life, not attaching importance to wealth, fame, or career. They had no family, no permanent shelter, and even both died in a foreign land. younger brother created the Slavic alphabet, laid the foundations of Slavic writing. The elder practically developed what the younger one created. The younger one was a talented scientist, philosopher, and subtle philologist, the older one was a capable organizer and practical worker.

Konstantin was a very educated man for his time. Even before his trip to Moravia, he compiled Slavic alphabet and began to translate the Gospel into Slavic. In Moravia, Constantine and Methodius continued to translate church books from Greek into the Slavic language, teaching the Slavs to read, write and conduct worship in the Slavic language. The brothers stayed in Moravia for more than three years, and then went with their disciples to Rome to the Pope. There they hoped to find support in the fight against the German clergy, who did not want to give up their positions in Moravia and hindered the spread of Slavic writing.

In Rome, Constantine became a monk, taking the name Cyril. There, in 869, Cyril was poisoned. Before his death, he wrote to Methodius: “You and I are like two oxen; one fell from a heavy burden, the other must continue the journey.” Methodius and his disciples returned to Moravia.

By that time, the situation in Moravia had changed dramatically. After the death of Rostislav, his captive Svyatopolk became the Moravian prince, who submitted to German political influence. The activities of Methodius and his disciples took place in very difficult conditions. The Latin-German clergy did their best to prevent the spread Slavic language as the language of the church.

Methodius was sent to prison, where he died in 885, and after that his opponents managed to achieve the prohibition of Slavic writing in Moravia. Many students were executed, some moved to Bulgaria and Croatia. In Bulgaria, Tsar Boris converted to Christianity in 864. Bulgaria becomes the center of the spread of Slavic writing. Slavic schools are being created here, the original Cyril and Methodius liturgical books are being copied, new Slavic translations from Greek are being made, and original works in the Old Church Slavonic language are appearing.

3. Glagolitic and Cyrillic

The Old Church Slavonic alphabet, which is used to write monuments that have survived to this day, is called the Glagolitic alphabet and the Cyrillic alphabet.

The first inscriptions in Cyrillic and Glagolitic that have reached us date back to approximately the same time - the turn of the 9th-10th centuries. But the Cyrillic alphabet was widespread mainly among the eastern and southern Slavs, and the Glagolitic alphabet among the southern and western ones. Many modern Slavic (and not only Slavic) alphabets were created on the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet, but the Glagolitic alphabet turned out to be an absolutely dead alphabet, from which none of them “grew” modern systems letters The first Old Slavonic monuments were written in the Glagolitic alphabet, which was supposedly created by Constantine based on the Greek cursive script of the 9th century. with the addition of some letters from other eastern alphabets. This is a very peculiar, intricate, looping letter that long time it was used in a slightly modified form by the Croats (until the 17th century). The appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet, which dates back to the Greek statutory (solemn) letter, is associated with the activities of the Bulgarian school of scribes. Cyrillic is the Slavic alphabet that underlies the modern Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian alphabet.

The widespread spread of Slavic writing, its “Golden Age,” dates back to the reign of Simeon (893-927), the son of Boris, in Bulgaria. Later, the Old Church Slavonic language penetrates Serbia, and at the end of the 10th century. becomes the language of the church in Kievan Rus.

The Old Church Slavonic language, being the language of the church in Rus', was influenced by Old Russian language. It was the Old Slavonic language of the Russian edition, as it included elements of living East Slavic speech.

The characters of the Greek statutory alphabet served as a model for writing Cyrillic letters. The first books in Cyrillic were also written in the charter. Ustava is a letter where the letters are written straight at the same distance from each other, without tilting - they seem to be “arranged”. The letters are strictly geometric, vertical lines, as a rule, are thicker than horizontal ones, there is no space between words. Old Russian manuscripts of the 9th - 14th centuries were written in the charter.

From the middle of the 14th century, semi-ustav became widespread, which was less beautiful than the charter, but allowed you to write faster. A slant has appeared in the letters, their geometry is not so noticeable; the ratio of thick and thin lines is no longer maintained; the text has already been divided into words.

In the 15th century, semi-ustav gave way to cursive writing. Manuscripts written in “quick custom” are distinguished by the coherent writing of adjacent letters and the sweep of the letter.

In cursive writing, each letter had many different spellings. As speed develops, signs of individual handwriting appear.

The oldest book in Rus' written in Cyrillic is the Ostromir Gospel - 1057. This Gospel is kept in St. Petersburg, in the library Russian Academy Sci.
In Kirillov's letter capital letters used only at the beginning of a paragraph. The large capital letter was intricately painted, so the first line of the paragraph was called red (that is, a beautiful line). Old Russian handwritten books are works of art, they are so beautifully and skillfully designed: bright multi-colored initial letters (capital letters at the beginning of a paragraph), brown columns of text on pinkish-yellow parchment... Emeralds and rubies were ground into the finest powder, and paints were prepared from them , which still do not wash off and do not fade. The initial letter was not only decorated, its very outline conveyed a certain meaning. In the initial letters you can see the bend of a wing, the tread of an animal, the interweaving of roots, the twists of a river, the contours of two doubles - the sun and the heart.The Old Russian scribe did not just decorate the initial letter with ornaments, he, first of all, tried to beautifully convey the idea. He did not consider the initial letter to simply designate a sound; the outline itself meant a lot to him. For the ancient Russian man, the whole world and even the sky itself above his head was a book, an unfolded scroll, which not everyone could read.Each letter is individual, unique...

Old Russian handwritten books are distinguished by a high culture of artistic design and original calligraphy. Multi-colored initials (or initials), headpieces, illustrations, and brown columns of text evoke the idea of ​​a handwritten book as a work of art.

4. Writing reforms

The Cyrillic alphabet existed practically unchanged until the time of Peter the Great, during which changes were made to the styles of some letters, and 11 letters were excluded from the alphabet. The new alphabet became poorer in content, but simpler and more suitable for printing various civil business papers. This is how it got the name “civilian”.

As it was used in the Russian language, the Cyrillic alphabet underwent gradual improvement.

The development of the Russian nation at the beginning of the 18th century and the emerging needs for the printing of civil books necessitated the need to simplify the lettering of the Cyrillic alphabet.

In 1708, a Russian civil font was created, and Peter I himself took an active part in making sketches of letters. In 1710, a sample of a new alphabet font was approved. This was the first reform of Russian graphics. The essence of Peter's reform was to simplify the composition of the Russian alphabet by excluding from it such outdated and unnecessary letters as “psi”, “xi”, “omega”, “Izhitsa”, “earth”, “izhe”, “yus small”. However, later, probably under the influence of the clergy, some of these letters were restored to use. The letter E (“E” is reverse) was introduced in order to distinguish it from the yotized letter E, as well as the letter Y instead of the small yotized yus.

In the civil font, uppercase (capital) and lowercase (small) letters are established for the first time.

The letter Y (and a short one) was introduced by the Academy of Sciences in 1735. The letter Y was first used by N.M. Karamzin in 1797 to designate the sound [o] under stress after soft consonants, for example: palate, dark.

In the 18th century in the literary language, the sound denoted by the letter Ъ (yat) coincided with the sound [e]. The letter Ъ, thus, practically turned out to be unnecessary, but according to tradition, it was retained in the Russian alphabet for a long time, until 1917-1918.

Spelling reform of 1917-1918. two letters that duplicated each other were excluded: “yat”, “fita”, “and decimal”. The letter Ъ (er) was retained only as a dividing sign, b (er) - as separator sign and to indicate the softness of the preceding consonant. Regarding Yo, the decree contains a clause on the desirability, but not obligatory nature, of using this letter. Reform 1917-1918 simplified Russian writing and thereby facilitated learning to read and write.

The modern Russian alphabet has 33 letters, of which 10 indicate vowels, 21 consonants, and 2 letters do not indicate special sounds, but serve to convey certain sound features. The Russian alphabet shown in the table has uppercase (large) and lowercase (small) letters, printed and handwritten letters.

III. Conclusion

May 24 - Day of Slavic Culture and Literature (Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius) - a holiday known as the day of remembrance of the first teachers of the Slavic peoples - the brothers Cyril and Methodius. Celebration of the memory of the holy brothers in old times took place among all Slavic peoples, but then, under influenced by historical and political circumstances, was lost. IN early XIX century, along with the revival of the Slavic peoples, the memory of the Slavic first teachers was also renewed. In 1863, a resolution was adopted in Rus' to celebrate the memory of Saints Cyril and Methodius.

The creation of their own writing, which occurred in the 9th century, was a great achievement for the Slavs of that time - akin to a real revolution in minds. It was previously believed that only three languages ​​could exist in the world: Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Cyril and Methodius, having created the Slavic alphabet and translated the books of the Holy Scripture into the Slavic language, contributed to:

Spreading knowledge among Slavic peoples;

The successful struggle of Orthodoxy with Catholicism, which in turn played a big role in strengthening the self-awareness of the Slavs and subsequently gaining statehood.

The fact of the creation of writing is of great importance for modern times. After all, we still use the Cyrillic alphabet - the letters that Cyril and Methodius invented. It is not for nothing that the brother monks have been canonized, monuments have been erected to them, and in Bulgaria there is even an order named after them.

List of used literature

1. Zemskaya E.A. Russian colloquial speech/Ed. Kitaigrodskaya M.V. - M.: Nauka, 1981. - 276 p.

2. Ivanov V.V., Potikha Z.A. Historical commentary on Russian language classes in high school. - M.: Education, 1985. – 200 p.

3. Ivanova V.F. Modern Russian language. Graphics and spelling. - M.: Education, 1976. – 50 p.

4. Ivanova T.A. Old Church Slavonic language. – M.: graduate School, 1977. – 482 p.

5. Likhachev D.S. Questions of history. – M.: Nauka, 1951. – 260 p.

6. Likhachev D.S. Monuments of literature of Ancient Rus'. – M.: Nauka, 1988. – 158 p.

7. Minin Yu.P. The solution to the Russian alphabet/Ed. Ivanova K.R. - M.: Culture, 1985. - 143 p.

8. Rosenthal D.E., Golub I.B., Telenkova M.A. Modern Russian language. - M.: Iris-Press, 2002. - 250 p.

9. Speransky M.N. Russian forgeries of manuscripts at the beginning of the 19th century. // Problems of source study. M.: Slovo, 1986. T.5. P.72.

10. Yakubinsky L.P. History of the Old Russian language. -Moscow: Higher School, 1953. – 450 s.

11. http://www.detisavve.ru

CYRILLIC LETTERS AND THEIR NAMES

COMPOSITION OF THE RUSSIAN ALPHABET

Russian alphabet and letter names: