Every schoolchild knows that the Russian writing system was invented by Christian scholars Cyril and Methodius. But this is rather a cultural cliché, since not everything is so simple with these wise men, who invented the alphabet for the Slavs and taught the wild pagan peoples to write this alphabet. Oh, what did we do without them!
It is always worth remembering that both Cyril and Methodius were Christian preachers who sincerely carried the "correct faith" to unreasonable peoples. On the one hand, yes, the word of Christ and salvation, and on the other, they defended the clear and unequivocal political interests of Constantinople, and then of the Pope. Therefore, it is worth looking at the creation of the Greco-Slavic alphabet as a political act with far-reaching plans.
Let's start with the fact that the famous statement about the lack of writing among the Slavs before Cyril was based only on one source of the "Legend of the Writings" of the "monk" Brave, but for some reason they believed him. Although there are quite a few other sources dated before the birth of Cyril himself, where it was unequivocally stated that the Slavs wrote in their language and had their own books. And even in the "Life of Cyril" there is an amusing moment
November 4 29k reads 4 min 42K views. Unique visitors to the page. 29 thousand reads, 70%. Users who have read to the end. 4 minutes Average time to read a publication. “ I am a beech (v) and I know ”, or why did Cyril and Methodius destroy the ancient Russian writing? Every schoolchild knows that the Russian writing system was invented by Christian scholars Cyril and Methodius. But this is rather a cultural cliché, since not everything is so simple with these sages, who invented the alphabet for the Slavs and taught the wild pagan peoples to write this alphabet. Oh, what did we do without them! It is always worth remembering that both Cyril and Methodius were Christian preachers who, sincerely carried the “ correct faith ” to unreasonable peoples. On the one hand, yes, the word of Christ and salvation, and on the other,they defended the clear and unambiguous political interests of Constantinople, and then the Pope. Therefore, it is worth looking at the creation of the Greco-Slavic alphabet as a political act with far-reaching plans. To begin with, the famous statement about the lack of writing among the Slavs before Cyril was based on only one source of the "Legend of the Writings" of the "monk" Brave, but for some reason they believed him. Although there are quite a few other sources dated before the birth of Cyril himself, where it was unequivocally stated that the Slavs wrote in their language and had their own books. And even in the “ Life of Cyril ” there is an amusing moment “In the city of Korsun, Kirill met a Rusyn (Russian) who had books with him,written in Russian letters”Saints Equal to the Apostles Cyril and Methodius Saints Equal to the Apostles Cyril and Methodius.
Actually, this means that there was already a written language of its own. And the mission with which Cyril and Methodius went to the Slavs was not so much to create an alphabet and writing in general, but to create an alphabet suitable for translating church literature.
Moreover, Cyril and Methodius did not even come to Russia, but to the Moravian kingdom at the request of Prince Rostislav, who sought to gain independence from the Franks.
It is believed that the brain of the operation was precisely Cyril (who was called Constantine during his lifetime), and Methodius, most likely, either brought paper or ink.
Cyrillic church alphabet.
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The familiar Cyrillic alphabet was based on the Greek alphabet, but with the preservation of the Slavic names of the newly created symbols. In addition, there is a statement that Cyril / Constantine also created a verb. But with the verb, everything is more complicated. For there is no evidence that the Glagolitic alphabet was created precisely by Cyril, and a number of historians and culturologists claim that it is much older than the Cyrillic alphabet.
Glagolitic alphabet.
At the moment, only five books have survived in Glagolitic. The rest were either specially destroyed or … erased. This is called a palimpsest.
Why did the churchmen not like the Glagolitic alphabet? And this was a special specific alphabet and language that was not at all similar to Latin or Greek. It had its own special structure and numerical codes, in fact, the uniqueness of the language and confused the church, seemed alien. After all, there were only three languages that could be used in the church: Hebrew, Greek and Latin. By the way, even the created Cyrillic alphabet was not recognized by the episcopate and the Pope at first, and was called heretical, it was only later, with the exhortation of Constantine / Cyril, it was recognized.
An excerpt of the Gospel in Glagolitic X century.
On the one hand, we must be grateful to Cyril and Methodius, for for many centuries we can write in the Great and Mighty thanks to the Cyrillic alphabet. But on the other hand, the influence of Cyril and Methodius' developments and the work of their followers created another cliché for the church: the Slavs could not write, they could not read, and even here they were saved by reasonable Byzantine Greeks, so to speak, they gave the language from the master's shoulder and took them into open arms. churches. And thanks to the labors of these Byzantines, a couple of saints revered by the church appeared, who brought the word of God to the pagan savages, but apparently to the detriment of the same "savage" culture.
