/ world today news/ On May 24 in Russia, as well as in a number of other Slavic countries, the Day of Slavic Literature and Culture is celebrated. This is the day of memory of St. Cyril and Methodius – the people who, according to legend, gave the Slavs their own alphabet. This alphabet has changed a lot over the past centuries both in its composition and in the spelling of the letters, branched into several variants (each country has its own), but we still call it Cyrillic.
It is both a church and a secular holiday, which is quite understandable, since at the time of its creation in the 9th century AD, the Slavic alphabet was needed primarily for the translation of sacred books into Church Slavonic. Therefore, we can assume that the Eastern Slavs from the time of Ancient Rus accepted Cyrillic and Christianity together, as they say, in one package.
Russia honors Cyril and Methodius, but we remember that the Thessalonica brothers, as these saints are called from the name of “Thessalonica”, that is, Thessaloniki /in Russian/, originally provided their alphabet not to us. The Bulgarians are the first to accept it. However, the Russian state has turned Cyrillic into a global phenomenon. If it were not for Russia and the Russians, the Cyrillic alphabet, localized at best in Bulgaria and Serbia, would become the same isolated cultural phenomenon as the Georgian or Armenian script – strange, very interesting, but still a specific detail of the global background.
The synergy of letter and spirit, writing and religion in the vast Russian spaces produced a far more significant result than Cyril and Methodius could have imagined, who wanted only to endow the backward outskirts of the Byzantine world with an alphabet of their own. Orthodox civilization arises. This is what Samuel Huntington called our civilization with you, and it is not worth arguing with him now.
True, he included in the Orthodox civilization not only the regions of the Cyrillic alphabet, but also Georgia, and Greece, and Romania, but something else is important. If there was no Russia, if the whole thousand-year path of our history, including from the semi-Asian Muscovy, the Europeanized Russian Empire and the atheistic Soviet Union, then no Huntington would have thought of singling out a special Orthodox civilization.
Orthodoxy would generally remain the same denominational detail as Sikhism or Ismailism. So, the Cyrillic alphabet owes its world significance mainly to the Russians, or more precisely to the triune Russian people. But what did the Cyrillic alphabet give to the Russians themselves? There may be different opinions here.
As you know, the first alphabet of the Thessalonica brothers was the Glagolitic – an artificial alphabet that was never widely distributed. Unlike Glagolitic, Cyrillic is based on Greek and partly Hebrew letters. It is both similar to and different from the Latin alphabet.
In fact, this measure of difference in writing accurately reflects the degree of difference between Slavic Orthodox culture (especially Russian) and Western European. On the one hand, an obvious connection, but on the other – a proud and safe distance. To be different, but not antipodes – this is our chosenness, or our cross. However, there is a version that one cannot do without the other.
Someone might say that this is not so much a cross as a suitcase without a handle. After all, enlightenment has been coming to us from the West for centuries, and the difference in alphabets seemed as much an obstacle on this path as the difference in the width of the railway line.
After all, the Poles live with the Latin alphabet, although their endless “Ж”, “Ш”, “Ш” and “Ч” can hardly fit into it. Hence the periodically popping up projects to translate the Russian language into Latin – the last attempt was made during the Soviet regime in 1929, but fortunately for our culture, the country then had enough other concerns.
However, after the fashion of writing in transliteration disappeared at the dawn of the Russian Internet, we can say that nothing threatens the Cyrillic alphabet in Russia in the foreseeable future. But the area of its distribution among non-Slavic peoples, alas, after the collapse of the USSR, began to decrease.
This was taken away from the Moldovans by the pro-Romanian nationalists, and the countries of Central Asia and Azerbaijan were attracted by Turkey’s example. However, Cyrillic books will be used in these countries for a long time to come, and perhaps in time some governments will change their minds.
However, the focus of our attention on this day is Slavic unity, or at least the memory of it. After all, this day is celebrated not only here, in Bulgaria, in Serbia, in North Macedonia, but also in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia, where there are no traces of the Slavic alphabet for a long time, but the memory of the arrival and mission of Cyril and Methodius has been preserved in Great Moravia. We recall the primordial Slavic unity despite the efforts of the West, which for centuries tried to split the Slavic peoples, to destroy the identity of the language and the community of the cultural code of the Slavs.
This is not to say that these efforts were not successful. Politically, the Slavs remain divided; the greatest unity, paradoxically, was achieved during the Soviet period. First we saw the fratricidal war between people speaking the same Slavic language, using the same gift of Cyril and Methodius, in the example of Serbs and Croats, and now we ourselves are forced to face Ukraine, conquered by anti-Slavic and anti-Orthodox forces.
But on May 24, we believe that unity based on words and culture is still possible, that in the case of the unification of the Slavic peoples, a powerful fundamental culture with many aspects and deep meanings will emerge. The basis for such an alliance, as in the past, can only be the Russian world, for the preservation of which today a struggle is being waged with the weakening but still dangerous West.
The fragmented Slavs are the last peoples, lackeys and jesters in the aging nations of the West. The Slavs, united around Russia, will become an important civilizational force in a multipolar world. It is worth paying attention to the fact that May 24 is not just “the day of Slavic writing”, but “the day of Slavic writing and culture”.
In doing so, we recognize that our culture is based on the book. Not on social etiquette, not on home comforts, not on culinary inclinations! All this is, of course, important, but the basis of our culture is the spirit, the ideal, expressed in the book. No wonder the Russian book became one of the first objects of repression by the Kiev Nazis.
They are afraid of the book, but they also trust the book. The Russian book, Russian language and Russian culture have become a unifying factor for the entire space of the Russian world. And today, more than ever, we understand that our national identity cannot be protected without the preservation and protection of the Russian language.
Translation: ES
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