Lost Roots: How the History of Slavic Script Was Rewritten
Many who explore the origins of Slavic writing eventually encounter a deep inner dissonance. The official version sounds surprisingly straightforward: the Slavs supposedly had no writing system before the 9th century. The people were "semi-wild," with only oral traditions—until missionaries Cyril and Methodius arrived to enlighten and educate them by creating an alphabet. But the deeper you look, the more you sense something's off.
Too Sophisticated for "Barbarians"
The first thing that stands out is the nature of Glagolitic—the alphabet attributed to Constantine-Cyril. It's not merely phonetic; each letter is simultaneously a symbol, a word, and a sign. "Az, Buki, Vedi, Glagol, Dobro..." — the very first line forms a philosophical formula: "I know, I understand, I speak goodness." Such symbolic depth is not random but reflects a long cultural and intellectual evolution.
Glagolitic is saturated with sacred structure. It doesn’t resemble Greek or Latin alphabets — it reveals an inner logic rooted in symbolic traditions, perhaps pre-Christian, perhaps deeply folk-based.
From Sacred to Bureaucratic
And then—almost immediately after Glagolitic appears—it begins to be displaced by Cyrillic. This new alphabet, said to have been created by the disciples after the death of Cyril and Methodius, was modeled after Greek uncial script. It had less symbolism, less sacred meaning, and more administrative convenience.
The goal was clear: standardization. Simplification. Mass adoption. Cyrillic was not created to explore the depths of existence, but as a tool for governance, religion, and education.
Cyrillic became the dominant form—but it was a form of authority, not of spirit.
A Substitution Through Alphabet
The most disturbing part of this story is how natural the substitution seemed. From an alphabet that encoded an entire worldview to one that merely transmitted sounds. From a living structure of meaning to mechanical writing. All this happened amid forced Christianization, the suppression of paganism, and the destruction of mythologies and symbol systems.
The story of Cyrillic is not about creation, but about replacement. It’s the history of how a deep cultural code was swapped out for an external tool of control. And worst of all, they named it after Cyril to give the illusion of continuity—an illusion that never truly existed.
Winners and Memory
History is always written by the victors. The new elite arrives with its own faith, books, and teachers—not just to teach a new language, but to rewrite the past. So that no one remembers, no one knows, no one even wonders. So that people can't reconnect with their roots. So that even the language loses its living code of meaning.
What we call Cyrillic is the result of that operation. Only fragments of Glagolitic remain—in Croatia, in old manuscripts. But memory lives on. And memory gives us the right to ask the fundamental question:
What came before they told us there was nothing before?