83-929: The first name Konstantin ( Cyrillic : Константин ) is a derivation from the Latin name Constantinus ( Constantine ) in some European languages , such as Greek, Russian , Estonian and German . As a Christian given name , it refers to the memory of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great . A number of notable persons in the Byzantine Empire , and (via mediation by the Christian Eastern Orthodox Church ) in Russian history and earlier East Slavic history are often referred to by this name. "Konstantin" means "firm, constant". There
166-715: A movement which came into prominence in the mid-19th century, emphasized the common heritage and unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires: the Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary , the Ottoman Empire , and Venice . Austro-Hungary envisioned its own political concept of Austro-Slavism , in opposition of Pan-Slavism that
249-622: Is a number of variations of the name throughout European cultures: People bearing the name Konstantin include: Cyrillic script Co-official script in: The Cyrillic script ( / s ɪ ˈ r ɪ l ɪ k / sih- RIL -ik ), Slavonic script or simply Slavic script is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia . It is the designated national script in various Slavic , Turkic , Mongolic , Uralic , Caucasian and Iranic -speaking countries in Southeastern Europe , Eastern Europe ,
332-547: Is also no evidence of Asian admixture. However, samples of Novosibirsk residents and Old Believers in Siberia have 5-10% Central Siberian ancestry despite being genetically close to European Slavs. The pagan Slavic populations were Christianized between the 7th and 12th centuries. Orthodox Christianity is predominant among East and South Slavs, while Catholicism is predominant among West Slavs and some western South Slavs . The religious borders are largely comparable to
415-408: Is defined as the last stage of the language preceding the geographical split of the historical Slavic languages . That language was uniform, and on the basis of borrowings from foreign languages and Slavic borrowings into other languages, it cannot be said to have any recognizable dialects, which suggests that there was, at one time, a relatively-small Proto-Slavic homeland . Slavic linguistic unity
498-681: Is named in honor of Saint Cyril . Since the script was conceived and popularised by the followers of Cyril and Methodius in Bulgaria, rather than by Cyril and Methodius themselves, its name denotes homage rather than authorship. The Cyrillic script was created during the First Bulgarian Empire . Modern scholars believe that the Early Cyrillic alphabet was created at the Preslav Literary School ,
581-486: Is somewhat unusual, given such a wide dispersal of Slavic populations. Together they form the basis of the " East European " gene cluster , which also includes non-Slavic Hungarians and Aromanians . Only Northern Russians among East and West Slavs belong to a different, " Northern European " genetic cluster, along with Balts , Germanic and Baltic Finnic peoples (Northern Russian populations are very similar to Balts). The 2006 Y-DNA study results "suggest that
664-730: Is the most spoken Slavic language, and is the most spoken native language in Europe. The alphabets used for Slavic languages are usually connected to the dominant religion among the respective ethnic groups. Orthodox Christians use the Cyrillic alphabet while Catholics use the Latin alphabet ; the Bosniaks, who are Muslim, also use the Latin alphabet and Cyrillic alphabet in Serbia. Additionally, some Eastern Catholics and Western Catholics use
747-577: Is the standard script for writing the following languages: Slavic languages : Non-Slavic languages of Russia : Non-Slavic languages in other countries : The Cyrillic script has also been used for languages of Alaska, Slavic Europe (except for Western Slavic and some Southern Slavic ), the Caucasus , the languages of Idel-Ural , Siberia , and the Russian Far East . The first alphabet derived from Cyrillic
830-522: Is typically based on ⟨p⟩ from Latin typefaces, lowercase ⟨б⟩ , ⟨ђ⟩ and ⟨ћ⟩ are traditional handwritten forms), although a good-quality Cyrillic typeface will still include separate small-caps glyphs. Cyrillic typefaces, as well as Latin ones, have roman and italic forms (practically all popular modern computer fonts include parallel sets of Latin and Cyrillic letters, where many glyphs, uppercase as well as lowercase, are shared by both). However,
913-593: The faux row to ensure it can be rendered properly across all systems; in some cases, such as ж with k -like ascender, no such approximation exists. Computer fonts typically default to the Central/Eastern, Russian letterforms, and require the use of OpenType Layout (OTL) features to display the Western, Bulgarian or Southern, Serbian/Macedonian forms. Depending on the choices made by the (computer) font designer, they may either be automatically activated by
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#1732773376191996-566: The Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . Present-day Slavs are classified into three groups: Though the majority of Slavs are Christians , some groups, such as the Bosniaks, mostly identify as Muslims . Modern Slavic nations and ethnic groups are considerably diverse, both genetically and culturally, and relations between them may range from "ethnic solidarity to mutual feelings of hostility" — even within
1079-721: The Boii ), Old Prussians , and the Pannonian Avars . The West Slavs came under the influence of the Western Roman Empire (Latin) and of the Catholic Church . East Slavs have origins in early Slavic tribes who mixed and contacted with Finns , Balts and with the remnants of the people of the Goths . Their early Slavic component, Antes , mixed or absorbed Iranians , and later received influence from
1162-518: The Caucasus , Central Asia , North Asia , and East Asia , and used by many other minority languages. As of 2019 , around 250 million people in Eurasia use Cyrillic as the official script for their national languages, with Russia accounting for about half of them. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of
1245-469: The Cyrillic alphabet that originated in medieval period . Paleographers consider the earliest features of script had likely begun to appear between the 10th or 11th century, with the Humac tablet to be the first such document using this type of script and is believed to date from this period. Was weak used continuously until the 18th century, with sporadic usage even taking place in the 20th century. With
1328-714: The Duchy of Croatia and the Banate of Bosnia , and West Slavs in the Principality of Nitra , Great Moravia , the Duchy of Bohemia , and the Kingdom of Poland . Beginning in the mid-19th century, a pan-Slavic movement has emphasized the common heritage and unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus of the movement was in the Balkans, whereas the Russian Empire was opposed to it. The Slavic languages belong to
1411-458: The East–West Schism which began in the 11th century. Islam first arrived in the 7th century during the early Muslim conquests , and was gradually adopted by a number of Slavic ethnic groups through the centuries in the Balkans. Among Slavic populations who profess a religion, the majority of contemporary Christian Slavs are Orthodox, followed by Catholic. The majority of Muslim Slavs follow
1494-679: The European Union , following the Latin and Greek alphabets. The Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire during the reign of Tsar Simeon I the Great , probably by the disciples of the two Byzantine brothers Cyril and Methodius , who had previously created the Glagolitic script . Among them were Clement of Ohrid , Naum of Preslav , Constantine of Preslav , Joan Ekzarh , Chernorizets Hrabar , Angelar , Sava and other scholars. The script
1577-554: The Hanafi school of the Sunni branch of Islam. Religious delineations by nationality can be very sharp; usually in the Slavic ethnic groups, the vast majority of religious people share the same religion. Mainly Eastern Orthodoxy : Mainly Catholicism : Mainly Islam : Throughout their history, Slavs came into contact with non-Slavic groups. In the postulated homeland region (present-day Ukraine ), they had contacts with
1660-559: The Hunger Plan , Germany's intentional starvation of the region, as well as the murders of 3.3. million Soviet prisoners of war . Germany's Heinrich Himmler also ordered his subordinate Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben to start repopulating Crimea , and hundreds of ethnic Germans were forcibly moved to cities and villages there. The Soviet Red Army took back their land from the Germans in 1944 . Stephen J. Lee estimates that, by
1743-625: The Khazars and Vikings . The East Slavs trace their national origins to the tribal unions of Kievan Rus' and Rus' Khaganate , beginning in the 10th century. They came particularly under the influence of the Byzantine Empire and of the Eastern Orthodox Church . South Slavs from most of the region have origins in early Slavic tribes who mixed with the local Proto-Balkanic tribes ( Illyrian , Dacian , Thracian , Paeonian , Hellenic tribes ), and Celtic tribes (particularly
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#17327733761911826-734: The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . The first half of the 20th century in Russia and the Soviet Union was marked by a succession of wars, famines and other disasters, each accompanied by large-scale population losses. The two major famines were in 1921 to 1923 and 1932 to 1933 , which caused millions of deaths mostly around Ukraine and the Northern Caucasus . The latter resulted from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin 's collectivization of agriculture in Ukraine . During
1909-882: The Peloponnese and Asia Minor being reported to have Slavic settlements. This southern movement has traditionally been seen as an invasive expansion. By the end of the 6th century, Slavs had settled the Eastern Alps regions . Pope Gregory I in 600 AD wrote to Maximus, the bishop of Salona (in Dalmatia ), expressing concern about the arrival of the Slavs: Latin: " Et quidem de Sclavorum gente, quae vobis valde imminet, et affligor vehementer et conturbor. Affligor in his quae jam in vobis patior; conturbor, quia per Istriae aditum jam ad Italiam intrare coeperunt. " English: "I am both distressed and disturbed about
1992-569: The Prague -type pottery associated with Slavs was not found anywhere south of the Danube where large numbers of Slavic-speaking people emerged in the early Middle Ages. Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on Byzantine borders in large numbers. Byzantine records note that Slav numbers were so great, that grass would not regrow where the Slavs had marched through . Military movements resulted in even
2075-533: The Roman world, Slavic -speaking tribes formed part of several successive multi-ethnic confederacies of Eurasia – such as the Sarmatian, Hun and Gothic empires. The Slavs emerged from obscurity when the westward movement of Germanic tribes in the 5th and 6th centuries AD (thought to be in conjunction with the movement of peoples from Siberia and Eastern Europe: Huns , and later Avars and Bulgars ) started
2158-625: The Scordisci ), as well as with Romans (and the Romanized remnants of the former groups), and also with remnants of temporarily settled invading East Germanic, Asiatic or Caucasian tribes such as Gepids , Huns , Avars , Goths and Bulgars . The original inhabitants of present-day Slovenia and continental Croatia have origins in early Slavic tribes who mixed with Romans and romanized Celtic and Illyrian people as well as with Avars and Germanic peoples (Lombards and East Goths). The South Slavs (except
2241-590: The Vandals to the Iberian Peninsula and even to North Africa . On the other hand, historian Florin Curta categorically dismisses the concept of "Slavs' migration" and opts instead for short-distance population movements that would explain the spread of Slavic languages . He argues - in favor of this view - that the proposed migration models are inconsistent with the archaeological findings, for example
2324-719: The great migration of the Slavs, who settled the lands abandoned by Germanic tribes who had fled from the Huns and their allies. Slavs, according to this account, moved westward into the country between the Oder and the Elbe - Saale line; southward into Bohemia , Moravia , much of present-day Austria , the Pannonian plain and the Balkans ; and northward along the upper Dnieper river. It has also been suggested that some Slavs migrated with
2407-408: The local variant locl feature for text tagged with an appropriate language code , or the author needs to opt-in by activating a stylistic set ss## or character variant cv## feature. These solutions only enjoy partial support and may render with default glyphs in certain software configurations, and the reader may not see the same result as the author intended. Among others, Cyrillic
2490-463: The medieval stage to the late Baroque , without a Renaissance phase as in Western Europe . Late Medieval Cyrillic letters (categorized as vyaz' and still found on many icon inscriptions today) show a marked tendency to be very tall and narrow, with strokes often shared between adjacent letters. Peter the Great , Tsar of Russia, mandated the use of westernized letter forms ( ru ) in
2573-683: The 19th century). After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, some of the former republics officially shifted from Cyrillic to Latin. The transition is complete in most of Moldova (except the breakaway region of Transnistria , where Moldovan Cyrillic is official), Turkmenistan , and Azerbaijan . Uzbekistan still uses both systems, and Kazakhstan has officially begun a transition from Cyrillic to Latin (scheduled to be complete by 2025). The Russian government has mandated that Cyrillic must be used for all public communications in all federal subjects of Russia , to promote closer ties across
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2656-545: The 5th to the 10th century AD), and came to control large parts of Central , Eastern , and Southeast Europe between the sixth and seventh centuries. Beginning in the 7th century, they were gradually Christianized . By the 12th century, they formed the core population of a number of medieval Christian states: East Slavs in the Kievan Rus' , South Slavs in the Bulgarian Empire , the Principality of Serbia ,
2739-544: The 890s as a more suitable script for church books. Cyrillic spread among other Slavic peoples, as well as among non-Slavic Romanians . The earliest datable Cyrillic inscriptions have been found in the area of Preslav , in the medieval city itself and at nearby Patleina Monastery , both in present-day Shumen Province , as well as in the Ravna Monastery and in the Varna Monastery . The new script became
2822-479: The 9th century, attest the autonym as Slověne ( Словѣне ). Those forms point back to a Slavic autonym , which can be reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as *Slověninъ , plural Slověne . The reconstructed autonym * Slověninъ is usually considered a derivation from slovo ("word"), originally denoting "people who speak (the same language)", meaning "people who understand one another", in contrast to
2905-456: The Balkans were Slavicized. Thracians and Illyrians mixed as ethnic groups in this period. A notable exception is Greece, where Slavs were Hellenized because Greeks were more numerous, especially with more Greeks returning to Greece in the 9th century and the influence of the church and administration, however, Slavicized regions within Macedonia , Thrace and Moesia Inferior also had
2988-613: The Byzantine Saints Cyril and Methodius and their Bulgarian disciples, such as Saints Naum , Clement , Angelar , and Sava . They spread and taught Christianity in the whole of Bulgaria. Paul Cubberley posits that although Cyril may have codified and expanded Glagolitic, it was his students in the First Bulgarian Empire under Tsar Simeon the Great that developed Cyrillic from the Greek letters in
3071-746: The Cyrillic alphabet. Serbian and Montenegrin use both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. There is also a Latin script to write in Belarusian, called Łacinka and in Ukrainian, called Latynka . West Slavs originate from early Slavic tribes which settled in Central Europe after the East Germanic tribes had left this area during the migration period . They are noted as having mixed with Germanics , Hungarians , Celts (particularly
3154-746: The Iranian Sarmatians and the Germanic Goths . After their subsequent spread, the Slavs began assimilating non-Slavic peoples. For example, in the Northern Black Sea region, the Slavs assimilated the remnants of the Goths. In the Balkans, there were Paleo-Balkan peoples, such as Romanized and Hellenized ( Jireček Line ) Illyrians , Thracians and Dacians , as well as Greeks and Celtic Scordisci and Serdi . Because Slavs were so numerous, most indigenous populations of
3237-708: The Sclaveni as having swamps and forests for their cities. Another 6th-century source refers to them living among nearly-impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes. Menander Protector mentions Daurentius ( r. c. 577 – 579 ) who slew an Avar envoy of Khagan Bayan I for asking the Slavs to accept the suzerainty of the Avars; Daurentius declined and is reported as saying: "Others do not conquer our land, we conquer theirs – so it shall always be for us as long as there are wars and weapons". According to eastern homeland theory, prior to becoming known to
3320-577: The Serbian constitution; however, the law does not regulate scripts in standard language, or standard language itself by any means. In practice the scripts are equal, with Latin being used more often in a less official capacity. The Zhuang alphabet , used between the 1950s and 1980s in portions of the People's Republic of China, used a mixture of Latin, phonetic, numeral-based, and Cyrillic letters. The non-Latin letters, including Cyrillic, were removed from
3403-485: The Slavic expansion started from the territory of present-day Ukraine, thus supporting the hypothesis placing the earliest known homeland of Slavs in the basin of the middle Dnieper ". According to genetic studies until 2020, the distribution, variance and frequency of the Y-DNA haplogroups R1a and I2 and their subclades R-M558, R-M458 and I-CTS10228 among South Slavs correlate with the spread of Slavic languages during
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3486-636: The Slavic word denoting " German people ", namely *němьcь , meaning "silent, mute people" (from Slavic *němъ " mute , mumbling"). The word slovo ("word") and the related slava ("glory, fame") and sluh ("hearing") originate from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱlew- ("be spoken of, glory"), cognate with Ancient Greek κλέος ( kléos "fame"), as in the name Pericles , Latin clueō ("be called"), and English loud . In medieval and early modern sources written in Latin, Slavs are most commonly referred to as Sclaveni or
3569-543: The Slavs, who are pressing hard on you. I am distressed because I sympathize with you; I am disturbed because they have already begun to arrive in Italy through the entry-point of Istria ." When Slav migrations ended, their first state organizations appeared, each headed by a prince with a treasury and a defense force. In the 7th century, the Frankish merchant Samo supported the Slavs against their Avar rulers and became
3652-679: The Slovenes and Croats) came under the cultural sphere of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire), of the Ottoman Empire and of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Islam , while the Slovenes and the Croats were influenced by the Western Roman Empire (Latin) and thus by the Catholic Church in a similar fashion to that of the West Slavs. Consistent with the proximity of their languages, analyses of Y chromosomes , mDNA , and autosomal marker CCR5de132 shows that East Slavs and West Slavs are genetically very similar, but demonstrating significant differences from neighboring Finno-Ugric, Turkic , and North Caucasian peoples. Such genetic homogeneity
3735-525: The Unicode definition of a character: this aspect is the responsibility of the typeface designer. The Unicode 5.1 standard, released on 4 April 2008, greatly improved computer support for the early Cyrillic and the modern Church Slavonic language. In Microsoft Windows, the Segoe UI user interface font is notable for having complete support for the archaic Cyrillic letters since Windows 8. Some currency signs have derived from Cyrillic letters: The development of Cyrillic letter forms passed directly from
3818-409: The affairs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire , were calling for national self-determination. During World War I , representatives of the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes set up organizations in the Allied countries to gain sympathy and recognition. In 1918, after World War I ended, the Slavs established such independent states as Czechoslovakia , the Second Polish Republic , and
3901-605: The alphabet in 1982 and replaced with Latin letters that closely resembled the letters they replaced. There are various systems for romanization of Cyrillic text, including transliteration to convey Cyrillic spelling in Latin letters, and transcription to convey pronunciation . Standard Cyrillic-to-Latin transliteration systems include: See also Romanization of Belarusian , Bulgarian , Kyrgyz , Russian , Macedonian and Ukrainian . Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages . Slavs are geographically distributed throughout
3984-437: The basis of alphabets used in various languages in Orthodox Church -dominated Eastern Europe, both Slavic and non-Slavic languages (such as Romanian , until the 1860s). For centuries, Cyrillic was also used by Catholic and Muslim Slavs. Cyrillic and Glagolitic were used for the Church Slavonic language , especially the Old Church Slavonic variant. Hence expressions such as "И is the tenth Cyrillic letter" typically refer to
4067-671: The correspondence between uppercase and lowercase glyphs does not coincide in Latin and Cyrillic types: for example, italic Cyrillic ⟨ т ⟩ is the lowercase counterpart of ⟨ Т ⟩ not of ⟨ М ⟩ . Note: in some typefaces or styles, ⟨ д ⟩ , i.e. the lowercase italic Cyrillic ⟨д⟩ , may look like Latin ⟨ g ⟩ , and ⟨ т ⟩ , i.e. lowercase italic Cyrillic ⟨т⟩ , may look like small-capital italic ⟨T⟩ . In Standard Serbian, as well as in Macedonian, some italic and cursive letters are allowed to be different, to more closely resemble
4150-418: The early 18th century. Over time, these were largely adopted in the other languages that use the script. Thus, unlike the majority of modern Greek typefaces that retained their own set of design principles for lower-case letters (such as the placement of serifs , the shapes of stroke ends, and stroke-thickness rules, although Greek capital letters do use Latin design principles), modern Cyrillic types are much
4233-617: The end of World War II in 1945, the Russian population was about 90 million fewer than it could have been otherwise. Also during World War II, fascist Italy sent tens of thousands of Slavs to concentration camps in mainland Italy, Libya , and the Balkans , because Italian leader Benito Mussolini also had a hatred of them. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed , and many former Soviet republics became independent countries. Currently, former Soviet states in Central Asia such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have very large minority Slavic populations, with most being Russians. Kazakhstan has
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#17327733761914316-443: The era of the emperor Justinian I ( r. 527–565 ), such as Procopius of Caesarea , Jordanes and Theophylact Simocatta , describe tribes of these names emerging from the area of the Carpathian Mountains , the lower Danube and the Black Sea to invade the Danubian provinces of the Eastern Empire . Jordanes, in his work Getica (written in 551 AD), describes the Veneti as a "populous nation" whose dwellings begin at
4399-431: The features of national languages, and was subjected to academic reform and political decrees. A notable example of such linguistic reform can be attributed to Vuk Stefanović Karadžić , who updated the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet by removing certain graphemes no longer represented in the vernacular and introducing graphemes specific to Serbian (i.e. Љ Њ Ђ Ћ Џ Ј), distancing it from the Church Slavonic alphabet in use prior to
4482-428: The federation. This act was controversial for speakers of many Slavic languages; for others, such as Chechen and Ingush speakers, the law had political ramifications. For example, the separatist Chechen government mandated a Latin script which is still used by many Chechens. Standard Serbian uses both the Cyrillic and Latin scripts . Cyrillic is nominally the official script of Serbia's administration according to
4565-415: The handwritten letters. The regular (upright) shapes are generally standardized in small caps form. Notes: Depending on fonts available, the Serbian row may appear identical to the Russian row. Unicode approximations are used in the faux row to ensure it can be rendered properly across all systems. In the Bulgarian alphabet , many lowercase letterforms may more closely resemble the cursive forms on
4648-453: The individual groups. The oldest mention of the Slavic ethnonym is from the 6th century AD, when Procopius , writing in Byzantine Greek , used various forms such as Sklaboi ( Σκλάβοι ), Sklabēnoi ( Σκλαβηνοί ), Sklauenoi ( Σκλαυηνοί ), Sthlabenoi ( Σθλαβηνοί ), or Sklabinoi ( Σκλαβῖνοι ), and his contemporary Jordanes refers to the Sclaveni in Latin . The oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic , dating from
4731-460: The largest Slavic minority population. Proto-Slavic , the supposed ancestor language of all Slavic languages, is a descendant of common Proto-Indo-European , via a Balto-Slavic stage in which it developed numerous lexical and morphophonological isoglosses with the Baltic languages . In the framework of the Kurgan hypothesis , "the Indo-Europeans who remained after the migrations [from the steppe] became speakers of Balto-Slavic". Proto-Slavic
4814-408: The letters' Greek ancestors . Computer fonts for early Cyrillic alphabets are not routinely provided. Many of the letterforms differ from those of modern Cyrillic, varied a great deal between manuscripts , and changed over time. In accordance with Unicode policy, the standard does not include letterform variations or ligatures found in manuscript sources unless they can be shown to conform to
4897-415: The medieval Slavic expansion from Eastern Europe, most probably from the territory of present-day Ukraine and Southeastern Poland . According to a 2017 study, Slavic speakers like Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians have similar genetic components. Ukrainians and Belarusians have near-equal amounts of two "European components", which are commonly found in North Europe and Caucasus respectively. There
4980-423: The most important early literary and cultural center of the First Bulgarian Empire and of all Slavs : Unlike the Churchmen in Ohrid, Preslav scholars were much more dependent upon Greek models and quickly abandoned the Glagolitic scripts in favor of an adaptation of the Greek uncial to the needs of Slavic, which is now known as the Cyrillic alphabet. A number of prominent Bulgarian writers and scholars worked at
5063-423: The native typeface terminology in most Slavic languages (for example, in Russian) does not use the words "roman" and "italic" in this sense. Instead, the nomenclature follows German naming patterns: Similarly to Latin typefaces, italic and cursive forms of many Cyrillic letters (typically lowercase; uppercase only for handwritten or stylish types) are very different from their upright roman types. In certain cases,
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#17327733761915146-433: The northern parts of Eurasia ; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe , Eastern Europe , Southeastern Europe , and Northern Asia , though there is a large Slavic minority scattered across the Baltic states and Central Asia , and a substantial Slavic diaspora in the Americas , Western Europe , and Northern Europe . Early Slavs lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately from
5229-402: The one hand and Latin glyphs on the other hand, e.g. by having an ascender or descender or by using rounded arcs instead of sharp corners. Sometimes, uppercase letters may have a different shape as well, e.g. more triangular, Д and Л, like Greek delta Δ and lambda Λ. Notes: Depending on fonts available, the Bulgarian row may appear identical to the Russian row. Unicode approximations are used in
5312-407: The order of the Church Slavonic alphabet; not every Cyrillic alphabet uses every letter available in the script. The Cyrillic script came to dominate Glagolitic in the 12th century. The literature produced in Old Church Slavonic soon spread north from Bulgaria and became the lingua franca of the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Cyrillic in modern-day Bosnia, is an extinct and disputed variant of
5395-409: The orthographic reform of Saint Evtimiy of Tarnovo and other prominent representatives of the Tarnovo Literary School of the 14th and 15th centuries, such as Gregory Tsamblak and Constantine of Kostenets , the school influenced Russian, Serbian, Wallachian and Moldavian medieval culture. This is known in Russia as the second South-Slavic influence. In 1708–10, the Cyrillic script used in Russia
5478-466: The reform. Today, many languages in the Balkans , Eastern Europe, and northern Eurasia are written in Cyrillic alphabets. Cyrillic script spread throughout the East Slavic and some South Slavic territories, being adopted for writing local languages, such as Old East Slavic . Its adaptation to local languages produced a number of Cyrillic alphabets, discussed below. Capital and lowercase letters were not distinguished in old manuscripts. Yeri ( Ы )
5561-418: The ruler of the first known Slav state in Central Europe, Samo's Empire . This early Slavic polity probably did not outlive its founder and ruler, but it was the foundation for later West Slavic states on its territory. The oldest of them was Carantania ; others are the Principality of Nitra , the Moravian principality (see under Great Moravia ) and the Balaton Principality . The First Bulgarian Empire
5644-576: The same as modern Latin types of the same typeface family. The development of some Cyrillic computer fonts from Latin ones has also contributed to a visual Latinization of Cyrillic type. Cyrillic uppercase and lowercase letter forms are not as differentiated as in Latin typography. Upright Cyrillic lowercase letters are essentially small capitals (with exceptions: Cyrillic ⟨а⟩ , ⟨е⟩ , ⟨і⟩ , ⟨ј⟩ , ⟨р⟩ , and ⟨у⟩ adopted Latin lowercase shapes, lowercase ⟨ф⟩
5727-460: The school, including Naum of Preslav until 893; Constantine of Preslav ; Joan Ekzarh (also transcr. John the Exarch); and Chernorizets Hrabar , among others. The school was also a center of translation, mostly of Byzantine authors. The Cyrillic script is derived from the Greek uncial script letters, augmented by ligatures and consonants from the older Glagolitic alphabet for sounds not found in Greek. Glagolitic and Cyrillic were formalized by
5810-452: The shortened version Sclavi . Ancient Roman sources refer to the Early Slavic peoples as "Veneti" , who dwelt in a region of central Europe east of the Germanic tribe of Suebi and west of the Iranian Sarmatians in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, between the upper Vistula and Dnieper rivers. Slavs - called Antes and Sclaveni - first appear in Byzantine records in the early 6th century AD. Byzantine historiographers of
5893-754: The sources of the Vistula and occupy "a great expanse of land". He also describes the Veneti as the ancestors of Antes and Slaveni, two early Slavic tribes, who appeared on the Byzantine frontier in the early-6th century. Procopius wrote in 545 that "the Sclaveni and the Antae actually had a single name in the remote past; for they were both called Sporoi in olden times". The name Sporoi derives from Greek σπείρω ("to sow "). He described them as barbarians, who lived under democracy and believed in one god, "the maker of lightning" ( Perun ), to whom they made sacrifice. They lived in scattered housing and constantly changed settlement. In war, they were mainly foot soldiers with shields, spears, bows, and little armour, which
5976-487: The start of World War II was to exterminate, expel, or enslave most or all West and East Slavs from their native lands, so as to make " living space " for German settlers. In early 1941, Germany began planning Generalplan Ost , the genocide of Slavs in Eastern Europe which was supposed to start after a major expansion of German concentration camps in occupied Poland and the fall of Stalin's regime. This plan
6059-428: The war, Nazi Germany used hundreds of thousands of people for slave labor in their concentration camps , the majority of whom were Jewish or Slavic. Both groups were a part of what Germans claimed to be a "vast racially subhuman surplus population" that they " intended to eliminate in time from their new empire ", their term for "racial subhumans" being Untermensch . Thus, one of Adolf Hitler 's ambitions at
6142-708: Was Abur , used for the Komi language . Other Cyrillic alphabets include the Molodtsov alphabet for the Komi language and various alphabets for Caucasian languages . A number of languages written in a Cyrillic alphabet have also been written in a Latin alphabet , such as Azerbaijani , Uzbek , Serbian , and Romanian (in the Moldavian SSR until 1989 and in the Danubian Principalities throughout
6225-690: Was also adopted. The pre-reform letterforms, called 'Полуустав', were notably retained in Church Slavonic and are sometimes used in Russian even today, especially if one wants to give a text a 'Slavic' or 'archaic' feel. The alphabet used for the modern Church Slavonic language in Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic rites still resembles early Cyrillic. However, over the course of the following millennium, Cyrillic adapted to changes in spoken language, developed regional variations to suit
6308-516: Was founded in 681 as an alliance between the ruling Bulgars and the numerous Slavs in the area, and their South Slavic language, the Old Church Slavonic , became the main and official language of the empire in 864 AD. Bulgaria was instrumental in the spread of Slavic literacy and Christianity to the rest of the Slavic world. Duchy of Croatia was founded in 7th century and later became Kingdom of Croatia . Principality of Serbia
6391-854: Was founded in 8th, Duchy of Bohemia and Kievan Rus' both in the 9th century. The expansion of the Magyars into the Carpathian Basin and the Germanization of Austria gradually separated the South Slavs from the West and East Slavs . Later Slavic states, which formed in the following centuries included the Second Bulgarian Empire , the Kingdom of Poland , Banate of Bosnia , Duklja and Kingdom of Serbia which later grew into Serbian Empire . Pan-Slavism ,
6474-457: Was heavily reformed by Peter the Great , who had recently returned from his Grand Embassy in Western Europe . The new letterforms, called the Civil script , became closer to those of the Latin alphabet; several archaic letters were abolished and several new letters were introduced designed by Peter himself. Letters became distinguished between upper and lower case. West European typography culture
6557-562: Was originally a ligature of Yer and I ( Ъ + І = Ы ). Iotation was indicated by ligatures formed with the letter І: Ꙗ (not an ancestor of modern Ya, Я, which is derived from Ѧ ), Ѥ , Ю (ligature of І and ОУ ), Ѩ , Ѭ . Sometimes different letters were used interchangeably, for example И = І = Ї , as were typographical variants like О = Ѻ . There were also commonly used ligatures like ѠТ = Ѿ . The letters also had numeric values, based not on Cyrillic alphabetical order, but inherited from
6640-530: Was predominantly led by the Russian Empire . As of 1878, there were only three majority Slavic states in the world: the Russian Empire, Principality of Serbia and Principality of Montenegro . Bulgaria was effectively independent but was de jure vassal to the Ottoman Empire until official independence was declared in 1908. The Slavic peoples who were, for the most part, denied a voice in
6723-433: Was reserved mainly for chiefs and their inner circle of warriors. Their language is "barbarous" (that is, not Greek), and the two tribes are alike in appearance, being tall and robust, "while their bodies and hair are neither very fair or blond, nor indeed do they incline entirely to the dark type, but they are all slightly ruddy in color. And they live a hard life, giving no heed to bodily comforts..." Jordanes describes
6806-625: Was to be carried out gradually over 25 to 30 years. After an approximate 30 million Slavs would be killed through starvation and their major cities depopulated, the Germans were supposed to repopulate Eastern Europe. In June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa , Hitler paused the plan to focus on the extermination of the Jews . However, some of the plan was nonetheless implemented. Millions of Slavs were murdered in Eastern Europe; this includes victims of
6889-486: Was to some extent visible as late as Old Church Slavonic (or Old Bulgarian ) manuscripts which, though based on local Slavic speech of Thessaloniki , could still serve the purpose of the first common Slavic literary language. Standardised Slavic languages that have official status in at least one country are: Belarusian , Bosnian , Bulgarian , Croatian , Czech , Macedonian , Montenegrin , Polish , Russian , Serbian , Slovak , Slovene , and Ukrainian . Russian
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