Author: Ana Mihaljević
CROATIAN CHURCH SLAVONIC VS. OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC
The Croatian Church Slavonic language is the oldest literary language of the Croatian people. It developed from the first Slavic literary language—Old Church Slavonic, which originated in the 9th century. The earliest monuments of Slavic literacy written in this language have been preserved through transcriptions from the 10th and 11th centuries.
Over time, this language developed into various forms influenced by local Slavic dialects. As a result, apart from Croatian Church Slavonic, other variants emerged, including Russian Church Slavonic, Serbian Church Slavonic, Bulgarian Church Slavonic, Macedonian Church Slavonic, Czech Church Slavonic, Bosnian Church Slavonic, and Romanian Church Slavonic.
Features
A key characteristic of Croatian Church Slavonic is the inclusion of Čakavian elements into inherited Old Church Slavonic texts. Unlike other redactions, Croatian Church Slavonic retained the Glagolitic script. Moreover, while texts in other redactions belong to the Eastern (Orthodox) rite, those written in Croatian Church Slavonic are associated with the Western (Roman Catholic) rite. Due to these features, Croatian Glagolitism often served as a bridge between East and West.
Croatian Church Slavonic was primarily used for liturgical purposes, with its texts most correctly preserved in missals, breviaries, rituals, and psalters. In literary texts, it is intertwined with the Old Croatian Čakavian literary language. The oldest preserved monuments of this language date from the 11th or 12th century.
Printed books
The structure of Croatian Church Slavonic is more complex than that of Čakavian. Participial constructions, such as the dative and instrumental absolute, are common, and the declension and verbal systems are more intricate, incorporating forms like the asigmatic and first sigmatic aorist.
While many words were shared between early Čakavian and Croatian Church Slavonic, notable differences existed: jegda vs. kada (when), glagolati vs. govoriti (to speak), cêsarstvo vs. kraljevstvo (kingdom), čto vs. ča (what), etc.
The phonological system of Croatian Church Slavonic closely resembles Čakavian, but it features the phoneme jat which doesn’t exist in Čakavian.
An example of a well-known text in Croatian Church Slavonic:
zdrava marie milosti plna gospodь s toboju blagoslovlena ti v ženahь i blagoslovlenь plodь čreva tvoego isus sveta marie mati božьê moli za n(a)sь grêšnih sada i v čas semrti naše amenь
Decline in usage
In the 17th century, the Congregatio de propaganda fide required that Croatian Glagolitic books align with the Russian redaction used by Ukrainian Greek Catholics. The intention was to foster closer ties between Orthodox Slavs and the Catholic Church. This led to the Russification of Croatian texts. Notable figures such as Rafael Levaković, Ivan Paštrić, Mateo Karaman, Ivan Sović, and Ivan Petar Gocinić published Russified texts during the 17th and 18th centuries.
However, these texts were perceived as foreign and were poorly received, contributing to the decline of Glagolitism. As a result, Glagolitic clergy began using Latin-script editions in the vernacular language. (known as šćavet).
In the late 19th century, Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer, with collaborators, sought to revive Glagolitism. The publication of a Glagolitic missal prepared by Dragutin Parčić in 1893 marked the end of Russification.