author: Ana Mihaljević

Glagolitic is the oldest Slavic script and, together with Cyrillic, one of the two Slavic scripts. It is a recognized opinion in science that the Glagolitic script is older than the Cyrillic script.

In contrast to the Cyrillic alphabet, which was created through a spontaneous, long-term adaptation of the Greek alphabet, the Glagolitic script is an author’s script. It is believed to have been designed by Constantine the Philosopher – St. Ćiril, a Greek from Thessaloniki, for the mission among the Moravian Slavs in the 9^th century. Constantine and his older brother Methodius were the promoters of this mission, which aimed at bringing writting skills and enlightening the Slavs. They came to Moravia at the invitation of Prince Rastislav and with the support of the Byzantine Emperor Mihajlo III.

As part of this mission, the brothers also translated the most important liturgical texts from Greek into Old Slavonic or Old Church Slavonic. This language is considered to be the first literary language of all Slavs and most scholars believe that it originated from the South Macedonian language of the area around Thessaloniki.

Letters not only denote sounds, but also have a numerical value. When a Glagolitic letter indicated a number, the symbol ~ appeared above it and dots were placed around it.

Characteristics and names of Glagolitic letters

Each Glagolitic letter has a name. According to the names of the first two letters (az and buki), we speak of the Glagolitic azbuka (alphabet) in the same way as we speak of the Latin and Greek alphabets.

The names of the letters are not arbitrary, but have a meaning. For example, the first nine letters of the Glagolitic script (A = az, B = buki, V = vjedi, G = glagolju, D = dobro, E = jest, Ž = živjeti, DZ = zelo, Z = zemlji) express the message that I, who know the letters, say that it is very good to live (on) the Earth. This idea expresses the view that knowledge of the letters and literacy are the basis for a good life.

The name Glagolitic appeared much later – in the 17^th century in Croatia and is motivated by the verb glagolati, which means ‘to speak’, and only became widespread in the 19^th century. Thus, the name Glagolitic was also used for a Catholic priest who says mass in Croatian Church Slavonic using Glagolitic books.

Rounded Glagolitic

The oldest known form of the Glagolitic script, which is believed to have been created by St. Cyril, is called Rounded Glagolitic. Rounded Glagolitic is the script of all Slavs and the script of the oldest surviving Slavic books, e.g. the Gospels of Assemani, Marianus and Zograf, the Glagolitic Book of Kloč…

The monuments in the rounded Glagolitic script date from the 9^th to 12^th centuries.

Angular Glagolitic

After the 12^th century, only the Croats used the Glagolitic script. They adapted it to their needs and thus created a new type of the Glagolitic script known as uglata (angular) or Croatian Glagolitic script. The Croats still use the angular Glagolitic script today – we are talking about 11 centuries of Croatian Glagolitic. In addition to Church Slavonic Croatian, the Old Croatian language, especially the Chakavian dialect, was also written in the Glagolitic script.

Glagolitic was the first script used by the Croats to record their mother tongue as early as the 10^th/11^th century. The Cyrillic alphabet was used from the 12^th century and the Latin alphabet from the 14^th century for writing the Croatian language

Glagolitic in Croatian

The oldest preserved Croatian monuments with Glagolitic inscriptions carved in stone from the 11^thand 12^th centuries are: Plomin inscription, Supetar fragment, Grdosel fragment, Valunska ploča, Krk inscription, the Baška tablet… They are written in the Glagolitic script with a transitional form from rounded to angular.

The 14^th and 15^th centuries are considered the golden period of Croatian Glagolitism, from which 30 handwritten breviaries, 17 missals, 3 psalters, 2 rituals, a number of fragments of liturgical texts, several anthologies and many legal and other documents have been preserved.

The best-known Croatian liturgical texts written in Glagolitic script are: Vatican Missal Illirico 4, the Missal of Duke Novak, the Missal of Hrvoje, the Missal from Roč, the First Breviary from Vrbnik, the Second Breviary from Novi Vinodolski, the Breviary of Vid Omišaljan, the Psalter of Lobkovic, the Psalter of Fraščić, the Ritual of the Academy, the Miscelany of Klimantović, etc.narrative texts: Paris Miscelany, Ivančić Miscelany, Petris Miscelany, Žgombić Miscelany, etc. and legal texts: Vinodolski zakonik, Istarski razvod, etc.

With the spread of literacy in the second half of the 14th century, less formal forms of writing emerged – the semi-literate and cursive Glagolitic script, used for writing non-liturgical collections, legal documents and texts of various purposes. There are two types of cursive Glagolitic script – knjiska, which is used for writing literary texts and anthologies (e.g. the miscelany of Petris), and the office script, which is used for writing various documents and notarial deeds (e.g. Istrian razvod).

Six incunabula (books printed up to 1500) were also printed in Glagolitic script, the first of which was the Missal according to the law of the Roman court, printed in 1483, only nine years after the first printing of the Latin missal. From the first period of Glagolitic printing until 1561, 18 titles have been preserved.

After the golden age of Glagolitism, a gradual decline began, marked by the East Slavic influence on the language, which also led to changes in script and orthography. The return to the original version of the Croatian Church Slavonic language started in the second half of the 19^th century. It resulted in the compilation of the Roman Missal in the Slavic language, prepared by Dragutin Antun Parčić in 1893. The edition of this missal prepared by Josip Vajs in 1905 is the last liturgical book printed in the Glagolitic script.

Jerome and the Glagolitic Script

Although scholars today generally agree that the Glagolitic script was authored by Constantine (Cyril), in Croatia there was a long tradition attributing its creation to St. Jerome.

This tradition was first mentioned in a letter from Pope Innocent IV to Philip, Bishop of Senj, dated March 29, 1248, which states: Porrecta nobis tua petitio continebat quod in Sclavonia est littera specialis, quam illius terre clerici se habere a beato Jeronimo asserentes, eam observant in divinis officiis celebrandis. (“Your petition presented to us contained the information that in Slavonia there is a special script, which the clerics of that land claim to have received from St. Jerome, and they use it in celebrating divine services.”)

This legend was advantageous to the Glagolites, as it distanced the script from exclusive association with Cyril and Methodius. For a long time, Methodius was regarded as a heretic within the Church. The legend also suited the Roman Curia, which used it to bring the Glagolitic clergy closer to the Western Church. As M. Bogović observed (in Glagoljica bitna odrednica hrvatskog identiteta):
“In this context, the emphasis on St. Jerome’s authorship of the Slavic script could be interpreted not only as an invention by the Glagolitic clergy to protect themselves, but also as an attempt to associate them more successfully with the Western Church.”

Some scholars argue that the tradition of attributing the Glagolitic script to Jerome was not initiated by the Glagolites but rather by the Dalmatian Latin clergy, or possibly even the Roman Curia itself (see M. Bogović and J. Verkholantsev).

There are three main sources of this tradition of Jerome’s authorship of the Glagolitic script:

The assumption that Jerome was of Croatian origin.
The claim that, in addition to translating the Bible into Latin, he also translated it into his mother tongue, believed to be Croatian.
The reference to his Latin translation of the book Cosmographia of Aethicus Ister, which ends with an alphabet in which some saw the beginnings of the Glagolitic script.

All these three claims have since been proven wrong and are considered historically unfounded.

Slavs in Dalmatia were not autochthonous and St. Jerome, who lived in the 4^th and 5^th centuries, could not have been the author of the Glagolitic script. Nevertheless, Glagolites worshiped St. Jerome for centuries, and his liturgy and biography are featured in numerous Croatian Glagolitic breviaries and anthologies.

While modern scholars do not regard Jerome as the creator of the Glagolitic script, the script gained legitimacy through his authority. For this reason, he is rightly celebrated as the “pride, honor, and glory, and radiant crown of the Croatian language,” as written by an anonymous 16^th-century Glagolitic cleric.

The Glagolitic Script Today

Although the active use of the Glagolitic script in Croatia ceased in the 19th century, it is still being used, but with a different function.

Today, the Glagolitic script is a symbol of Croatian national identity. It holds a significant cultural, artistic, and aesthetic value, inspiring many artists. It frequently appears as a symbol in certain subcultures, such as sport fan groups, and is commonly found on tattoos.

This script is also a subject of scholarly research and has a place in the educational system, it is integrated into the school curricula for Croatian Language and History. It is also studied by numerous student Glagolitic groups and initiatives.

Recognizing its importance in Croatian culture and history, in 2014, the skill of reading, writing, and printing in Glagolitic was declared an intangible cultural heritage. In 2019, the Croatian Parliament declared February 22 the Day of the Croatian Glagolitic script and Glagolitism.