In what period did writing appear in Russia. The emergence of Slavic writing in Russia

Officially, it is historically considered that writing in Russia arose during the period of the baptism of Kievan Rus in 988. According to this version, writing was introduced by the brothers Cyril and Methodius from Bulgaria. This theory of the origin of writing is confirmed by numerous records on the coins of Prince Vladimir, as well as on the walls of the Kyiv Cathedral. The period of occurrence of these records is attributed to the end of the X century.

Despite the fact that the pre-Christian period does not provide us with such facts of the existence of writing, many researchers adhere to the point of view of the earlier emergence of writing in the territory ancient Russia. According to this version, writing in Russia appeared before the Christianization of the population Kievan Rus. Evidence of this are the writing tools of that time - "wrote". Also, in favor of this version are the data in the Russian chronicles. The writing of that time was available only to a limited number of people. Of course, it makes no sense to talk about any book culture of the 9th century, on the grounds that not a single book of that time has survived to our time.

The studies of Chudinov Valery Alexandrovich are very curious. According to which, writing in Russia arose long before Cyril and Methodius, and it was called a runic. But after the baptism of Kievan Rus, they tried to destroy all runic writing. And one of the oldest runes in Russia was the runes of the Sort. But official science does not recognize the existence of Runes, all the more does not attribute them to writing. AT best case The runes will be attributed to the ornaments of that time.

Director of the Volgograd Institute of Art Education Nikolai Taranov has many titles: calligrapher, doctor pedagogical sciences, candidate of art history, professor, member of the Union of Artists of Russia. But few people know that he is still studying symbols. And while doing this, he went on the "detective trail" and made an amazing discovery. Who invented the Slavic alphabet?

It would seem that everyone knows this: Cyril and Methodius, whom the Orthodox Church calls Equal-to-the-Apostles for this merit. But what kind of alphabet did Kirill come up with - Cyrillic or Glagolitic? (Methodius, this is known and proven, supported his brother in everything, but the “brain of the operation” and an educated person, who knew many languages, was precisely the monk Cyril). About this in scientific world there are still disputes. Some Slavic researchers say: “Cyrillic! It is named after the creator. Others object: “Glagolitsa! The first letter of this alphabet looks like a cross. Cyril is a monk. It's a sign". It is also alleged that before the work of Cyril, there was no written language in Russia. Professor Nikolai Taranov categorically disagrees with this.

The assertion that there was no written language in Russia before Cyril and Methodius is based on a single document - the "Tale of the Letters" by the Chernorite Khrabr, found in Bulgaria, says Nikolai Taranov. - There are 73 lists from this scroll, and in different copies due to translation errors or scribal errors completely different versions key phrase for us. In one version: "the Slavs before Cyril did not have books", in the other - "letters", but the author indicates: "they wrote with features and cuts." It is interesting that Arab travelers who visited Russia back in the 8th century, that is, even before Rurik and even more so before Cyril, described the funeral of one Russian prince: “After the funeral, his soldiers wrote something on a white tree (birch) in honor of the prince, and then, having mounted their horses, they departed. And in the "Life of Cyril", known to Russian Orthodox Church, we read: "In the city of Korsun, Kirill met a Rusyn (Russian), who had with him books written in Russian letters." Cyril (his mother was a Slav) took out some of his letters and with their help began to read those same Rusyn books. And these were not thin books. These were, as stated in the same "Life of Cyril", translated into Russian "Psalter" and "Gospel". There is a lot of evidence that Russia had its own alphabet long before Cyril. And Lomonosov spoke about the same thing. He cited the testimony of Rimsky as evidence. Pope VIII, a contemporary of Cyril, which states that Cyril did not invent these letters, but rediscovered them.

The question arises: why did Cyril create the Russian alphabet, if it already existed? The fact is that the monk Cyril had a task from the Moravian prince - to create for the Slavs an alphabet suitable for translating church books. Which he did. And the letters in which church books are now written (and in a modified form - our today's printed creations) are the work of Cyril, that is, Cyrillic.

Was the verb destroyed on purpose?

There are 22 points that prove that the Glagolitic was older than the Cyrillic, says Taranov. There is such a concept among archaeologists and philologists - a palimpsest. This is the name of an inscription made on top of another destroyed, most often scraped with a knife, inscription. In the Middle Ages, parchment made from the skin of a young lamb was quite expensive, and in order to save money, scribes often destroyed “unnecessary” records and documents, and wrote something new on a scraped sheet. So: everywhere in Russian palimpsests the Glagolitic alphabet is erased, and on top of it there are inscriptions in Cyrillic. There are no exceptions to this rule.

There are only five monuments written in the Glagolitic alphabet left in the world. The rest were destroyed. Moreover, in my opinion, the records in the Glagolitic alphabet were destroyed on purpose, - says Professor Nikolai Taranov. - Because the Glagolitic alphabet was not suitable for writing church books. The numerical value of the letters (and then the belief in numerology was very strong) in it was different than what was required in Christianity. Out of respect for the Glagolitic alphabet, Cyril left in his alphabet the same names of the letters as they were. And they are very, very difficult for an alphabet "born" in the 9th century, as claimed. Even then, all languages were striving for simplification; letters in all alphabets of that time denote only sounds. And only in Slavic alphabet such names of letters: “Good”, “People”, “Think”, “Earth”, etc. And all because the Glagolitic is very ancient. It has many signs of pictographic writing.

Pictographic writing is a type of writing, the signs of which (pictograms) designate the object depicted by them. The latest finds of archaeologists speak in favor of this version. So, tablets with Slavic writing were found, the age of which dates back to 5000 BC.

"Glagolitz was created by a genius"

All modern alphabets Europe are descended from the alphabet of the Phoenicians. In it, the letter A, we were told, stands for the head of a bull, which then turned upside down.

And the ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote: “These letters are called Phoenician, although it is more correct to call them Pelasgic, since they were used by the Pelasgians,” says Nikolai Taranov. “Do you know who the Pelasgians are?” These are the ancestors of the Slavs, right Slavic tribes. The Phoenicians stood out among the surrounding swarthy black-haired tribes of farmers, Egyptians and Sumerians with fair skin and red hair. Yes, even with their passion for travel: they were excellent sailors.

In the 12th century BC, the Pelasgians took part in the Great Migration of Peoples, and some of their groups of desperate conquerors of new lands wandered very far. What gives the Volgograd professor a version: the Phoenicians were familiar with the Slavs and borrowed the alphabet from them. Otherwise, why did an alphabetic alphabet suddenly form next to Egyptian hieroglyphs and Sumerian cuneiform?

Here they say: "The Glagolitic was too decorative, complex, so it was gradually replaced by a more rational Cyrillic." But Glagolitic is not so bad, Professor Taranov is sure. — I studied the most early versions: the first letter of the Glagolitic alphabet does not mean a cross at all, but a person. That is why it is called "Az" - I. A person for himself is a starting point. And all the meanings of the letters in the Glagolitic alphabet are through the prism of human perception. I drew the first letter of this alphabet on transparent film. Look, if you put it on other letters of the Glagolitic alphabet, you get a pictogram! I believe that not every designer will come up with such a way that each grapheme falls into the grid. I am amazed at the artistic integrity of this alphabet. I think the unknown author of the Glagolitic alphabet was a genius! No other alphabet in the world has such a clear connection between a symbol and its digital and sacred meaning!

Glagolitic and numerology

Each sign in the Glagolitic alphabet has a sacred meaning and denotes a certain number.

The sign "Az" is a person, the number 1.
The sign “I know” is the number 2, the sign looks like eyes and a nose: “I see, so I know.”
The sign "Live" is the number 7, the life and reality of this world.
The sign "Zelo" is the number 8, the reality of a miracle and something supernatural: "too", "very" or "great".
Sign "Good" - number 5, singular, giving birth to their own kind or a decade: "Good begets good."
The sign "People" - the number 50, according to numerology - the world from where human souls come to us.
The sign "Our" - the number 70, symbolizes the connection between the heavenly and the earthly, that is, our world, given to us in sensations.
The sign "Omega" is the number 700, a certain divine world, the "Seventh Heaven".
The sign "Earth" - according to Taranov, means a picture: the Earth and the Moon are in the same orbit.

Sveta Evseeva-Fyodorova

The formation of ancient Russian church literature, which began after the first Christianization, forces us to dwell briefly on the problem of the emergence of East Slavic writing. long time in science, the belief prevailed that literacy came to Russia from Bulgaria after the religious act of 988. This view, however, turned out to be wrong. AT recent times proven existence Old Russian writing pre-Cyrillic type.

The fact that Russia was able to write before 988 has long been known in literature and is evidenced by written sources(for example, the treaties of Russia with the Greeks, the messages of some Eastern authors - al-Nedim, etc.). The problem lies in determining the ways in which writing appeared - a process that, according to some researchers, began as early as the Bronze Age.

An extremely interesting treatise by Chernorizets the Brave (X century), dedicated to the emergence of Old Slavic writing. It proposes periodization, which involves three stages of the process. At the first stage, the Slavs used "features and cuts" to transmit distant (in space and time) information, with the help of which "chteahu and gataahu" (counted and guessed). The second stage characterizes the use of Greek and Greek letters for writing. Latin alphabets"without dispensation", that is, without adaptation to phonetic features Slavic languages. The third is the activity of Cyril the Philosopher and the invention of a special Slavic alphabet by him.

In our time, this scheme has received convincing confirmation, especially on the basis of archaeological materials. Brave's "features and cuts" are symbolic signs that represented the embryo of domestic hieroglyphics. It's about first of all, about the "mysterious signs" of the Black Sea region (sometimes they are called "Sarmatian", although this is not entirely accurate). A large literature is devoted to these signs, but so far the problem remains inexhaustible.

The total number of varieties of signs (more than 200) excludes the possibility of interpreting them as letters of the phonetic alphabet. They occur in separate characters and in the form of texts that have not yet been deciphered. Attempts to interpret them as tamgas, signs of ownership and similar insignias did not give positive results.

The second stage, determined by the use of phonetic writing based on the use of Greek and Latin graphics, is well documented by the archaeological materials of the Chernyakhov culture. It covers the first half and the middle of the 1st millennium AD. Recently, dozens of autographs of that time have been discovered (though these are still separate letters and words), and numerous finds of styles testify to the widespread use of writing among the ancient Slavic population.

The bearers of the Chernyakhov culture maintained close and varied relations with the Romans and Greeks. Many of them traveled to ancient cities, mastered Greek and in Latin, received an education, sometimes very high, well assimilating the skills of written culture. One way or another, the idea of using letters of a foreign alphabet to depict Slavic words should have been on the agenda.

At the same time, of course, purely practical difficulties arose, due to the inconsistency of both alphabets with the phonetics of the Slavic languages. In the Greek alphabet, for example, there were no signs to convey the sounds "b", "y", hissing, deaf vowels, diphthongs "c", "h", etc. Therefore, the adaptation of existing graphics systems was up to date. Such a "dispensation" according to Brave is the main content of the third period. But educational activities Cyril the Philosopher and his disciples does not exhaust the whole process and is only the final stage. One of the most significant achievements historical science behind recent decades is the discovery of the Sophian alphabet, reflecting initial stage"dispensations" of Slavic writing. It includes 23 letters of the Greek alphabet - from "alpha" to "omega" - with the addition of four specifically Slavic characters: "b", "zh", "sh", "u" (the latter was pronounced as a diphthong "tsh"). These are the most necessary letters, without which Slavic writing could not function normally.

The Sofia alphabet was found in the Mikhailovsky aisle of the Kyiv Cathedral of St. Sofia, where in the middle of the XI century. there was a library and a scriptorium. It is drawn on the wall very carefully, in large letters (about 3 cm high). Some researchers assumed that this is the usual Cyrillic alphabet, only unfinished. However, this assumption seems unlikely. The author depicted the letters neatly, bringing to the very "omega", which completed the list. The missing "g" is inserted above the line in right place, but "ts" and "h" are not entered. "Fita" is not at the end of the alphabet, as it should be in Cyrillic, but in tenth place - between "i" and "i", as is customary in the Greek alphabet. The author carefully wrote out signs that were superfluous for the Slavic language (for example, "xi" or the same "omega"), but ignored the often used deaf vowels ("ъ" and "ь"), both yus, the necessary "ch" and "u "("worm" and "uk"), etc.

Thus, the idea arises that the alphabet discovered in St. Sophia of Kyiv is pre-Cyrillic and reflects First stage in the "dispensation" of the Slavic writing. It is not difficult to understand its appearance on the wall of the scriptorium and the library. In the first half of the XI century. Yaroslav the Wise organized a cultural and educational center in Kyiv, where there was also the first well-known library in Russia. Undoubtedly, documents of the pre-Vladimir time were stored in it (this is evidenced by the texts of treaties between Russia and the Greeks, which have come down to us as part of later chronicles). Obviously, there were many such official letters. In addition, books of the second half of the 9th-10th centuries were also kept. - translations of Christian literature, chronicles, church documentation, etc.

The spelling of these manuscripts (although similar to the Cyrillic alphabet, but still different from it) could not but attract the attention of the Kyiv scribes of the 11th century. Some of them reconstructed this ancient alphabet based existing texts and wrote it out for memory or with learning goal on the wall of the Mikhailovsky chapel - in a place inaccessible to prying eyes.

On the present stage research has established that East Slavic writing arose independently of the mission of Cyril. It was formed on the basis of two sources, which determined two genetic lines, respectively. The first of these was the Black Sea hieroglyphics, combined with the phonetic writing of the Greeks and Romans. As a result, the so-called Russian-Khazarian writing arose, the existence of which is attested by Eastern authors. The monuments of this letter have already been deciphered. An offshoot of this line - the runic alphabet - in the first half of the 1st millennium AD. got widespread not only in the Black Sea region, but also far to the West - up to and including Scandinavia. On Slavic soil, a "proto-verbal" alphabet arose, around which a sharp discussion has unfolded in recent decades.

Another source was Greek writing with a well-established and fairly perfect phonetic alphabet. The process of "dispensation", which ultimately led to the crystallization of the Cyrillic alphabet in its two versions (Moravian of 38 letters and Bulgarian of 43 letters), determined the main direction in the formation of its own Slavic writing.

The question remains which alphabet Cyril invented. Many researchers are inclined in favor of the Cyrillic alphabet. Others believe that it was a Glagolitic. The author of these lines belongs to the latter.

The Glagolitic alphabet is the most mysterious problem of early-Vyansk writing. Its origin has not yet been elucidated. The most plausible hypothesis put forward by E.E. Garnstrom, does not explain the mechanism of the origin of the alphabet itself. It has all the signs of an artificially constructed one, but most of its letters find a correspondence among the "Sarmatian" signs of the Black Sea region.

Unfortunately, in the controversy that has not subsided until our time, one issue is replaced by another. Debating the graphic nature of Kirill's contribution, the researchers reduce it to the chronological relationship of both Slavic alphabets. It is considered unconditional that Cyril's alphabet was the first Slavic alphabet and therefore preceded the second.

But this premise turned out to be wrong. The most plausible concept was proposed by the famous Bulgarian philologist Emil Georgiev. According to her, the Cyrillic alphabet is a natural alphabet, formed spontaneously in the process of adapting the Greek graphics to the phonetic features of the Slavic languages. Chronologically, it precedes the Glagolitic alphabet, as it was formed over several centuries before the 9th century. The Glagolitic alphabet is an artificial alphabet invented by Cyril around 862. It was not used because of its complexity and practical inconvenience, giving way to the Cyrillic alphabet, which finally took shape in the 9th-10th centuries. Perhaps Cyril's acquaintance with Russian books in Chersonese a year before the start of the Moravian mission to some extent influenced his invention.

The fact that the books of Chersonesus were written in "protoglagolitic" follows from the evidence of the Pannonian Life. Cyril understood the language of these works, but did not know the alphabet at all. To establish coordination between signs and sounds, he needed the help of a competent Rusyn. The Cyrillic alphabet, which was based on the Greek majuscule, he would have mastered himself without much difficulty. It becomes clear the appearance in ancient Russian literature tendencies to consider the alphabet created by Cyril as a borrowing from Russia. " And the Russian letter was given by God in Korsun to Rusin, from which you learned the philosopher Konstantin and from there folding and writing books in the Russian language", - we read in "The Tale of the Russian Literacy". Researchers attribute the emergence of this trend to the turn of the 11th-12th centuries, but it is possible that such a version existed much earlier.

Photos from open sources

As noted by many scientists, such as E. Classen, F. Volansky, V. Georgiev, P. Chernykh, V. Istrin, V. Chudinov, G. Belyakova, S. Lesnoy, A. Asov, G. Rinevich, M. Bor , A. Ivanchenko, N. Tarasov and others, Slavic tribes and ancient Rus had their own writing in the form of "features and cuts" or "Slavic runic" long before the "creators of Slavic writing" Byzantine monks Cyril and Methodius came to Russia.

And it is no coincidence that the famous Bulgarian monk Chernoriets the Brave in his "Tale of the Letters" wrote: "Before, the Slovenian was not the name of the books, but the features and cuts of the chetehu and the gadakh (i.e., they read and guessed), the trash of things (i.e., while still pagans). Being baptized, Roman and Greek letters need (writing) Slovenian speech without dispensation... And I've been raging like that for many years.Then the philanthropic God...sent them St. Constantine the Philosopher, who is called Cyril, a righteous and true man, according to the Slovenian language".

Thus, even Christian monks recognize the presence of writing among the Slavs before the baptism of Russia - "runitsy". But the "runitsa" was not the only ancient Russian written language. There was also a Glagolitic alphabet, written in which the Gospels and the Psalter were discovered in the Crimea in 869 by Cyril and Methodius. It was this "Glagolitic" that they reformed, transforming it into "Cyrillic". The essence of this reform has already been repeatedly written earlier, and therefore we will dwell this time in more detail on the Slavic (Old Russian) runic.

Here is what O. Miroshnichenko writes about her in his book "Secrets of the Russian Alphabet": "Currently, the most ancient monuments of writing on planet Earth are clay tablets found during excavations in 1961 in Romania in the village of Terteria, and tablets from the town of Vinca (Serbia) in Yugoslavia, related to the 5th millennium BC.

The famous Yugoslav scientist R. Pesic on the basis of archaeological finds on the right bank of the Danube near the Iron Gates dating back to the 7th - 10th millennium BC, he carried out the first systematization of the Vincha writing. R. Pesic considered it through the prism of the Etruscan-Pelasgian alphabet, adhering to the Slavic method of reading this script, according to which the old Slavic its roots go back to the Etruscan soil.

Remarkable Russian and Western European researchers adhered to the same point of view, such as Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Fine Arts, State Councilor Yegor Klassen (1856), the outstanding Polish linguist and ethnographer Thaddeus Volansky, who deciphered the inscription on the grave of Aeneas, the leader of the Trojans (1846), and nowadays - the Slovenian scientist Matej Bor, G.S. Belyakova, many of whose works are devoted to this topic, G.S. Grinevich, A.S. Ivanchenko, A. Asov and some others.

Enormous work on the systematization and deciphering of runic signs and inscriptions dating back to the era of the Trypillian Slavic archaeological culture (III - XI millennium BC), clay tablets from Crete, numerous Etruscan inscriptions and texts, writing ancient india, Yenisei runic inscriptions and much more was done by the modern outstanding Russian scientist G.S. Grinevich.

runic letters, similar topics, which were discovered in the town of Vincha, were found in Trypillia in layers III - XI millennium BC. and later in Troy, in Sumer, on the island of Crete, in Etruria, Parthia, on the Yenisei, in Scandinavia. The same letter existed in the Caucasus, as well as in North Africa and America. In short, there is reason to believe that we have in front of us, as it were, the first alphabet, or rather the proto-alphabet, which served as the basis for a number of well-known alphabets: Phoenician, Ancient Greek, Celtic, Gothic, Proto-Indian, Latin, Hebrew, Cyrillic and Glagolitic.

The Slavic runic, like all ancient writing, was a syllabic script that used a stable set of syllabic signs, and these signs conveyed syllables of only one type - open, consisting of consonant + vowel combinations (С + Г), or from one vowel ( G). Such a system of writing did not allow double consonants. But since the sound structure of the language of the ancient Slavs was still somewhat more complicated, they used a special sign - an oblique stroke - viram (a sign that now exists in the Indian syllabic writing "devangari" - "the language of the gods"), which signaled double syllables, double consonants type SG + SG = SSG.

The remarkable Russian scientist G.S. Grinevich, who managed to decipher this ancient writing, proves that the oldest on the planet Earth are the monuments of Proto-Slavic writing. He emphasizes that among the written monuments discovered in our century, the greatest interest represent inscriptions made using the "features and cuts" method, otherwise, "Slavic runes", because they are the most ancient on Earth.

Among the written monuments deciphered by G.S. Grinevich, belonging to the period of the Tripoli culture and made with "Slavic runes", numerous inscriptions on household items, pots, spinning wheels, etc., attract attention, for example, an inscription on a whorl from the village of Letskany (348 AD), an inscription on a pot from the village of Ogurtsovo (VII century AD), pots from Alekanov (IX-X centuries AD), etc. etc.

Another scientist who proves the existence of writing before the arrival of Cyril and Methodius is Professor N. Tarasov, who notes: "The assertion that there was no writing in Russia before Cyril and Methodius is based on one single document -" The Tale of the Letters "of the Chernorizian Brave, found in Bulgaria. There are 73 lists from this scroll, and in different copies, due to translation errors or scribe errors, completely different versions of the key phrase for us. In one version: "the Slavs had no books before Cyril", in the other - " letters”, but the author points out: “they wrote with features and cuts”.

It is interesting that Arab travelers who visited Russia back in the 8th century, that is, even before Rurik and even more so before Cyril, described the funeral of one Russian prince: “After the funeral, his soldiers wrote something on a white tree (birch) in honor of the prince, and then, having mounted their horses, they departed. And in the "Life of Cyril", known to the Russian Orthodox Church, we read: "In the city of Korsun, Kirill met a Rusyn (Russian), who had with him books written in Russian letters." Cyril (his mother was a Slav) took out some of his letters and with their help began to read those same Rusyn books. And these were not thin books. These were, as stated in the same "Life of Cyril", translated into Russian "Psalter" and "Gospel". There is a lot of evidence that Russia had its own alphabet long before Cyril. And Lomonosov spoke about the same thing. He cited as evidence the testimony of Pope VIII, a contemporary of Cyril, which states that Cyril did not invent these letters, but rediscovered them.

There are 22 points that prove that Glagolitic was older than Cyrillic. There is such a concept among archaeologists and philologists - a palimpsest. This is the name of an inscription made on top of another destroyed, most often scraped with a knife, inscription. In the Middle Ages, parchment made from the skin of a young lamb was quite expensive, and in order to save money, scribes often destroyed “unnecessary” records and documents, and wrote something new on a scraped sheet. So: everywhere in Russian palimpsests the Glagolitic alphabet is erased, and on top of it there are inscriptions in Cyrillic. There are no exceptions to this rule.

There are only five monuments written in the Glagolitic alphabet left in the world. The rest were destroyed. Moreover, in my opinion, the entries in the Glagolitic alphabet were destroyed on purpose. Since the Glagolitic alphabet was not suitable for writing church books. The numerical value of the letters (and then the belief in numerology was very strong) in it was different than what was required in Christianity. Out of respect for the Glagolitic alphabet, Cyril left in his alphabet the same names of the letters as they were. And they are very, very difficult for an alphabet "born" in the 9th century, as claimed. Even then, all languages were striving for simplification; letters in all alphabets of that time denote only sounds. And only in the Slavic alphabet are the names of the letters: “Good”, “People”, “Think”, “Earth”, etc. And all because the Glagolitic is very ancient. It has many signs of pictographic writing."

So, not only the Slavs, but also the ancient Rus, long before the arrival of Christianity in Russia, had "runitsa" and "gragolitsa" as a letter. Thus, the Christian myth that it was allegedly Byzantine monks who taught the "dark" and "wild" Vedic Russ writing is one of the many falsifications that make up the entire official version stories.

Inscriptions such as "features and cuts", or "Slavic runes", are dated within the time interval covering the 4th - 10th centuries. AD thus, the existence of writing before Cyril and Methodius is really proved. This writing, relatively recent, has its roots in the writing of Tripoli III - XI millennium BC. and even further, to the pictographic writing of the Vinca culture - Turdashi, which is the most ancient on the planet Earth.

AT popular science literature one can often read the opinion that writing in Russia appeared along with the adoption of Christianity by Prince Vladimir in 988. However, is this true, and when did Slavic writing really appear, we will consider in this article.

When did writing appear in Russia

The appearance of writing is closely connected with Christianity, but it happened before the official adoption of the new religion - at the beginning of the 10th century. At the court of the prince, during worship and even for domestic needs, writing was used before the adoption of Christianity. Writing came to Russia not thanks to Vladimir, but a few decades before him, this was facilitated by ties with Byzantium and contacts with Western and southern Slavs who are already familiar with book culture.

Letters and contracts

The date of the appearance of writing was not just invented by historians. This is evidenced, although not numerous, but convincing texts. The Slavs wrote on various objects, for example, a poker with an inscription was found near Smolensk, they carried on business correspondence with neighbors, and of course, religious life was not complete without books. Letters and agreements of Russian merchants and ambassadors who arrived in Constantinople were written in two languages - Church Slavonic and Greek. Evidence has been preserved of the existence of a Christian community in Kyiv, which could not do without liturgical books.

Vedas and Slavic writing

Alas, none. The Book of Veles and similar works are only the fruit of the work of the authors of the 19th century. Scientists have proven that they use late vocabulary, and the spelling does not match with any of the languages (often letters are inserted and deleted arbitrarily without regard to any rules), and in real language such random changes cannot occur.

Any language, including the ancient one, is a system that lives by the rules, and there are no rules in the Book of Veles and similar writings. The statement that writing came to Russia with the adoption of Christianity is almost true. Book culture was closely associated with religious life, but it was several decades ahead of the official adoption of the new religion, and the Slavic Vedas are only fiction!