As someone who translates from a number of Slavic languages, today is very special for me. 24 May is the Day of Slavic Literacy and Culture, commemorating the brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius, who originated from the region around Salonika, Macedonia, were the first people to codify a literary Slavic language and create an alphabet for it, Glagolitic, in the 9th century AD.
Their disciples, Saints Naum and Clement of Ohrid, Macedonia, eventually created a more suitable alphabet for Slavic languages, Cyrillic, named in honour of St Cyril.
Cyrillic is used to write a number of languages, including Slavic languages such as:
Russian
Ukrainian
Belarusian
Bulgarian
Macedonian
Serbian
Montenegrin
and non-Slavic languages such as:
Mongolian
Kazakh
Kyrgyz
Tajik
Tatar
Buryat
Chechen
Kalmyk
Yakut
Bashkir
Udmurt
Chuvash
Mari
Mordvin
and many more (in the past and present)
Did you know that from the influence of Old Church Slavonic, the first literary Slavic language, based on medieval Macedonian and the liturgical language of (Slavic) Orthodox Christian churches, Romanian, a Romance language but spoken by an Orthodox Christian population, was also written in Cyrillic until the late 19th century.
Slavic languages are spoken by around 400 million people worldwide. Political hostilities aside, there is a still a strong sense of pan-Slavic pride, with today being the prime day of the year where this is celebrated, even if the Bulgarians have hijacked the day to focus it solely on themselves.
Today is a public holiday in:
🇧🇬 Bulgaria
🇲🇰 Macedonia
and commemorated with celebrations in other Slavic countries:
🇧🇾 Belarus
🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina
🇭🇷 Croatia
🇨🇿 Czechia
🇲🇪 Montenegro
🇵🇱 Poland
🇷🇺 Russia
🇷🇸 Serbia
🇸🇰 Slovakia
🇸🇮 Slovenia
🇺🇦 Ukraine
As well as by Slavic peoples worldwide.
С праздником! Честит празник!
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