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Spread of the Cyrillic Alphabet

Type Object Region Eastern Europe Time c. 890–1000

The Cyrillic alphabet gradually replaced Glagolitic in Eastern Europe and the Balkans around the 10th century, becoming the dominant script for Slavi…

Timeline

  1. c. 863–890Moravia · MoraviaCyril and Methodius created the Glagolitic alphabet in Moravia, providing the first scheme for writing Slavic languages and forming the direct precursor to the evolution of Cyrillic.
  2. c. 893–927Preslav · BulgariaThe Bulgarian Empire promoted a Cyrillic script based on the Greek alphabet at Preslav and elsewhere, simplifying letterforms and expanding Church Slavonic textual production, marking the maturation of Cyrillic as an independent system.
  3. c. 988–1000Kyiv · Kievan Rus'After Kievan Rus' adopted Orthodox Christianity, Cyrillic arrived with Church Slavonic and became the core of the Rus' written tradition, laying a common script foundation for later Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian written languages.

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