Аn art - documentary exhibition "Bulgarian alphabet - Glagolitic characters" in “Sava Dobroplodni” regional library

From today, May 20 to 31 May 2010 in the lobby of the main building of “Sava Dobroplodni” regional library - Sliven will be exposed an art - documentary exhibition "Bulgarian alphabet - Glagolitic characters" – a project of the painter Angel Geshev.

The exhibition presents the main characters from the oldest Slavic alphabet - the Glagolitic alphabet, woven into original compositions.

Glagolitic alphabet was created by Constantine Cyril the Philosopher in 862-863 at the request of the Byzantine Emperor Michael III, in order to avoid the Slavic nations to adopt Christianity by the Roman Catholic Church and to allow the newly converted Slavic nations to read in church services from written in Slavic language books.

The name of the alphabet came from the word "verb" /”glagol”/, which means word. It is famous for its complex and exotic graphics.

According to some theories, the Glagolitic alphabet was created by Slavic runes /unknown characters/ which are the unfinished Slavic alphabet, which has been used for religious texts in which one letter can mean a whole word or a sentence. According to other theories, the Glagolitic alphabet derived from old-Bulgarian runes, which were syllabary. Glagolitic alphabet was composed from a kind of letters, it had no small or capital letters ..

Various attempts to explain the origin of the Glagolitic graphic have been made by scientists. Many scientists have tried to find it similar to Syrian, Hebraic, Georgian or Armenian characters in the alphabets. But most of the Glagolitic letters have no similarity with the alphabets known so far, which confirms the original character of the Glagolitic alphabet.

Glagolitic alphabet was known to all Slavic nations. It has been used in the Moravian and Pannonian Missions of the Slavic teachers – Cyril and Methodius, and it was disseminated among the western and eastern Slavs and in Poland.

First book printed in Glagolitic characters was published in Venice in 1483.

For several centuries the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets have been used together, as the Cyrillic alphabet gradually replaced the Glagolitic alphabet in the Middle Ages and it became the only alphabet used in Bulgaria.

The exhibition is dedicated to May 24 – the Day of Slavonic Alphabet, Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture and it is a part of the program of the May holidays of Sliven Municipality.