Cyrillic writing system: from Slavic to Romanian

Abstract

The article is devoted to Cyrillic handwritten books of the XIII–XIX centuries, created in the Romanian principalities, and stored today in the manuscript collections of the Russian State Library. The uniqueness of the writing system, functioning in the principalities (Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania) since their political formation, is that it was a Cyrillic script based on the old Slavic language with a predominant Roman-speaking population. In course of the writing system’ development in the principalities, there was a transition from the Slavic font to the Latin one; the intermediate result of this transition was the creation of monuments written in Romanian language with Cyrillic script. The main stages of this process are considered by reference to the specific examples of unique handwritten books and their fragments that have become objects for collecting by scientists, antiquaries, and Old Believers, whose book collections have formed the basis of the handwritten collections of the Russian State Library. They are the oldest Cyrillic manuscripts and their fragments dated to the XII–XIV centuries, found on the territory of Romania, Slavic manuscripts, produced mainly in monasteries of principalities in the XV–XVII centuries, translations of individual words into the Romanian language in the rewritten Slavic texts in the XVI century; the glosses and comments in Romanian on the margins of Slavic manuscripts in the XVI–XVIII centuries; numerous notes in the Romanian language in the manuscripts of the XVI–XVIII centuries, made by owners and readers; translations of literary monuments, including bilingual (Slavic–Romanian) and trilingual (Slavic–Latin–Romanian) versions in the XVI–XVIII centuries; Romanian–Slavic and Slavic–Romanian dictionaries in the XVII–XVIII centuries; letters and their copies in the Romanian language (sureties) in the XVI–XIX centuries. The article is an intermediate outcome of studying and describing Cyrillic Romanian handwritten books in the collections of the Russian State Library, which will result in the publication of a hard–copy catalog.