Public relations in ancient Rus'.

Lesson 9. Topic: " Old Russian letter: charter, semi-charter, cursive, ligature"

Purpose: to fix in the memory of children the names and spelling of these fonts.

Lesson equipment: for students - notebooks or albums, pens; for the teacher, photocopies are required (each type of letter).

Guidelines: if possible, show a printed book with these fonts. You can use fairy tales with illustrations by I. Ya. Bilibin (ligature). Children have albums or notebooks on their tables in which they can try writing in different fonts. Distribute photocopies to children "statute", "semi-status", "cursive script", "ligature". Children write down the names of the lesson and stick photocopies in their notebooks.

Information for the teacher. In Russian handwritten books and in non-book writing there were three types of writing: charter, semi-charter, cursive, ligature.

Charter - oldest form Cyrillic, characteristic of the manuscripts of the XI-XIII centuries. The letters were distinguished by their straightforwardness and thoroughness of writing. One letter was written separately from another, without dividing the text into separate words. The shape of the letters approached a square. There were no abbreviations or superscripts. The pen with which they wrote was broad-ended. This early form Cyrillic. The change in shape depended on the instrument with which they wrote. Cane or feather (goose, swan, peacock). Charter, as a special handwriting, dominated for several centuries, gradually he moved from parchment to paper.

Semi-status is new form Cyrillic alphabet developed in the 15th century. At this time, the need for books increases and professional scribes, cherishing time, wrote faster and neater. The handwriting is smaller and rounder. There is no such thoroughness, the execution of letters, which was inherent in the charter: the correct distance between the letters is violated, since the semi-charter was written faster and somewhat more sweepingly. Merged letters (ligatures) appeared and superscripts- titles that denoted abbreviated words. According to the Greek model, stress marks were used - "forces".

Cursive. This type of writing became widespread from the middle of the 14th century, gradually replacing the semi-ustav. The cursive was distinguished by the diverse styles of the same letters. The ends of the letters are extended beyond the line. Speeding up writing was also achieved by shortening words and placing letters above the line. Cursive writing is found mainly in documents and letters.

Elm is a special decorative letter, common in the 15th century. Elm wrote the names of the manuscripts. Distinctive features ligatures - various combinations of letters, abbreviations and ornamental decorations, decorative writing in which a line is connected into a uniform continuous ornament. The letters of the tie are different in height, often connected, the words are abbreviated and merged. The title of the book (fairy tale) was written with elm. The main task is to place beautifully a certain amount of words in the space of one line. Elm was a favorite decorative look Cyrillic in Rus', it was very widely used in arts and crafts. Elm is also found on household items, in sewing, in icon painting, on the walls of temples.

Lesson 10

Purpose: to tell children about the emergence of monasteries in Rus' and their role in cultural education.

Lesson equipment: for students - albums and pens; for the teacher - photocopies (the image of the monks in the scriptorium), albums with views of the monasteries.

What monasteries do they know? What do monks do in monasteries? Why were monasteries built? Distribute photocopies to the children so that they paste them in a notebook or albums, and only then begin to tell the story of Russian monasteries.

Information for the teacher. Under Yaroslav the Wise, monasticism arose in Rus', the first monasteries appeared. The monks were very educated for those times. They taught children literacy and various subjects. Monasteries played the role of universities. Books were needed to educate children. Books were written in monasteries, translated from different languages, rewrote books to have more of them. Compiled chronicles, collections, philosophical treatises, etc. The first big temple Sophia, on the territory of which there is a monument to Yaroslav the Wise, who stands with a book in his hand.

Text from chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years": "In the summer of 1037, Yaroslav laid the great city, at the same city the Golden Gate. He also founded the church of St. Sophia ... And he was attached to books, reading them often both night and day. And he gathered many scribes, and they translated from Greek into Slavonic, and they wrote off many books, they also teach faithful people... Yaroslav, having written many books, laid in the church of St. Sophia, which he created himself.

The monasteries had a special room where the monks worked on the creation of books. The Latin word "scriptor" is a scribe, a clerk, a copyist. There was a great need for books. The monks were also helped by the laity. Scribes, translators, bookbinders, editors, artists, parchment craftsmen, and jewelers worked on the book.

The monks found an opportunity to bring books from other countries and translate them into Russian. Church and secular books: chronicles, historical novels, collections of sayings, philosophical and legal treatises.

Work in scriptoria was considered a charitable and honorable deed. " There is goodness, brethren, bookish reverence ... Beauty is a weapon for a warrior, sails for a ship, and bookish reverence for a righteous man. The art of the handwritten book in the Middle Ages reached high excellence. Many manuscripts are great importance as works of art, writing and illustration. Until the 12th century, manuscripts were written on parchment. After the appearance of paper, they began to use this new material, cheaper, which contributed to cheaper books and. increase their production. But paper has not completely replaced parchment. Many books, especially church service books, were decorated with special luxury; they continued to be written on parchment. Books were written on paper, intended for wide circulation and for long-term storage. In most handwritten books, the text was arranged in two columns. The columns were framed by thin rulers drawn pale paint(pink or blue). The rulers of the lines were drawn with a sharp instrument, or drawn with the same pale paint. The width of the margins was subject to the strict requirements of the composition of the entire spread. The scribes were free to choose the font design. Their personal taste and talent were shown. The fonts of handwritten books amaze with the variety and consistency of drawings in a certain style.

What fonts do kids know? The books were kept in the deacon's room of the church (at the northern gate) or in the sacristy, where the liturgical utensils were kept. There was no special equipment in the bookkeeper (library). An archaic "ark" was used. They used "boxes", the manufacture of which Novgorod was famous for. They used chests and wall shelves to store books.

The term "library" was established only from the 18th century. Before that, there was a Russian word " bookkeeper." The founders of the libraries of ancient Russian monasteries were their founders.

A contemporary of St. Sergius of Radonezh told how Reverend Sergius together with the first monks he wrote books on birch bark. Because of poverty, they did not have parchment. The monastic charter approved the position of a librarian who kept books, monitored the issuance of books and replenishment of the bookkeeper. According to the Charter, the book keeper was supposed to gather the monks on days free from work and give them books to read on a blow to the beater. In the evening, also on a signal, the monks had to return books taken by appointment. Extradition was officially prescribed by the monastic rules. The organization of book lending prompted appropriate methods and recommendations. The idea of ​​soul-beneficial reading, which permeated everyday and literary practice old Rus', wore features generally accepted norm. Reader's order form; the book was requested and issued from the vault through the usual negotiations with the librarian. And in those ancient times there was a question about the inaccuracy of readers. In the statute: "Whoever hesitates to return the book, let him undergo penance". Reader dishonesty: the borrowed books were not returned. The book fund was divided into books to be issued and not to be issued. When a book is lost, it is natural to replace it with a doublet. However, this method is extremely rare. More often there is a compensation for the loss of another book. The methods of punishment are also typical. Deprivation of food, dry eating, shameful public standing at a common dinner.

There was no classification of the book fund. There was a single order to record books in the inventory. When arranging, a "serf" (fixed) arrangement of books was used. This method "attaches" a book permanently to one permanent place in storage. The library classification, combined according to several criteria, originated in the Russian state hardly earlier late XVI- the beginning of the 17th century. Contents of libraries:

liturgical books,
edifying creations of the fathers and teachers of the church and books for private reading,
secular books,
hagiographic literature presented in menaias, prologues, patericons, collections and separate lists,
collections of edifying tales from the life of Christian ascetics,
historical literature,
natural science,
applied literature,
legal collections (texts of "Russian Truth").

Lesson 11

Purpose: to explain to children why chronicles were written, and who wrote them.

Lesson equipment: for students - a notebook and pens; for the teacher - photocopies ("scribe"). Book "The Tale of Bygone Years". "Song of the Prophetic Oleg" A. S. Pushkin.

Methodological recommendations: write down the topic in a notebook and the following words: "summer" - in - Old Russian "year";"records by year", i.e. "records by years", both words "year" and "years" are preserved in Russian.

Ask students how they will tell their age? What does the entry "In the summer of 1037" mean, that is, "In the year 1037." Read with children "The Tale of the Prophetic Oleg" and compare with the work of A.S. Pushkin "The Song of the Prophetic Oleg".

Information for the teacher. Each entry in the annals began with these words: "In the summer ...". Chronicles are called special literary works Ancient Rus', which tell about the events of Russian history year after year. In Rus', chronicles were kept from the 11th - 13th centuries. Until the XIV century, the time of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, chronicles were the main type historical narrative. Chronicles were compiled in monasteries, at the courts of princes, kings, in the offices of metropolitans. The chroniclers carried out instructions or orders from spiritual or secular rulers, and reflected the interests of certain groups of people. That is why the chronicles contradicted each other. By their structure, they represented weather articles. They wrote about every event that happened. Sometimes there was brief information or literary form presentation. Even in the weather records, the chroniclers included the appeals of the princes, their dialogues. Chronicles are not only the main sources on political events, but also monuments of ancient Russian secular literature. Chronicles are different. Some contain only a few lines of text. There are chronicle Codes, consisting of several folios, covering five, six or seven centuries of Russian history. For example, the Facial Code, which, in addition to texts, has over 16,000 colorful miniatures. Compiled this Chronicle Code under Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century. Records by years - chronicles were kept in the Middle Ages and in other countries.

But Russian chronicles are a unique phenomenon in world culture. Chronicles began to be compiled in the first years after the Baptism of Rus'. The first of the most famous chronicles is called The Tale of Bygone Years, compiled in Kiev Pechersk Monastery. The monk Nestor began to write this chronicle. Compiling the Code, Nestor, first of all, took care to get his hands on the works of his predecessors: historical documents, treaties, letters, testaments of princes, historical stories, lives of Russian saints ... Having studied and revised the works of his predecessor chroniclers, having collected all available material, Nestor combined everything in a consistent presentation over the years. The document was placed under the year to which it belonged, the life of the saint - under the year of his death, historical story, if it covered several years, it was divided by years, and each part was placed under its own year. The construction of an annalistic presentation by years was convenient. In the work on the annals, it was sometimes necessary to eliminate contradictions, sometimes to carry out complex chronological research in order to place each event under its own year. Based on his political ideas, the chronicler sometimes skipped this or that event, occasionally accompanied them with his own brief political comments, but did not compose new news.

Having finished his work as a "brider", the chronicler supplemented this material with his own records of events recent years. This chronicle is encyclopedic in nature. It includes geographical and ethnographic information, excerpts from songs that have not come down to us, epics, tales and legends. The chronicles of Nestor, his contemporaries and followers have not come down to us. They were destroyed during the Mongol-Tatar invasion in the XIII century. In the fourth grade, children probably already know about this invasion and can tell something themselves. At that time, many Russian cities, monasteries, churches, princely courts. But the chronicle did not stop. The scribes of subsequent centuries continued the work of the Kyiv chroniclers. With reverence for the word written by their predecessors, they included in the works compiled by them the text of The Tale of Bygone Years. They did not consider themselves the authors of the text. The chronicle could not have an author, because it, the chronicle, was compiled for centuries. "So that the memory of our parents and ours does not cease, and the candle would not go out", - as the Moscow prince Simeon the Proud wrote in his spiritual will. Most of the Russian chroniclers were monks. The writing of the chronicle was for them a monastic obedience, or, to put it another way, their spiritual feat.

After the story about the annals, you can read in " Tale of Bygone Years" "The Tale of the Prophetic Oleg"(as Nestor wrote it). And then read "The Song of the Prophetic Oleg" A. S. Pushkin and ask the children what they liked best.

riddle-confusion. Ancient Rus'. XII century. Several people are sitting in the cell of monk Gabriel, and they are copying books. Monk Gabriel dipped a quill pen into an elegant porcelain inkwell and drew a beautiful initial letter in blue ink on a papyrus leaf. As soon as the book is finished, monk. Gabriel will decorate it with illustrations. Then the sheets are rolled up into a scroll and taken to the library.

Books for children:

1. Petrova N.G. Introduction to history. - M .: Russian Word, 1998. - 192 p.
2. Stories of the Primary Russian Chronicle. - M .: Det. lit., 1982.– 149 p. Malov V. Book.– M.: Slovo, 2002.– 48 p.
3. Remneva M.L. Az, Buki, Vedi. - M .: Moskovsky worker, 1985. - 133 p.
4. Shchepkin V.N. Russian paleography. - M .: ASPECT Press, 1999. - 270 p.

Books for the teacher:

1. Glukhov A.G. World art culture. At the hearth of Russian writing from Yaroslav the Wise to Andrei Bogolyubsky. Issue. 1.– M.: International Union of Book Lovers, 2001.– 158 p.
2. Glukhov A.G. Book Rus. - M .: Sov. Russia, 1979.– 222 p.
3. Glukhov A.G. Wise scribes of Ancient Rus'. From Yaroslav the Wise to Ivan Fedorov. - M .: Ex-libris-Press, 1997. - 256 p.
4. Stolyarova L.V. From the history book culture Russian medieval city (XI-XVII centuries). - M .: Ros. humanit. un-t, 1999.– 174 p.
5. Ukhvatova E.V. At the origins of Russian writing. - M .: Izd. House "Ant", 1998.– 235 p.
6. Voronetsky B., Kuznetsov E. Font. - L .: Artist of the RSFSR, 1975. - 103 p.
7. Ptahova I. The simple beauty of a letter. - S.-P.: Russian graphics, 1997. - 288 p.

In the last decade, an interesting field of research has emerged in historical science - the deciphering of secret inscriptions on antiquities, ancient stones, icons, etc.

A prominent researcher in this area is Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences V. A. Chudinov. Valery Alekseevich deciphered several thousand ancient inscriptions.

In the blogosphere, I often come across arrogant statements about Chudinov's transcripts. "Some romantics try to see the image they need in the outlines of clouds and sunspots ...".

Very self-confident people are not aware that many researchers around the world are doing similar work, that our Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin used this knowledge, The Merchant of Venice Marco Polo, artist Albrecht Dürer. Secret writing discovered in Plato's dialogues about Atlantis.

In ancient times, cryptography was considered one of the 64 arts, which should be mastered by both men and women. Information about the methods of encrypted writing can already be found in the documents of the ancient civilizations of India, Egypt, Mesopotamia. Among the simplest is hieroglyphic writing, the writing of signs not in order, but randomly according to a certain rule. The classical Caesar cipher is described in all textbooks on cryptography. Not trusting the messengers, Julius Caesar encrypted his dispatches using a method that later became known as the direct substitution cipher. In his letters, he replaced every A with a D, every B with an E, and so on. And only someone who knew the “shift by 3” rule could decipher his message.

Mankind has created many ways to hide information. The researcher is not offended by the objections of Chudinov's opponents. The situation was too unexpected for him. He did not suddenly and immediately publish the results of his research.

Since serious work is accompanied in the first place common sense and provide scientific credibility, then here is the first answer to skeptics. One or two coincidences, when a dash or fold looks like a letter, are allowed by probability theory. But three or four coincidences, or when “shadows” or “dots” add up to a meaningful word, already speak of a pattern.

It is impossible to find a word where it does not exist. And thousands of them have already been found.

Today, trams are advertising the SpetsOdezhda store, where instead of the letter “O” there is a button, which in this context we interpret as a letter. So ancient people used the image of any object to denote a letter or syllable.

The famous French cipher Rossignol created the doctrine that “the strength of the cipher should ensure secrecy during the period of execution of the order. The diplomatic cipher must resist unauthorized reading for several decades.” The stability of religious ciphers in Rus' has been for many centuries, and this is no longer the merit of Rossignol.

All of Rus', from the Sovereign to the iconic bogomaz, used secret writing.

Russian chroniclers hid words in intricate letter ornaments, in which the letters seemed to be glued to each other. In ancient chronicles there are texts woven into artistic miniatures.

In addition to the works of V. Chudinov on reading ornaments and ancient ciphered records, other sources and researchers are also known.

The Moscow sculptor Vladimir Buinachev took an unbiased look at The Tale of Igor's Campaign and found in it a cryptography, and not simple and stereotypical, but polysyllabic, diverse and highly original.

Royal cryptography in Zvenigorod.

In 1667, in honor of the arrival of the Ecumenical Patriarchs in Moscow, the sovereign cannon and bell maker Alexander Grigoriev cast the most famous bell of the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, near Zvenigorod - Big Blagovestny - weighing 2125 pounds (about 34 tons). The bell had an unusually deep and beautiful ringing, who heard, spoke - there was no equal to it in Russia. On the outer side of the bell there were inscriptions in nine rows: the top six were in the Old Slavonic language, and the bottom three were cryptographic inscriptions consisting of 425 characters. The text was supposedly compiled personally by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Russian and Soviet historians were busy deciphering the secret writings in the period from the 18th to the 20th century. It turned out that the code tables of this cipher are original and are not found anywhere else.

In 1941, all the bells of the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery were removed for remelting. The Great Blagovest did not escape this fate either. Moreover, when removed from the bell tower, it fell and crashed. Only a fragment of the “tongue” weighing 700 kg remained from it, which is now on display. Big Blagovest is depicted on the coat of arms of Zvenigorod.

Well, how? Isn't it time to replace condescending smirks with interest.

Striving for secrecy.

In the last century, boys and girls were fond of reading, including of course. Kataev's "Dagger" and detective stories about Sherlock Holmes, and there this cryptography with the Wise litorea and dancing little men was enough for all class school lessons.

For those who do not read books today, this is difficult to understand. Digital communications have replaced everything.

The need for encryption has appeared since the advent of writing itself.

Everyone who, one way or another, is connected or has heard a lot about the encryption of a letter, is familiar with the term Steganography - this is the science of the hidden transmission of information by keeping the very fact of transmission secret. Please pay attention to the difference from cryptography, which encrypts only the message. Steganography goes even further - it hides the very existence of the message.

The revolutionaries used the corresponding methods in Russian Empire, when they wrote with milk between the lines, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus left messages about technologies with wax in writing (and not vice versa), in ancient China messages were written, of course, on strips of silk. Then they were rolled into balls and covered with wax. Then the messenger swallowed these balls and went straight to the addressee. The way back is also quite clear. Slaves were inscribed on their shaved heads, and waited until their hair was restored. And again they shaved the head of the courier at the place of delivery of the message. During the excavation of Sumerian clay tablets, multi-layered ones were discovered, in which one record was covered with a layer of clay, and on this already upper layer they wrote again.

In the field of hiding information, impressive success was achieved in Sparta. Not only did the theory develop there. From there, the first encryption devices reached us. Six centuries before the birth of Christ, the cunning Greeks invented the "scitalla" - the first device that implements the permutation cipher. A belt was wound around a cylinder of a certain diameter in a spiral, on which letters were applied along the axis of the cylinder. When unfolded, the belt bore a seemingly chaotic array of letters. To decipher it was necessary to know the original diameter of the cylinder.

The great Archimedes solved the problem of deciphering messages. Another eureka of Archimedes was winding telegram belts intercepted from the enemy on a cone. By shifting up and down the belt wound on the cone, they found the desired diameter and read the message. And what about steganography? And besides, they already understood then that it was necessary not only to hide the message, but also, just in case, to encrypt it.

In Rus', another kind of concealment of information was widely used - tachygraphy. Changed the lettering. Letters could not be added or, on the contrary, supplemented with new elements, rotated, resized.

Moving on to the present, I would like to note such a steganographic method as writing inside a boiled egg. recipient, received boiled eggs, peeled the shell and read the message. I wonder how it was recorded? I once read the answer either in "Entertaining Chemistry" or "Entertaining Physics".

During the Great Patriotic War in the territories of the USSR occupied by the Germans, using the preserved bell towers, scouts reported information by ringing bells. This completely replaced radio communications, since at dawn the ringing spreads over tens of kilometers.

IN Soviet times V children's film"Drummer's Destiny" showed everyone how to use sympathetic ink. Here, the means of developing the recordings made were already required, since the text immediately disappeared after writing.

I think there is no need to talk about modern digital technologies for hiding information, because even on the Internet today programs are offered for home use, so to speak.

V. Chudinov's discoveries.

Hundreds of sacred objects of both Christian and pre-Christian epochs have been found to contain cryptography filled with sacred runes. The deciphering of the discovered sacred texts directly blows up the current ideas about the history of Christianity and Russian Vedism.

So, deciphering the cryptography on the papal crypt of the catacombs of St. Callista forced Chudinov to conclude: “The early Christians revered not only the Virgin Mary as having given birth to the Savior, but also the goddess Makosh, in whose temple Mary actually lived, serving as a priestess there. We find echoes of the event in the New Testament. It speaks of young Mary's intention to become a nun.

Read ancient texts report that Christianity should have appeared only as a development of Slavic Vedism, and not any other faith!

Studies of the sacred stones of the Magi and Christian icons dating back to the XIV century. made it possible to establish the fact that by planting Russian Orthodox Christianity the Magi themselves were engaged, considering it as the development and fulfillment of the prophecies of Russian Vedism - they glorified the Rule, hence Orthodoxy !

It turns out not at all by chance that the Magi came to greet the birth of the baby Christ. The New Testament again told us about this, veiling the Slavic magicians a little bit under some eastern rulers.

Such a discovery is so revolutionary that today they simply do not know what to do with it. Rather, they don’t know what to do with today’s knowledge against this background, and just in case, readings of Chudinov on historical monuments are either hushed up or declared nonsense.

The discoveries themselves are the result of the scientific research of the historian, and not at all religious statements.

Not the study of sunspots, but the deciphering of hidden records of ancestors is what Professor Chudinov is busy with.

Here we come into contact with a religious and philosophical question that requires a separate broad consideration. And let me remind you we are talking only about deciphering ancient texts and hidden inscriptions.

The inscriptions on the walls of the temple.

Coptic nuns carved many inscriptions on the walls of an ancient Egyptian temple 1,500 years ago. Today, this vandalism is the most valuable source on the religious history of Egypt.

Historian Westerfeld presented a paper with the first results of the study at the annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt.

According to Westerfeld, such a find is unprecedented. “This collection of epigraphic data left by a female monastic order has virtually no analogues in Egypt.

It’s curious that such studies abroad have a green light, where they are “unprecedented” and “have no analogues”, and our discoveries, as always, are completely braked, and mockery about “sun spots”.

Why were the bells and temples destroyed.

All citizens of Russia know a fact from the history of the country, when churches were massively destroyed, bells were dropped and destroyed, icons were burned. And today there are many church ruins in the state. Even during the so-called. The Mongol-Tatar yoke built temples throughout Rus' without hindrance, just look at the dates of their foundation.

Of course, the new government after 1917 solved the problem of replacing state ideology on your own. But Tsar Peter, who destroyed the bells, is also related to this vandalism. Then it was declared necessary to melt the bells into cannons. But we have every reason to believe these explanations not completely.

Any student of a metallurgical university will say: “The alloy of bell bronze is absolutely not suitable for cannon bronze, which means that it is impossible to pour from one to another. practical sense. Bell bronze should ring, and the barrel of the cannon should have mechanical strength. These qualities are not realizable in one alloy. Bell bronze contains about 20% tin, and traditional cannon bronze contains half as much.”

It turns out that under Tsar Peter and under the Soviet regime, antiquities were destroyed for something else. The reasons announced by Peter I and the communist leaders were only a cover for the true unadvertised reason. One spoke about guns, others declared the fight against religion, and together they did a common dirty deed.

Failures with cannons, cast on the advice of Western specialists from bell bronze, Peter attributed to the negligence of his boyars. Soviet authority poured bells into jewelry. The crimson chimes of the Moscow magpies went to the metro sculptures and bas-reliefs of administrative buildings.

Together with ancient icons, frescoes of destroyed churches and bells, Russia was losing its history, recorded in the cryptography of its ancestors. Here is the main reason.

The destroyers, having gone into a rage, could no longer stop until they brought their obscurantism almost to the end. The modern remake of temples and bells does not contain ancient cryptography now. It must have been very dangerous for someone.

Thank God, the steganographic recording survived. These records are now read by scientists. V. Chudinov found inscriptions on the surviving ancient icons and utensils, informing about the workshops where these items were made. And the workshops were called simply, but with taste - the workshop of the Veles temple, the Rod temple, the Makoshi temple, the Dyya temple, etc. How do you like Orthodox icons made in Paganism.

Here is the answer to the question why the churches were destroyed. It was not temples that were destroyed, but first of all ancient inscriptions along with frescoes, icons, bells. Ancient Russian history was destroyed. The wearing of ancient amulets and pectoral crosses, passed down through generations, was declared a relic and was persecuted. These family heirlooms also created by ancient artisans in the already listed, as it were, pagan temples. This is what Chudinov discovered by reading the secret writings of craftsmen from the time of Vedicism. Today, this newly discovered knowledge is being denied for scientific reasons.

Conclusion.

The task of hiding information from outsiders has existed since time immemorial. And, as we see, all this began long before the birth of Valery Alekseevich Chudinov. Today his works can be read as historical detective stories.

There are so many facts of reading encrypted inscriptions that they should be studied, not rejected. Researchers understand those Old Slavonic and Old Russian books, which are considered fakes by pro-Western people. Work in this direction makes it possible to find out how these books were lost or deliberately destroyed.

Works in this area allowed V. Chudinov not only to read the hidden inscriptions on ancient church icons and ancient stones, but to trace the path of the movement of the famous book of the Magi "Veles Book" many centuries ago. And this Book too, of course, is declared a forgery.

No wonder, this is another method of hiding information from unwanted distribution.

You and I, dear reader, see that secret inscriptions on antiquities exist objectively. And, as soon as there are messages of ancestors, our task as descendants is to read the letters addressed to us.

Ancient Russian cryptography based on the Greek alphabet.

The generally accepted date for the emergence of writing among the Slavs is 863, but some researchers argue that they knew how to write in Rus' before.

Closed topic

The topic of pre-Christian writing in Ancient Rus' was considered in Soviet science, if not forbidden, then quite closed. Only in recent decades There have been a number of works devoted to this problem.

For example, in the fundamental monograph "History of Writing" N. A. Pavlenko offers six hypotheses for the origin of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets, moreover, he argues that both the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets were among the Slavs in pre-Christian times.

Myth or reality

Historian Lev Prozorov is sure that there is more than enough evidence of the existence of writing before the appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet in Rus'. He argues that our distant ancestors could not only write individual words, but also draw up legal documents.

As an example, Prozorov draws attention to the conclusion Prophetic Oleg agreements with Byzantium. The document deals with the consequences of the death of a Russian merchant in Constantinople: if the merchant dies, then one should “treat with his property as he wrote in his will.” True, in what language such wills were written is not specified.

In the "Lives of Methodius and Cyril", compiled in the Middle Ages, it is written about how Cyril visited Chersonesos and saw there the Holy Books written in "Russian letters". However, many researchers tend to be critical of this source. For example, Viktor Istrin believes that the word "Russian" should be understood as "Sour" - that is, Syriac scripts.

However, there is other evidence confirming that the pagan Slavs still had a written language. You can read about it in chronicles. Western authors- Helmold from Bosau, Titmar of Merseburg, Adam of Bremen, who, when describing the shrines of the Baltic and Polabian Slavs, mention inscriptions on the bases of the statues of the Gods.

The Arab chronicler Ibn-Fodlan wrote that he saw with his own eyes the burial of the Rus and how a memorial mark was placed on his grave - a wooden pillar on which the name of the deceased himself and the name of the king of the Rus were carved.

Archeology

Indirectly, the presence of writing among the ancient Slavs is confirmed by the excavations of Novgorod. On the site of the old settlement, writings were found - rods with which the inscription was applied to wood, clay or plaster. The finds date back to the middle of the 10th century, despite the fact that Christianity penetrated Novgorod only at the end of the 10th century.

The same writing was found in Gnezdovo during excavations of ancient Smolensk, moreover, there is archaeological evidence of the use of rods for writing. In a mound of the middle of the 10th century, archaeologists unearthed a fragment of an amphora, where they read the inscription made in Cyrillic: “Pea dog”.

Ethnographers believe that "Pea" is a protective name that was given by our ancestors so that "grief is not attached."

Also among the archaeological finds of ancient Slavic settlements are the remains of swords, on the blades of which blacksmiths engraved their name. For example, on one of the swords found near the village of Foshchevata, one can read the name "Ludot".

"Features and cuts"

If the appearance of samples of Cyrillic writing in pre-Christian times can still be disputed, in particular, explained by the incorrect dating of the find, then writing with “features and cuts” is a sign of more ancient culture. This method of writing, still popular among the Slavs even after being baptized, was mentioned in his treatise “On Letters” (beginning of the 10th century) by the Bulgarian monk Chernorizets Brave.

Under "features and cuts", according to scientists, they most likely meant a kind of pictographic-tamga and counting writing, also known among other peoples in the early stages of their development.

Attempts to decipher the inscriptions made according to the type of "features and cuts" were made by the Russian amateur decryptor Gennady Grinevich. In total, he examined about 150 inscriptions found in the territory of the settlement of the Eastern and Western Slavs (IV-X centuries AD). Upon careful study of the inscriptions, the researcher identified 74 basic signs, which, in his opinion, formed the basis of the ancient syllabic Slavic writing.

Grinevich also suggested that some samples of the Proto-Slavic syllabary were made using pictograms. For example, the image of a horse, dog or spear means that you need to use the first syllables of these words - “lo”, “so” and “ko”.
With the advent of the Cyrillic alphabet, the syllabary, according to the researcher, did not disappear, but began to be used as a secret script. So, on the cast-iron fence of the Sloboda Palace in Moscow (now the building of the Moscow State Technical University named after Bauman), Grinevich read how "the Hasid Domenico Gilardi has the cook Nicholas I in his power."

"Slavic runes"

A number of researchers have an opinion that the Old Slavonic writing is an analogue of the Scandinavian runic writing, which allegedly confirms the so-called "Kiev letter" (a document dating from the 10th century), issued to Yaakov Ben Hanukkah by the Jewish community of Kiev. The text of the document is written in Hebrew, and the signature is made in runic characters that have not yet been able to read.
The German historian Konrad Schurzfleisch writes about the existence of runic writing among the Slavs. His thesis of 1670 refers to the schools of the Germanic Slavs, where children were taught the runes. As proof, the historian cited a sample of the Slavic runic alphabet, similar to the Danish runes of the 13th-16th centuries.

Writing as a Witness to Migration

Grinevich, mentioned above, believes that with the help of the Old Slavic syllabic alphabet one can also read the Cretan inscriptions of the XX-XIII centuries. BC, Etruscan inscriptions of the 8th-2nd centuries. BC, Germanic runes and ancient inscriptions from Siberia and Mongolia.
In particular, according to Grinevich, he managed to read the text of the famous "Phaistos Disc" (Crete Island, XVII century BC), which tells about the Slavs who found new home on Crete. However, the bold conclusions of the researcher cause serious objection from the academic community.

Grinevich is not alone in his research. Back in the first half of the 19th century, the Russian historian E. I. Klassen wrote that “the Slavic Russians, as a people educated earlier than the Romans and Greeks, left many monuments in all parts of the Old World, testifying to their stay there and to the ancient writing.”

The Italian philologist Sebastiano Ciampi showed in practice that between ancient Slavic and European cultures there was a certain connection.

To decipher the Etruscan language, the scientist decided to try to rely not on Greek and Latin, but on one of the Slavic languages ​​that he was fluent in - Polish. Imagine the surprise of the Italian researcher when some Etruscan texts began to lend themselves to translation.

Hypothesis about pre-Christian writing in Rus'

A significant group of researchers believe that the Slavs were literate before the adoption of Christianity. This opinion was shared by Soviet researchers Istrin V.A., Obnorsky S.P., Yakubinsky L.P., Lvov A.P. and others. A number of sources were used as evidence:

1. "About the Letters" Chernorizets Brave
2. "Lives of Constantine and Methodius"
3. Texts by Arabic author Ibn Fadlan
4. "The book of painting news about scientists and the names of the books they composed" An-Nadima
5. Treaties of Rus' with the Greeks $911, $945

Sometimes the so-called "Book of Veles" is cited as evidence, although it has been proven that this is a forgery of the $XX$ century. The most competent source in this issue can be considered the legend of Chernorizets the Brave "On the Letters":

“Before, the Slavs did not have letters, but they read by features and cuts, they guessed by them, being filthy.”

Remark 1

However, on this moment there is no solid evidence in science for the existence of pre-Christian Slavic writing.

Missionaries Cyril and Methodius

Authors Slavic alphabet, Byzantine monks Cyril and Methodius, were on a mission in Moravia: the ruler of this state turned to the Byzantine emperor Michael $III$ with a request to send teachers. Moravia was baptized, but did not have its own written language, which made the process of Christianization difficult. The conditional date of the creation of the Slavic alphabet, therefore, is considered to be $863$ - the beginning of the educational mission of Cyril and Methodius in Moravia.

Remark 2

In science, it is considered proven that Methodius and Cyril created the so-called "glagolitic" . The alphabet in the usual form - "Cyrillic" - created by a student of Cyril, Kliment Ohridsky, based on the Glagolitic alphabet and the Greek alphabet.

Cyril and Methodius were actually teachers of the southern Slavs, while the eastern ones were not included in their activities. But at the same time, monk brothers are considered enlighteners in Rus', the cult of Saints Cyril and Methodius has become very popular. The fact is that the Bulgarian sources, which describe the activities of the monks, were among the first books in Rus' and were widely distributed.

The spread of writing in Rus' after the adoption of Christianity

On a national scale, Slavic writing in Rus' began to spread with the adoption of Christianity.

But since it is known that a small number of Christians lived in Rus' during the pagan period, it can be assumed that they used the Slavic alphabet.

Example 1

Archaeological finds confirm this fact, for example, the “Gnezdovo inscription” on a clay jug.

With the adoption of Christianity, Slavic writing began to spread throughout Old Russian state. The reason for this was the need to study religious literature and conduct services in their native language, since only in this way the process of Christianization was easier. Slavic writing came to Rus' from Bulgaria, since the language of the Bulgarians at that time was as close as possible. In addition, Bulgaria had adopted Christianity a century earlier and already had an impressive volume of translated theological literature. In the process of the spread of writing in Rus', the Cyrillic alphabet significantly prevailed, although it is known that the Glagolitic was also used.

Example 2

An example of the use of the Glagolitic alphabet is “Kyiv Leaflets”, a recording of an excerpt from the liturgy. Appearance The Glagolitic alphabet seems to be very difficult, which is probably why the Cyrillic alphabet replaced it.

There is an opinion according to which the Glagolitic, due to its complexity, was used as a cipher, a secret letter. However, it is important to emphasize that Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets almost coincided in terms of letter composition: $40$ letters in the Glagolitic alphabet, $43$ letters in the Cyrillic alphabet of the $11th century.

Birch bark letters

Birch bark of the 11th century, found in Veliky Novgorod

In order to use birch bark as a writing material, it was usually specially prepared. A sheet of birch bark should have had a minimum of veins. The birch bark was cleaned and boiled in water with alkalis. The text was applied to the inner surface of the bark, and sometimes to the outer, with the help of a bone stylus. Birch bark with natural twisting is folded with the inside out. Birch bark scrolls are very well stored in a humid environment. Birch-bark letters were used by people of various strata of society. In ancient Novgorod, where especially a lot of birch bark letters were found, they wrote not only on birch bark, but also on wooden wax tablets - tsers. Birch-bark letters and writings on birch bark are monuments of writing of Ancient Rus' of the XI-XV centuries. Birch bark letters are of paramount interest as sources on the history of society and Everyday life medieval people, as well as on the history of the East Slavic languages.

How to read birch bark letters

Alphabet dating from 1025-1050. Photo and drawing of Novgorod birch bark No. 591

They wrote on birch bark in the Old Slavonic language, before the writing of Cyril and Methodius. Russian letter arose before Cyril, was used in international treaties and existed outside of connection with the Christianization of Rus'. The population of Novgorod by the XI century was almost one hundred percent literate. The carrier of the letter to the Russian people was not the clergy. Kirill created a Church Slavonic script based on the Russian script for the nomadic Slavic tribes of the Bulgarian region.

Used in birch bark letters consumer graphics system , where, in particular, pairs of letters can be interchanged (for example, the word horse can be written as kne). Birch bark letters are an important source for studying the origin and development of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. So, the alphabet is already presented on one of the oldest birch bark letters found among them - birch bark letter No. 591 (XI century), discovered in 1981. The letters of this alphabet are very similar to modern Cyrillic characters, so scientists could easily read the texts of birch bark letters.

From charter to cursive

Meeting of the Gentiles with Cyril and Methodius

It is traditionally believed that writing in Rus' arose with the adoption of Christianity, that is, in the 10th century.

Slavic writing had two alphabets: Glagolitic And Cyrillic . The name of the Glagolitic comes from the word verb - speak . The second alphabet was named Cyrillic after one of the brothers Cyril and Methodius - Slavic enlighteners who lived in the 9th century, compilers of the first alphabet.

There were four types of writing in Russian handwritten books. Influenced by the Greek language and based on Cyrillic formed Slavic Cyrillic Charter, who wrote Slavic manuscripts of the XI-XIV centuries. Ustav is the oldest form of the Cyrillic alphabet, which developed in the 15th century. The letters were straightforward, written separately, there were no abbreviations and superscripts.

From the Greek free slanted letter "minuscule" came the Slavic Semi-charter - a letter that is called "Cyrillic" in honor of the first teacher of the Slavs Kirill . Semi-ustav - a new form of "Cyrillic", when they wrote faster and neater in small and rounded handwriting, it was allowed to violate the correct distance between letters, fused letters and superscript signs appeared - "titles", which meant abbreviated words. According to the Greek model, stresses were used. Parallel to half charter spread widely in XV-XVII centuries cursive , which, thanks to continuous spelling, a developed system of abbreviations and simplified alphabetic characters, accelerated writing, which was important for office work. Elm- a type of writing in which letters are connected in a continuous ornament, a decorative letter is obtained, which was used mainly to write names. The letter "ligature" allowed reductions and merging of words.

If you write out the characteristic styles of all letters from dated manuscripts written in the charter, starting with such ancient books as the Ostromir Gospel of 1057, Svyatoslav's Izbornik of 1073, the Archangel Gospel of 1092, then you can trace how the styles changed from century to century individual letters.

Letter "vyazy".

Alphabet and numbers

Until the 18th century, letters in Russia denoted not only sounds, but also numbers and numbers. To distinguish the letter-sound from the letter-number, special signs were invented. If dots were placed on the sides of the letter, and a dash on top - "titlo", then such a letter turned into a number. Numbers were written in letters in reading order. Of course, such a notation was inconvenient for calculations, and from the 17th century in Russia they switched to the numbers familiar to us, which came with the books of Al Khorezmi from the East.

"Arithmetic" by Leonty Magnitsky. This textbook included information on algebra, geometry, trigonometry, as well as tables of logarithms. In it, for the first time, instead of the Slavic tsifiri (designation of numbers with letters), European (so-called Arabic) numerals were used. The main text was typed semi-character, but for mathematical terms, Latin antiqua was used, as well as Greek. All these fonts were not coordinated with each other both in color and in the nature of the pattern. When comparing this textbook with Western samples, Peter I, perhaps, came up with the idea of ​​​​reforming the Cyrillic alphabet and bringing it closer to the Latin alphabet, about abandoning the semi-ustav and creating a “cleaner”, that is, a lighter font, which was later called civic font.