Pre-Christian Slavic writing

The 9th-century Bulgarian[1] writer Chernorizets Hrabar, in his work An Account of Letters (Church Slavonic: О писмєньхъ, O pismenĭhŭ), briefly mentions that, before becoming Christian, Slavs used a system he had dubbed "strokes and incisions" or "tallies and sketches" in some translations (Old Church Slavonic: чръты и рѣзы, črŭty i rězy). He also provided information critical to Slavonic palaeography with his book.

Before, the Slavs did not have their own books, but count and divined by means of strokes and incisions, being pagan. Having become Christian, they had to make do with the use of Roman and Greek letters without order [unsystematically], but how can one write [Slavic] well with Greek letters...[note 1] and thus it was for many years.

— [2]

Another contemporaneous source, Thietmar of Merseburg, describing a Rethra temple remarked that the idols there had their names carved out on them ("singulis nominibus insculptis," Chronicon 6:23).[3]

Inscription on Kerch amphora with word гороухща (goruhšča).

• In 1949, a Kerch amphora was found in Gnezdovo in Smolensk Oblast, Russia, containing what may be the earliest inscription in Old East Slavic.[4] The amphora was found in the grave of a Scandinavian merchant who traded with the Orient.[5] The excavator read the one-word inscription as Cyrillic "гороухща" (goruhšča), inferring that it designated mustard that was kept there.[6] This explanation has not been universally accepted and the inscription seems to be open to different interpretations.[7] Other scholars have read the apparent "хщ" letter combination as an "N", resulting in a transcription as "гороуна" which could be either Cyrillic or Greek and which might represent an Arabic name Hārūn with possessive suffix (Härün's amphora).[5] The dating of the inscription to the early-10th century[8] suggests a hitherto unsuspected popularity of the Cyrillic script in pre-Christian Rus. Different sources prove that the Slavic and Norse population of Russia had trade connections to the Muslim and Asian worlds.[9]

The bone with elder futhark inscription found in the early slavic settlement in Lány (near Břeclav) in the Czech Republic.

• In 2021 new archaeological evidence of an early instance of writing among a Slavic population was published. In 2017 a cattle bone, dated 585–640 AD, with runes of the Germanic Elder Futhark was discovered in a Prague culture settlement near Břeclav in the Czech Republic. The inscription contains no recognizable words in either Slavic or any other language but seems to represent an attempt at an abecedary. It may have been incised by people of Germanic origin that remained in the region after the departure of the Lombards, or the runes may have been engraved by a Slav. In either case, the find attests to a direct interaction between the Slavic and Germanic ethnolinguistic groups. If runic knowledge was transferred from Germanic peoples to Slavs, it must have happened in Central Europe as judged by the rune shapes or it may have persisted in the region as a result of population continuity between Lombards and Slavs.[10]

In the Vita Cyrilli, Rastislav, the duke of Moravia, sent an embassy to Constantinople asking Emperor Michael III to send learned men to the Slavs of Great Moravia, who being already baptised, wished to have the liturgy in their own language, and not Latin and Greek. Emperor called for Constantine and asked him if he would do this task, even though being in poor health. Constantine replied that he would gladly travel to Great Moravia and teach them, as long as the Slavs had their own alphabet to write their own language in, to which the Emperor replied that not even his grandfather and father and let alone he could find any evidence of such an alphabet. Constantine was distraught, and was worried that if he invents an alphabet for them he'll be labelled a heretic.

Събравъ же съборъ Цѣсар̑ь призъва Кѡнстантїна Фїлософа, и сътвори и слꙑшати рѣчь сьѭ. И рече: Вѣмь тѧ трѹдьна сѫшта, Фїлософе, нъ потрѣба ѥстъ тебѣ тамо ити; сеѩ бо рѣчи не можетъ инъ никътоже исправити ꙗкоже тꙑ. Отъвѣшта же Фїлософъ: И трѹдьнъ сꙑ и больн̑ь тѣломь, съ радостьѭ идѫ тамо, аште имѣѭтъ бѹкъви въ ѩзꙑкъ свой. И рече Цѣсар̑ь къ нѥмѹ: Дѣдъ мой и отьць и ини мъноѕи искавъше того, не сѫтъ того обрѣли, то како азъ могѫ то обрѣсти? Фїлософъ же рече: То къто можетъ на водѫ бесѣдѫ напьсати и ѥретїчьско имѧ обрѣсти?

— Vita Cyrilli, Chapter XIV

According to Alexey Karpov, this text is a later insertion in the chronicle, and its authenticity is questioned.[11]

• Proto-writing
• Christianization of the Slavs