What was the language of Cyril and Methodius: Old Bulgarian or Old Macedonian?

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(d) What was the language of Cyril and Methodius: Old Bulgarian or Old Macedonian?

Slavistics mostoften designates the language of Cyril and Methodius as ‘Old Slavonic’ or ‘Old Church Slavonic’, but in the works of the majority of Bulgarian scholars and a number of German and other Slavists we can also find the term ‘Old Bulgarian’. More recently we have seen the designation ‘Old Macedonian’ being increasingly used, although it is of a fairly limited character, as even we in Macedonia nearly always use the designation ‘Old Slavonic’. At the beginning of this century, in the works of Krste P. Misirkov (1903 and 1905) and in the journal Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas), 1913-1914, we can find the designation ‘Old Macedonian’, but this term was soon suppressed with the suppression of Macedonian scholarly thought.

We do not consider the term ‘Old Slavonic’ to be incorrect, as it, too, originates from the Slavic name borne by the Slavs in Macedonia, but it is likely that the designation ‘Old Macedonian’ will be increasingly used in the future, in contrast to ‘Middle Macedonian’ (15th-18th centuries) and ‘New Macedonian’ (19th-20th centuries).

But is the term ‘Old Bulgarian’ justified?

There is no doubt that the language of all the Slavs in the 9th century was similar and comprehensible to all of them, but it is also beyond any doubt that even then there were individual variants and tribal dialectal differences which have been retained to a large degree up to the present day. Yet to claim that only the Macedonian and Bulgarian Slavs had one and the same language which was already different at the time from the languages of all nearby peoples (in present- day borders), means to lose the sense of reality. It is true that Bulgaria was predominantly populated by the Slavic tribes of the Antians, and Macedonia and a part of Serbia with the Slavini (Sclavini), but it was the historical development of the peoples following their arrival in the Balkans — bearing in mind all the elements examined above — that subsequently determined the development of the language, which adopted a large number of Balkanisms, particularly prevalent among the Macedonians and Bulgarians. The second half of the 9th century already saw the creation of Old Bulgarian literacy and the initial formation of the Old Bulgarian language, but this can by no means refer to the language of Cyril and Methodius, even though this language was indirectly introduced into Bulgaria, exerting a decisive influence on Bulgarian culture. Mutual relations, such as these between Macedonia and Bulgaria, were also to remain unknown and unstudied in the subsequent period.

In a written record from the 7th century (‘The Miracles of St Demetrius’), in connection with an attack of the Avars and an insignificant group of Bulgars as allies of the Macedonian Slavs in the siege of the city of Salonika, a counsellor to the Bulgarian Kuber is mentioned as speaking Greek and the languages of the Romans, Slavs and Bulgars.^[1]

This indirect and highly unreliable piece of information is today used for assuming that the language of the ‘Proto-Bulgarians’ was “fairly spread” in both north-eastern Bulgaria and southern Macedonia as early as the 7th century, neglecting the fact that even here a strict ethnic differentiation is made between the Bulgars and the Slavs (i.e. Macedonian Slavs) and that it was quite possible that the counsellor spoke all these language, as a man can speak several languages, but is it possible to assume that the people in Macedonia could have learnt or needed to learn or even master the language of the ‘Proto-Bulgarians’ during the brief and insignificant visit of Kuber’s company to the territory of Macedonia?

On the other hand, with what right can the Slavs from the Salonika region be called ‘Bulgars’ or ‘Bulgarian Slavs’ bearing in mind that they had never come into longer contact with the Bulgars and that they constituted an inseparable part of the people of the Macedonian Slavs which subsequently formed the Macedonian nation?

Accordingly, in the third period of the development of Macedonian written culture, the Slavonic script, the Slavonic language and Slavonic translations and original literature were created on the basis of the Macedonian language and were carried to Greater Moravia and later brought back. Although it is very likely that Cyril’s script was Glagolitic, designed perhaps specially for the needs of the Moravian Slavs, but on the basis of the Old Macedonian vernacular from the Salonika region (as the Cyrillic script already used might have been too reminiscent of the Greek alphabet, creating political difficulties in the implementation of the mission in the realm of Roman influence), this does not imply that the older Cyrillic literacy did not continue to develop in Macedonia; it was later adopted (with small modifications) as the standard state script of the Bulgarian court in Preslav.

The time in which černorizec Hrabar lived, which is not mentioned in his periodization, and the period up to the 14th century, constitutes the fourth stage of the development of written culture in Macedonia, when Cyril and Methodius’s disciples Clement and Naum established the Ohrid Literary School, which, to quote Blaže Koneski, “stands out by its clearly outlined physiognomy”,^[2] with characteristics of the Glagolitic traditions of Cyril and Methodius which can be found in Macedonia as late as the 14th century. It is important to mention that following 886 an exceptionally rich cultural, educational and spiritual life developed in Macedonia, which undoubtedly had many common elements and intertwinement with the Bulgarian centre at Pliska and later in Preslav and Trnovo. At the same time, however, it built numerous independent traditions, which certainly contributed to the formation of the Macedonian people and Macedonian culture: the establishment, in Macedonia, of what is considered the first Slavonic university; the first Slavonic bishop in the entire Bulgarian state (and probably the only one in the Slavic world at the time); the construction of a large number of churches and monasteries, and a whole complex of related subjects, among which the development of the arts and architecture deserves particular mention. From what has been established so far concerning this early period, we know that Clement’s Literary School in Ohrid used exclusively the Glagolitic script as an alphabet designed by Cyril and Methodius, although it is very likely that Clement added several new symbols for certain sounds; he used their translations and preserved and developed their language — in contrast to the Preslav Literary School, which developed on the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet and made modifications in the language in accordance with the characteristics of the Bulgarian vernaculars of the time, also carrying out modifications of the translations and church books or making new translations. It is also important to mention that Clement, less than a year after his arrival in the Bulgarian capital, left it and came to Macedonia, as did Naum a few years later. Even though the sources — which are, however, of a considerably later date — offer explanations of these facts (exploited extensively by Bulgarian scholars), it seems that this question will preoccupy serious researchers of these problems for a long time to come. There is practically no doubt that both Clement and Naum were from Macedonia. The following facts confirm this assumption.

It is known that in the 11th to 13th centuries Macedonia was a Byzantine administrative region (theme) which bore the name ‘Bulgaria’. The surviving sources do not confirm whether the terms ‘Bulgar’ or ‘Bulgarian’ were used to refer to north-eastern Bulgaria, but underline that these designations were quite normal in this period for the inhabitants of Macedonia. And as the names Bulgaria and Moesia were identified with each other, a new distinction was beginning to be made between these two territories: ‘Upper Bulgaria’ and ‘Lower Bulgaria’, i.e. ‘Upper Moesia’ and ‘Lower Moesia’. This is reflected in the various hagiographies from that period of Byzantine domination in Macedonia, where we can come across the following interesting details.

The Shorter [version of the] Life of Clement written by the Archbishop of Ohrid Demetrius Homatian in the first decades of the 13th century says that Clement “devotedly studied the Holy Scriptures, translated, with the help of God, into the local Bulgarian dialect of Cyril, a true godly-wise and apostolic father, and he was from the beginning, together with Methodius, the eminent teacher of piety and Orthodox faith of the Moesian people”. ^[3]

As in Clement’s time the church was still not divided into the Catholic Church (Rome) and the Orthodox Church (Constantinople), these commentaries are obviously made by Homatian in the 13th century. That the terms ‘Moesi’ and ‘Moesian’ was not a synonym for the general designations ‘Slavs’ and ‘Slavic’ is also shown by other references. For example, Homatian continues by writing that Clement since “his young age” had already “become the driving force of the leaders and a leader of the entire Moesian people in piety”.^[4] “This great father of ours and the beacon of Bulgaria,” says the hagiography, “was by birth from the European Moesians, usually known among the people as Bulgars”. ^[5] The Second Life of Naum asserts that “Naum originated from Moesia”, ^[6] while the other hagiography points out that he was “a friend and fellow-sufferer of Clement’s”.^[7]

If we add the assertion of Theophylact of Ohrid (the Archbishop of Ohrid, two centuries after Clement’s death) that Clement knew the life of Methodius “like no one elseas since his early and young years he has accompanied him”, we can draw the conclusion that both Cyril and Methodius, and Clement and Naum, came from the same land, Moesia, i.e. from the theme subsequently called ‘Bulgaria’, i.e. present-day Macedonia; it was from this same Moesian (i.e. Bulgarian, i.e. Macedonian) people that they came, travelling the same road to Moravia. Perhaps all this, in addition to some of the older political associations concerning the Moravian mission, was one of the reasons for their abandonment of the Bulgarian capital.

The high level, the deep foundations and the broad sway of Christian Slavonic culture in Macedonia can also be seen in the fact that the Slavonic written and literary tradition in Macedonia never ceased to exist, even though this land was occupied by numerous and different conquerors, whereas in the only recently Christianized Bulgaria it died down immediately after the fall of the Bulgarian Empire (11th-12th c.) and was briefly restored during the Second Bulgarian Empire (13th-14th c.). It was directly dependent on the existence of church independence: whereas in Macedonia this tradition existed and developed uninterruptedly up to 1767, in Bulgaria it appeared twice, only to disappear soon. Let us mention another detail. The famous Council of Simeon in 893 in Preslav^[8] is believed to have adopted the following four principal decisions:

(1) the capital of Bulgaria was moved from Pliska to Preslav; (2) Simeon was proclaimed the Prince of Bulgaria; (3) Slav priests were instituted in place of the former Greek clergy, and (4) Slavonic was introduced as the official state and literary language instead of the former Greek language, and Cyrillic was adopted as the official script after specific symbols for the characteristic Slavonic sounds had been added.

Here we must point to some not insignificant differences which are confirmed by these decisions: whereas in Bulgaria the church was controlled by the Greek clergy who used the Greek language (both in church services and administration up to the year 893), in Macedonia, even before the time of Cyril and Methodius, Slavonic was used in written records, and after the coming of Clement in 886 to the Ohrid region, on the basis of the Slavonic language and the Glagolitic script, a large number of teachers and native priests were educated, firmly taking the church into their own hands. This was particularly reflected somewhat later, after the elevation of the Bishopric of Ohrid to the rank of patriarchate by Samuel, and even after the downfall of his state.

The further development of Macedonian culture was characterized by huge oscillations, but also by an uninterrupted line which was ultimately to lead to its full affirmation. The cultural individuality of Macedonia in the period of the new Byzantine bondage and during the reign of the Serbian state did not lose its character, and developed even further. It became an important part of the overall culture of the Orthodox Balkan Slavs.

1. ↑ Grъcki izvori za bъlgarskata istorija, III, Sofija, 1960, 111-157.
2. ↑ Blaž e Koneski, “Ohridskata knižovna škola“, Literaturen zbor, III, 1, Skopje, 1956, 17-18.
3. ↑ Aleksandъr Milev, Žitija na sv. Kliment Ohridski, Sofija, 1961, 127.
4. ↑ Ibid., 128.
5. ↑ Ibid., 127.
6. ↑ Petъr Hr. Petrov, “Kliment Ohridski i negovata epoha“, in: Kliment Ohridski, Sofija, 1966, 42. See also: Bъ blgarski stari nizъ Makedonija, Sъbrani i objasneni otъ prof . Jordanъ Ivanovъ . Vtoro, dopъlneno izdanie, BAN, Sof i ja, 1931, 312.
7. ↑ Petъr Hr. Petrov, op. cit., 42; Prof Jordanъ Ivanovъ , op. cit., 360.
8. ↑ Petъr Hr. Petrov, “Istoričeskite osnovi na Kirilometodievoto delo“, in: Hiljada i sto godini slavjanska pismenost 863-1963, Sofija, 1963, 90; Blaže Koneski , op. cit.