В.А.Чудинов

The Runica and Cyrillica interaction. The gradually improvement of the Runica texts deciphers has given to the epigraphists (in this case to me) the possibility to read the signs lines satisfactory and the ligatures quite probably. It was clear that in X century Runica has left the ligature script (which reminded only as tradition in the centers of the seals) and came to the line writing, but began to involve the Cyrillic characters. Thus for the Russian inscriptions of the X century the mixed writing was typical. With the other words pure Cyrillic inscriptions of the X century do not exist.

On this occasion I can give the example of an inscription which now the Russian archaeologists assume as the oldest Cyrillic. The attempts of its reading as pure Cyrillic one have not achieved to the satisfactory results. It was the graffito on the amphora from Gniozdovo near Smolensk, where the epigraphists read traditionally only the central fragment¹⁹.

Fig. 5. The whole graffito on the amphora from Gniozdovo

On my opinion we have to read the whole massif of the graffiti, but most of them were made by Runica and went out of the previous epigraphists attention. Here the Cyrillic orthography has repeated the Runica one and instead of the word ГОРЪЛО (the throat) it was scrabbled the word ГОРОЛО (for Runica RO=RЪ). The word KAN or KANA (the can) was in medieval Russia in broad use with the meaning “the amphora with the rather broad throat”²⁰.

Fig. 6. My reading the graffiti on the can from Gniozdovo

Here we can read the expression TO POUR OVER (ЗАЛИТЬ) THE THROAT (ГОРЛО) OF THE CAN (КАНЪ). THE CAN. THE MILK (МОЛОКО). THE CAN. TO TAKE MILK (МОЛОКО ЯТЬ). These words show us the status of the vessel: it was first empty (TO POUR OVER TO THE THROAT), then full (MILK), then again empty (CAN), then again full (TO TAKE MILK).

The mixed inscriptions are legal for some periods of the interaction between the syllabic and the character writing. In Russia we can see the gradually pressing out the Runica by Cyrillic. These periods for Kiev were as follows: up to the middle of the X century there was pure Runica, to the end of the X century there was mixed writing, i.e. Cyrillic characters and Runica signs in the same text, beginning of the XI century was connected with rewriting of the Runica signs in old texts as Cyrillic characters, in the end of the XI century we see pure Cyrillic inscriptions with very seldom rudiments of runica signs as errors. As the first blow from Cyrillic we can consider disappearing of Runica ligatures and transition to the writing with the apart staying and perfectly shaped signs, sometimes with enlarged intervals between them, i.e. we see the stylization Runica under Cyrillic.

Abstracting from the capital city Kiev where all the processes went on quickly we see the picture of the change one type of the writing into another on the territory of all the Russia as follows: in the X century Runica was preferably, although already Cyrillic characters have appeared (mainly in the names), for the XI century the mixed writing was typical, and the so called consonant style (Cyrillic characters in the form, but syllabic in the content). In the XII century Cyrillic came to the most remote corners of Russia, and although the consonant style was changed on the writing with the vowel, the latter appeared in the texts not in accordance with the pronunciation, but in accordance with the runica orthography (oscillation in writing О/Ъ, Е/Ь, LE/LI). In the end of the XII century the Cyrillic has achieved Novgorod, but in the difference from Kiev here the people yet remembered the Runica, and the social top used it as the cryptography, meanwhile the social bottom wrote it as traditional graphics. In this time we see such phenomenon as the syllabic reading of some characters coincident in its graphics with the Runica signs С-СЕ, Л-ЛЬ or ЛИ, М-МА, Ь-РЬ and so on, kept till the XV century in Novgorod. From XIII century the character reading began. Thus only to the end of the forth century of existing in Russia after St. Cyril the character writing was conscious by the inhabitants of Russia as the main writing, and the Runica as the old, traditional and partly anachronistic one. But still in the XVII century, three century after this, on the most remote periphery of Russia, on the pole island Faddey we can meet a syllabic inscription (with the name AVERYAN K.). All the transition period has had the proceeding of 7 centuries: from X till XII was offensive of Cyrillic, XII century was the period of consciousness that it was the Cyrillic as the main Slavic writing in Russia, and the period from XIV till XVII century was the time of the disappearing and forgetting the Runica. With other words this process which the investigators understood as very short in the reality occurred many centuries history of writing transition. It is why I suppose the very important result of my investigations of the runica writing.

The hypothesis about the etalon quality of the transition process. I suggest that the analogical processes of transition from runica to the alphabet writing went in Central and West Europe among those Slavic or near to them folks which introduced they own alphabet writing in the first century BC, i.e. among Venets, Ethruscs, Raets and so on. But to prove such suggestion it has to show 1) that Runica can be combined with not only Cyrillic, but with other alphabets too, for example with Glagolica, Latin and Greek characters and so on and 2) that the above mentioned ethnics had used Runica before the alphabet writing.