Language as Heritage
Baška tablet - one of the oldest and most important monuments written in Glagolitic script, c.1100, island of Krk, Croatia.
When we talk about heritage, most people think of monuments, music, or clothing. But language is the thread that runs quietly through everything. It is how stories are carried forward. It is how a community keeps its memory alive.
The Birth of a Script
For the Slavs, language was not just a tool of communication. It was identity. Some of the earliest steps toward a shared Slavic culture came through the creation of an alphabet.
The Glagolitic script was created in the middle of the 9th century by the Byzantine brothers Cyril and Methodius, missionaries from Thessaloniki. At the time, the Slavs of Central Europe were still using only oral tradition. They had no writing system of their own, which meant they were dependent on Latin, Greek or German clergy for religious texts and education.
The brothers arrived in Great Moravia, invited by Prince Rastislav, who wanted his people to have church services in their own language rather than Latin. To make that possible, Cyril and Methodius designed a new alphabet - Glagolitic - to match the sounds of the Slavic tongue. The script looks unusual to modern eyes but each letter was carefully shaped to reflect Slavic speech, something existing alphabets couldn’t do.
At a time when Latin and Greek were seen as the only proper languages of culture and religion, creating a new script for a local people was radical. It gave ordinary Slavs access to sacred texts in their own tongue. More than that, it gave them a sense of dignity, proof that their language was worthy of being written down.
Saints Cyril and Methodius
More Than Religion
What followed was far bigger than worship. With Glagolitic, the Slavs gained a written identity. For the first time, their laws, histories, and poetry could be recorded in their own script. A people who could write in their own language could also think and dream in their own way, without having their words filtered through foreign alphabets.
Later, Glagolitic spread into different Slavic lands, most strongly along the Adriatic coast where it survived the longest. In other regions, it gradually gave way to Cyrillic, which was developed by the followers of Cyril and Methodius in the First Bulgarian Empire. Cyrillic carried the names of the two brothers forward and became dominant across much of Eastern Europe. But the principle was the same everywhere: language as a foundation of culture, a marker of belonging, and a source of resilience.
Angular Glagolitic script, used in Croatia and along the Adriatic coast.
A Thousand Years of Letters
Croatia has a special tie to Glagolitic tradition. The script was in use for more than a thousand years - from the 9th century all the way into the beginning of the 20th. That span alone says a lot. Very few writing systems stay alive that long without interruption. Inscriptions can still be found carved into stone tablets, church walls, and monuments across the country. They stand as proof that language doesn’t just live in speech, but can leave a physical mark that lasts for centuries.
Many people in Croatia can still read Glagolitic letters. Yet with each new generation, the number grows smaller. For younger people, it is often something only seen in a textbook or on a souvenir. What was once a living, everyday script now risks slipping quietly into the past.
When Words Fade
When a language or script fades, so does part of the culture that carried it. Each word, each letter, holds more than meaning, it carries memory. To lose that thread is to lose a way of seeing the world. That is why Glagolitic still matters, not only in archives or museums but also when it appears in modern life.
At Perun, our own logo is written in Angular Glagolitic, a Croatian form of the script. It is a small but deliberate choice, a way of carrying forward a piece of heritage that shaped who we are, and making sure that memory continues to live in the present.
