Role Russian language in public policy

 To trace the origins of the Russian language we need to start with its alphabet.

The Cyrillic alphabet originated during the 10th century in Bulgaria, on whose present-day territory another alphabet was born even before this one: the Slavic Glagolitic alphabet, invented by St. Cyril (9th century AD). At the end of the 9th century AD, the Slavs in Moravia, Panonia, and Bulgaria began writing in the newly created by St. Cyril original Glagolitic script. However, the Glagolitic alphabet was replaced little by little by the Latin and the Cyrillic scripts.

Later, the Cyrillic letters spread to Serbia, Croatia, and Russia. Through Russian influence this script was accepted also by many Asian peoples, and even by some native peoples in Alaska (North America).

The so called Cyrillic alphabet, which originated in the First Bulgarian Kingdom at the beginning of the 10th century, and replaced the official Bulgarian Glagolitic script, was created by Constantine the Philosopher (Saint Cyril), and accepted by the Bulgarian ruler Boris I, at the end of the 9th century. The change took place in the reign of Boris’s son, Tsar Simeon I, who was strongly influenced by Greek culture. After a period of parallel use of the Glagolitic and the Cyrillic scripts during the 10-11th centuries in the first Bulgarian kingdom, since the 11th century, the latter has been an official Bulgarian, Russian, and Ukrainian alphabet (while the other Slavic peoples have used the Latin script during certain periods or unceasingly.