Every year on May 24, Ukraine and other Slavic countries celebrate the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture, established in honor of the creators of the Slavic script, Saints Cyril and Methodius.
This holiday was established by Presidential Decree No. 1096/2004 of September 17, 2004, and is celebrated at the state level.
The Day of Slavic Writing and Culture is also celebrated in many other countries, including Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, the Czech Republic, and Montenegro.
In the 9th century, the monk Cyril created a Slavic alphabet based on the Greek alphabet, which he significantly changed to convey the phonetic features of the Slavic sound system, adding new letters borrowed from the Glagolitic alphabet.
This alphabet spread among the Eastern and Southern Slavs and was named Cyrillic in honor of its founder.
Simultaneously with the creation of the alphabet, Cyril and Methodius worked on translating the Gospels and the Psalter from the ancient Greek language into Old Slavonic. In total, they translated a considerable number of books, which became a prerequisite for the establishment of Slavic literary languages and book publishing.
The oldest precisely dated Cyrillic book is the Old Russian Ostromyr's Gospel (1057).
The Cyrillic alphabet was used to create the alphabets of the Slavic languages: Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Russian, and Montenegrin.
Ukraine is an integral part of the European family, as it has the same origins as Eastern and Southern European countries, a common history, writing system, and culture.
It is important to preserve our language and culture so that it does not disappear and dissolve among others.
Language is another of our weapons in confronting the enemy.