St. Pachomius Library

Hrabr the Monk

IX or X Century
Hrabr, evidently a Bulgarian, was among the first authors to write an original work in Slavonic. His On Letters is a defence of that language against the Three Sacred Tongues theory, going so far as to argue that Slavonic, the deliberate invention of a saint for expressly religious purposes, is in fact superior to other languages. Nothing is known about Hrabr as a person; according to D. Tschizewskij (Comparative History of Slavic Literatures, 1971), the name itself is probably a pseudonym.
Norman Hugh Redington

WORKS:

On Letters:

The most famous passage of the work is excerpted at Balcanica.org's First Bulgarian Kingdom page.

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