Zagreb, 22 February 2020 – Today is the official Croatian Glagolitic Script and Glagolitism Day.

Last year, the Croatian Parliament voted to declare the 22nd of February as the official Croatian Glagolitic Script Day and on Saturday the day was marked for the second time.

On the occasion of the Croatian Glagolitic Script and Glagolitism Day, the Old Slavonic Institute in Zagreb held an Open Day on Friday. Apart from guided tours of the palace Skrlec-Balbi where the Institute is located, visitors were be able to view the Institute’s latest editions and Glagolitic reprints, the library and documentation collection, and the Glagolitic lapidarium, as well as play games with Glagolitic characters.

The Glagolitic alphabet was preserved only by Croats who used it from the 12th to the 20th century, mostly in liturgy.

With the aim of popularising this Croatian alphabet and script as the guardian of Croatian identity, the Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics launched the campaign called “Croatian Glagolitic Script Day” in 2018.

This is the second year that Croatian Glagolitic Script Day is being observed in Croatia on 22nd of February and is in memory of the publishing of Missale Romanum Glagolitice, Croatian: Misal po zakonu rimskoga dvora), a Croatian missal, written in the Glagolitic script, and incunabulum printed on 22 February 1483.

Missale Romanum Glagolitice was printed in two colours – black and red, and just 28 years after the Gutenberg Bible was printed. This showed that Croats had been extremely developed in the social, economic and cultural sense already in the 15th century.

It is also the first printed Croatian book and also the first missal in Europe not published in the Latin script.

A new puzzle presenting the Croatian tradition of Glagolitic script in a modern way by Zlatko Šakić, which has won a number of number of awards, was presented recently.

Šakić explains how his puzzle works. “From one angle, the letters are read in the Latin script, from another angle it is read in Glagolitic script, and for the visually impaired and the blind, the same letters are in Braille. Everyone who saw the puzzle live was impressed, which is really nice.”