The tradition of the Croatian Cyrillic Script goes back to the 12th century and lasted continuously until the 18th century, with sporadic uses even in the 20th century. Of course, there are incomparably more Croatian Glagolitic monuments than Cyrillic, not to speak about tremendous Croatian literature in the Latin Script since the 15th century. However, it is the fact that the Croatian Cyrillic represents an important cultural heritage. This Script was in use among the Croats in Dalmatia (especially in the Split and Makarska hinterland), in the Dubrovnik region and in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is interesting that some of the Croatian Catholics, who visited the Vatican in the 17th and 18th century, left their signatures written in the Croatian Cyrillic, which they call expressly the Croatian script.

Thus, the Croatian Cyrillic includes the following three major regions:

• Bosnia and Herzegovina, (especially widespread among Bosnian Franciscans),
• the Poljica Principality (near Split) and Makarska hinterland, as well as islands of the middle Dalmatia (e.g. Brac),
• the region of Dubrovnik, including Konavle.

The name of `Bosancica' (or `bosanica') is of a relatively recent provenance - it has been created by a Croat Ciro Truhelka in 1889, at that time a very young, 24 years old scientist. Its rather misleading name suggests that it has been related exclusively to the territory of Bosnia, which is not true, since it was used in Herzegovina, Dalmatia and on some Croatian islands as well. It is interesting that Croatian Cyrillic, i.e. `Bosancica', can be seen in Croatian texts written in Istria, see below. The name of `western Cyrillic', which also appears in the literature, is even more imprecise (`western' with respect to what?). It seems to be appropriate to call this version of the Cyrillic script by the national name of those who used it most and who left the greatest number of written documents, as in the case of other national versions (Bulgarian Cyrillic, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Serbian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Russian). There are also important plaeographic resons, see [Benedikta Zelic-Bucan]. Thus the notions of Croatian Cyrillic and "Bosancica" are equivalent.

The name of the Croatian Cyrillic (or Bosancica) had the following genesis:

• Marko Marulich (1450-1525): harvatsko pismo (Croatian script),
• Paltasic of Split (16th century): harvatsko pismo,
• Richard Daniel (in his book "Daniels Copy-Book: or a Compendium of the most usual hands..., London 1664"): Alphabetum Illiricum Sclavorum (Illirucum = Croatian, for example Vat.Illir. documents of the Vatican library all refer exclusively to Croatian documents), thus Croatian alphabet, see p.50 of Daniels' book. On the same page you can see Alphabetum croaticum for the Glagolitic of the 17th century (see Branko Franolic: "Croatian Glagolitic printed texts recorded in the British Library General Catalogue," Croatian information centre, London, 1994 ISBN 953-6058-04-9)
• Still earlier, in 1545 in Rome, an Italian encyclopaedist Giovanni Batista Palatino presented the Glagolitic (see [the photo]) and Cyrillic Script (see on the right) in the second edition of his book Libro Nouvo (Libro nel qual s'insegna a scrivere ogni sorte lettera, antica et moderna...), among 29 scripts that he designed for printing. He claims the Glagolitic (which he calls Buchuizza - bukvica) to be created by St. Jerome, and to be "different from all other existing Scripts". The Cyrillic is ascribed to St. Cyril. Palatino also provided a page with tombstone inscription of the Bosnian Queen Katarina (15th century; burried in Aracoeli, Rome), written in Croatian Cyrillic, in Latin script (Croatian language) and in Latin Script (Latin language). The last sentence is SPOMINAK NJE PISMOM POSTAVLJEN (Monumentum ipsius scriptis positum - Monument written in her script):
• A short note about Croatian Glagolitic and Cyrillic can be found in Viaggio in Dalmazia by Alberto Fortis, Venice 1774. The book is also known to have brought the famous poem of Asanaginica to European public.
• Bosnian Franciscans (all of them are the Croats): Bosanska chirilica, bosanska azbukvica,
• Ivan Kukuljevich Sakcinski (outstanding Croatian intellectual, 19th century): Croato - Bosnian Cyrillic (hrvatsko - bosanska cirilica),
• Chiro Truhelka, a Croatian scientist: Bosancica, 1889,
• Vatroslav Jagic (19th century, Tomislav Raukar (mid 20th century, Zagreb): Western Cyrillic (western with respect to what??). Jagic also used the name of "Bosnian - Dalmatian Cyrillic."
• Josip Vrana (in the sixties of the 20th century): hrvatska chirilica (Croatian Cyrillic),
• Benedikta Zelic-Bucan (leading expert for the Croatian Cyrillic - Bosancica): since the seventies insisting on the name of the Croatian Cyrillic (she wrote an important booklet entitled "Bosancica in Middle Dalmatia" (in 1960, of course, in the Croatian language),
• An important and highly readable book treating the three-script history of Croatian Middle Ages (including Croatian Cyrillic) is [Hercigonja], written by outstanding specialist in 1994. It should be consulted by anybody wishing to study in more detail extremely complex history of writing among the Croats.

Some of the oldest and most important Croatian Cyrillic monuments are as follows (here we follow [Benedikta Zelic-Bucan] and [Hercigonja]):

• the tablet of Humac (Herzegovina), comprising also several Glagolitic letters (early 11th century according to Hercigonja; 10/11th century according to Vinko Grubisic),

  

• the Croatian Cyrillic inscription of the Povlja lintel (1184) from the Benedictine monastery in the village of Povlja on the island of Brac near Split;
• the Povlja parchment Roll from Povlje on the island of Brac (1184, copy from 1250), extensive Croatian Cyrillic text having 53 lines, mentioning 250 old Croatian names,
• the charter document of the Bosnian ban (governor) Kulin (1198),
• The Evangel of Prince Miroslav of Zahumlje (dating from the end of the 12th century), created by Croatian Benedictins, most probably in the city of Ston on the Peljesac peninsula. It has been noticed already in the middle of the twentieth century that miniatures of this evangelistary do not belong to the Byzantine style, but to the Roman (western) style (Ivan Ostojic in his voluminous three-volume "History of Benedictins in Croatia").

  

  The language analysis performed by Benedikta Zelic-Bucan, based on the previous investigations of a Croatian palaeographer Josip Vrana, shows that it has been written in the Croatian recension of the Church Slavonic language. This important monument is held in Belgrade (Narodni muzej), except of one page which is in St. Petersburg.
• the Blagaj inscription from the Bosnian city of Blagaj (second half of the 12th century),
• the Trebinje inscription of the zupan Grdo from Trebinje in Herzegovina (second half of the 12th century). "Zupan" (country prefect). This very old title is in use in Croatia even today.
• the Croatian Chronicle (12th-14th centuries); the famous Croatian humanist Marko Marulic translated it from Croatian Cyrillic into Latin in 1510. The chronicle was written by Archbishop Grgur of Bar (pop Dukljanin).
• Kocerin tablet from 1404 (carved in stone in Kocerin near Siroki Brijeg), with about 300 Croatian cyrillic letters, the text starts with invocation of Holy Trinity:

  Va ime Oca i Sina i svetoga Duha, Amin, se lezi Viganj Milosevic..., and the concluding message is indicative: I molju vas ne nastupite na me, ja sam bil kako vi jeste, vi cete biti kakov sam ja ("And I ask you not to step on me, I was like you, and you will be like me")

  

• the cyrillic inscription on the stecak in Brotnice in Konavle south of Dubrovnik probably from 15th century, see [Kapetanic, Vekaric, Stanovnistvo Konavala 1, p. 24]:

  

There exists a significant number of Croatian Cyrillic codices, chronicles, healers' pharmaceopoeias, registers of births, testaments, personal correspondence etc. Especially important is the Poljice Statute of the small Prinicpality in the neighbourhood of Split (1440).

Here is a Croatian Cyrillic testament of R. Vladisic written in the famous fortress of Klis near Split in 1436 (transcription from 1448).

Numerous manuscripts show the parallel use of the Croatian Glagolitic and Cyrillic Scripts (and also the Latin Script), thus proving that they were not opposed to each other among the Croats. One of the oldest such examples originates from Istria (St. Peter in the Wood, 12th century), where in one single word - Amen - all three Scripts are used! The coexistence and parallel use of these three Scripts - Croatian Glagolitic, Cyrillic and Latin - is a unique phenomenon in the history of European culture.

According to Croatian researcher Josip Hamm, members of the Bosnian Church (Krstyans) particularly appreciated the Glagolitic Script. Namely, all the important Bosnian Church books,

• Nikoljsko evandjelje (Gospel), Croatian parchment Cyrillic book, copied in around 1400 from older Glagolitic original by Krstyanin Hval (the name was given according to a Serbian monastery Nikolj where the manuscript was found, the book is now held in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin),
• Sreckovicevo evandjelje (Gospel),
• the Manuscript of Krstyanin Hval, 1404 (copied from older Glagolitic original; held in University Library in Bologna since 18th century),

  

• the Manuscript of Krstyanin Radosav, 15th century (which contains three Glagolitic notes), held in the Library of De Propaganda Fide in Rome, etc.

The first printed Croatian Cyrillic book was The Book of Hours (or the Dubrovnik breviary, or Oficje) published in Venice in 1512, prepared by Franjo Ratkovic from Dubrovnik. One copy is held in Paris in Bibliothèque Nationale. There is also another copy in the Codrington Library at All Souls College, Oxford (q.14.9); it was probably part of the founding bequest of Christopher Codrington in 1710. It is, admittedly, slightly less complete than the Paris copy, lacking 19 leaves. Many thanks to prof. Ralph Cleminson (University of Portsmouth, UK) for information about the Oxford copy.

Many of the Croatian Cyrillic inscriptions are carved on tombstone monuments, called stechak.

According to the Austrian palaeographer Thorvi Eckhardt, the graphics of the Bosancica (Croatian Cyrillic) shows the greatest independence and individuality among all the national Cyrillic Scripts - Bulgarian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Serbian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Russian (see her monograph Die slawischen Alphabete, Studium Generale VIII, 1967, p. 467).

She was also the first scholar to indicate the political loading in discussions about the Bosanica. In recent decades Serbian authors have openly monopolized Croatian Cyrillic as an exclusively Serbian Script. For more information see [Benedikta Zelic-Bucan].

A detailed palaeographic analysis of numerous epigraphic monuments found in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, related to inscriptions written in the Croatian Cyrillic, is contained in a monograph of Vinko Grubisic: "Grafija hrvatske lapidarne cirilice", KHR, München-Barcelona, 1978. Some of the characteristics of Croatian Cyrillic are:

• the existence of unusually many ligatures on epigraphic Croatian Cyrillic monuments, obviously under the influence of Glagolitic script;
  In the aforementioned Grubisic's book (p. 108) you will find a table of 50 interesting Cyrillic ligatures (click on left and rigth): ab (2), av (2), ai (2), al, amin', am, ao, ap, ar, al, vi, gi, gr, ez, iv, iy, in, ime, ish, jni, mc, ne, oe, oni (3) ni (3) pis, pl, pr, pa, rime, tv, tg, ti, til, ca ce, et, ma vi, am, ti mi. This is a unique characteristic of Croatian Cyrillic;
• absence of tildes, contrary to Cyrillic scripts of other nations (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Russian);
• among all Cyrillic scripts only Croatian Cyrillic has the numerical value for CH (i.e. for chrv) equal to 1000, the same as in the Glagolitic script (see Grubisic's monograph, p. 116).

There exist many types of the Croatian Cyrillic - both carved in stone and handwritten:

• a small table of Croatian Cyrillic letters,
• the Croatian Cyrillic legal document written in the city of Makarska (on the Croatian littoral) in 18th century.

We know of 18 Croatian Cyrillic texts (documents, prayers, letters) that are a part of the famous Bercic collection, held in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg. These texts contain among others also interesting correspondence between Muslim officials in Bosnia and Croats. One of the prayers written in Croatian cyrillic ends with "Amen" written twice: first in the Glagolitic and then in Croatian Cyrillic.

See a stone fragment (1640) from Modrus in Lika, inscribed with letters in Cyrillic and Latin script.

Here is an interesting monument from central Bosnia with inscription for which it is difficult to decide is it Croatian glagolitic, cyrillic, or something else:

We illustrate some of numerous very interesting monuments of Croatian Cyrillic from the Makarska area, see [fra Karlo Jurisic].

It is interesting that in the franciscan convent in Makarska a baptismal parish register is preserved from 1664, written in Croatian Cyrillic, see [fra Karlo Jurisic, pp. 152-153]:

In the same monograph one can find an extremely interesting example of official correspondence with Turkish officials in Herzegovina written in Croatian Cyrillic in 1498, dealing with the destiny of franciscans in Zaostrog, see [fra Karlo Jurisic, pp. 200-201].

In the town of Zagvozd behind the beuatiful mountain of Biokovo one can see a lovely Catholic church of all Saints with Croatian Cyrillic inscription from 1644:

by Darko Zubrinic, Zagreb (1995)