1 March and today also 3 March is a holiday in Bulgaria. For this reason, a contribution about Bulgaria.
Over 1,000 years ago there was the First Bulgarian Empire which included what today are parts of Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania, Ukraine, Greece and Hungary (and that is not all). Highlights were taking on Christianity and the Bulgarian language becoming the key language to get on in Eastern Europe. At the time, 4 million people spoke Bulgarian (approximately the same number as spoke English 500 years later).
The invention of the Cyrillic script occurred also in this period. Today it is the fourth most used script in the world – after the most common Latin script (also used for English), Chinese and Arabic. Cyril and his brother Methodius were Greek missionaries who introduced Christianity into the Balkans. When they were exiled by the Pope they settled in Bulgaria where they invented the Cyrillic script.
As a word, “Cyrillic” as a word first appeared without reference to Bulgaria in an English encyclopaedia The Penny Cycopaedia. There Cyrillic is described as a language used by Slavics and Serbians. It took a lot of time for the word to be associated also with Bulgaria. After all, Great Britain and Bulgaria only established diplomatic ties in 1879 when Bulgaria declared its independence.
Finally recognition has come to Bulgaria. In 1980 Cyril was declared a patron saint of Europe by the Pope. In 2007, Bulgaria joined the EU and of course Bulgarian is the only Cyrillic language in the EU – as can be seen on any Euro note.
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