Julia Verkholantsev

This project is concerned with the history of ideas. Broadly understood, it deals with the historical events and cultural-political beliefs that gave rise to the Slavic idea – the Slavic peoples’ awareness and appreciation of their common heritage. Specifically, it surveys the history of the Glagolitic letters and the Roman-Slavonic Rite among Croatian Benedictine Glagolites and examines how the theory of St. Jerome’s Slavic origin elevated the Slavonic Glagolitic tradition to a “second rite of the Roman Church.” The study argues that the founding of the Glagolite monasteries in Prague, Silesian Olesnica, and Polish Kleparz marks the beginnings of the Slavic idea, which for several centuries remained politically inchoate before maturing into a nationalist movement in the nineteenth century.