The
revisers, in their unphilosophical mode of proceeding, tried only to
imitate the Greek original, and to assimilate the grammatical part of
the language, as much as possible, to the Russian of their own times.
They all acted in the conviction, that the language of the Bible and
liturgical books was merely _obsolete Russian_. Even the latest
revisers of the Bible, in 1751, knew nothing of Cyril or Methodius;
and had no doubt, that the first translation was made in Russia under
Vladimir the Great, A.D. 988, in the language which was then spoken.
Such other works in Old Slavic, as were the productions of this
period, seem rather to belong to the history of the Russian and
Servian literature. We have seen from the preceding, that the Old
Slavic had altered considerably; nay, was in a certain measure
amalgamated with those dialects. We shall see in the sequel, how it
was gradually supplanted by them.[22]
The printing of works in the Old Slavic, at the present day, is almost
exclusively limited to the Bible and to what is in immediate
connection with it. The first printed Slavonic work was set in
Glagolitic letters. This was a missal of A.D. 1483.[23] The earliest
Cyrillic printing office was founded about A.
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