Chernorizets Hrabar

Chernorizets Hrabar (Old Church Slavonic: Чрьнори́зьць Хра́бръ, Črĭnorizĭcĭ Hrabrŭ) was a Bulgarian monk, scholar and writer who worked at the Preslav Literary School at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century.

His appellation is correctly translated as "Hrabar, the Black Robe Wearer" (i.e., Hrabar The Monk), chernorizets being the lowest rank in the monastic hierarchy, "Hrabar" ("Hrabr") supposed to be his given name. However sometimes he is referred to as "Chernorizets the Brave", "Brave" being the translation of "Hrabar" assumed to be a nickname.

No biographical information is available about him, but his name is usually considered to be a pseudonym used by one of the other famous men of letters at the Preslav Literary School or may be even by Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria (893-927), since normally monks assume Christian names of biblical or early Christian onomastics.

Chernorizets Hrabar is (as far as is known) the author of only one literary work, "On the Letters" (Old Church Slavonic: О писмєньхъ, O pismenĭhŭ), one of the most admired and popular works of literature written in Old Church Slavonic. The work was supposedly written some time after the Preslav Ecclesiastical People's Council in 893, but before 921, and is the only known medieval literary work to quote the exact year of the invention of the Glagolitic alphabet (855). The work was partly based on Greek scholia and grammar treatises and expounded on the origin of the Glagolitic alphabet and Slavic Bible translation.

In On the Letters, Chernorizets Hrabar defends the alphabet against its Greek critics and proves not only its right to existence but also its superiority to the Greek alphabet arguing that the Greek letters are neither the oldest known to man, nor divine. At the same time Chernorizets Hrabar opposes Glagolitic dogmatists and makes several suggestions as to how the alphabet can be further improved.

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