Codex of Supraśl

Codex of Supraśl

The Codex of Supraśl is the oldest Slavic literary work in Poland and one of the oldest of its kind in the world, named after the Suprasl Lavra. As of September 20th, 2007 it is on Unesco's Memory of the World list.

The codex was written in one of the monasteries near Preslav, the capital of the former Bulgar state. The greatest part of the codex is now in the National Library of Poland in Warsaw, the other part is in the Library of the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia as well as a small portion in the Russian National Library in Sankt Petersburg, Russia. A part of the codex which can be seen today contains the Lives of the Saints and the Teachings of the Fathers of the Church for March. It was written in the Old Church Slavic language in the Cyrillic alphabet. This document is of immense importance for the study of the Proto-Slavic language.