Srbulje

A srbulјa (Serbian Cyrillic: србуља), srbulje in plural, is a liturgical book written or printed in the Slavonic-Serbian language (the Serbian recension of Church Slavonic), which was the written language of Serbs from the 12th century to the 1830s. The term was used for the first time by Vuk Karadžić in 1816 to differentiate liturgical books written in the Serbian recension from those written in the Russian recension, which gradually replaced srbulje at the beginning of the 19th century.

Until the end of the 15th century srbulje were only written books. Since 1494 (Cetinje Octoechos) until 1570 several printing houses printed srbulje.

The oldest mention of the term is in a letter to Jernej Kopitar by Vuk Karadžić on 1 August 1816. One of the reasons for designating a particular name for old printed or written Serbian language books was to differentiate them from the Russian language liturgical books.

Srbulje were published in printed form in the 15th and 16th centuries. The history of printing of early Serbian language books is connected with historical situation on the territory populated by Serbs. When printing press was invented significant part of this territory was captured by Ottoman Empire which subjected Christian population to process of islamization. The printing of Serbian language books had a mission to resist to the islamization of the Serbs and to preserve their identity as internal enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Faced with danger from the Ottoman Empire, Venice and Vatican tollerated to certain extent activities of Serbian diaspora and printing of srbulje.

The first book printed on Serbian language is Cetinje Octoechos (Serbian: Октоих) which is of exceptional importance as the first book printed on Serbian language. It was printed by Hieromonk Makarije in the Crnojević printing house, established Đurađ Crnojević in Zeta.

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