From A Literary History of Russia by Aleksander Brückner

One of the most ingenious moves that ever were made on the chess board of the world's history was the devising of the Slavonic Liturgy by the two Greek brothers from Saloniki, Constaninte or Cyril and Methodius.

That which to-day the Slavs are vainly striving after, a Panslavic language—which, after all, is quite unnecessary, as there is no Pangermanic or Panromance—that these brothers accomplished in the ninth century : the simply conferred their Macedonian dialect on the Western Slavs, primarily in Moravia, . . .(etc). Therefore they made no concessions to the special linguistic usage in Moravia, and . . . they also devised a special and very crabbed character. This national language of religion and literature was the bait to lure the Slavs from all contact with Rome, which even in the Balkan Peninsula, among the Bulgarians, was at that time endeavouring to deprive Byzantium of its supremacy.

Comment : the English editor questions the imputations of political motives to the two brothers ; I for one do not know.. (WPT)

The ingenious plan to a large extent succeeded, thanks to Slav simplicity and vanity. The Moravians, to be sure after some hesitation, bowed the changeling out of their country ; all the more zealously did the Southern Slavs, especially the Bulgarians, adopt it, for it lay nearer to them even in a purely linguistic respect, the Macedonian dialect being next-of-kin to the Bulgarian, only they finally abolished the . . . special character . . . in favour of a purely Greek alphabet only, augmented by a few signs for Slavonic sounds¹ Thus the Slavs acquired a thing neither possessed nor known by either Celts or Teutons, an ecclesiastical and written language of their own, and created for themselves in a few decades a stately store of works, although most of them were only translations from the Greek, patristic lore, encyclopædias or chronicles. Unhappily, unfavourable external conditions soon stopped all further development of this old Slavonic, i.e., old Bulgarian, literature.

    ¹ The so-called Cyrillic, based on Greek uncials.

Translated (? from the German) by H. Havelock
Edited by Eillis H. Minns, Pembroke College, Cambridge
London and Leipsic : T. Fisher Unwin 1908, pp. 5 - 6.

Author Dobrovsk�, Josef, 1753-1829. Title Rossica: Srovn$BaO!&(Brusk$B!&(Ba česk$B!&(Břeči (1796); Nov$B!&(Bpomůcka, jak sn$Ba[(Be porozuměti rusk$B!&(Břeči (1799); Předmluva k Puchmajerově mluvnici rus̀tiny (1820); Recense Slovn$ByL(Bu Rusk$B!&(Bakademie (1825). K vyd$BaO!&(Bpřipravili Karel Hor$BaM(Bek a Miroslav Heřman. Edition [1. vyd.] Publisher [Praha], Nakl. Československ$B!&(BAkademie Věd, 1953. Description 157 p. port., 8 facsims. 25 cm. Series [His] Spisy a projevy,v. 13 Series Dobrovsk� Josef,1753-1829.Works.1953 ;sv. 13 Note At head of half-title: Československa Akad$BqN(Bie Věd. Sekce jazykověda-literatura. In German, with Czech t.p. and pref., and summary in Russian. Note Bibliographical references included in "Poznamsky" (p. 139-145)