Childhood and Education

In the lands of Kievan Rus, which extended across the Dnieper region, the forest-steppe and northern river networks of present-day Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, childhood learning took place in a society with varied local traditions. From the ninth century through the thirteenth, education developed alongside the spread of Christianity and writing. Some children learned to read and write through organized teaching, while literacy also served practical purposes in urban life. The surviving evidence is especially detailed for Novgorod, where birch-bark records preserve the exercises of a boy named Onfim.

On this page5 sections

Learning in households and towns

Written records show why literacy could be useful beyond religious study. East Slavic birch-bark messages include personal correspondence, business matters, debt records and household instructions. Such documents were written by laypeople as well as members of the clergy, and women appear among the literate writers and participants. In some situations, a scribe wrote a message dictated by someone else.

A household that traded, managed property or lent goods had reasons to send messages and keep track of payments. Learning letters could prepare a child to participate in this work as well as to read religious texts. Surviving exercises show the repetitive practice through which these skills were acquired.

Christian teaching and the written word

Slavic writing traditions predated the Christianization of Rus. In the second half of the ninth century, the monk Cyril created the Glagolitic alphabet for Slavic texts. Around the turn of the ninth and tenth centuries, the Cyrillic alphabet developed in the Bulgarian lands from Greek writing combined with elements suited to Slavic sounds. Cyrillic was known in Rus earlier, but it spread widely after the Christianization of 988. Eastern Christian worship used a Slavic liturgical language, helping to establish a local tradition of religious writing.

The Primary Chronicle credits Vladimir with arranging book learning for children from leading families after his conversion. Churches and monasteries needed people able to read religious texts, copy manuscripts and carry out administration. Teaching the alphabet and familiar prayers connected early lessons to this demand, while courts and towns also had practical uses for writing.

Formal book culture and everyday writing used different materials and served different needs. Books and important documents were commonly written on parchment, while birch bark provided an accessible surface for brief messages, notes and exercises. Some early Rus books also used wax-coated wooden tablets. The Novgorod Codex, used in the first quarter of the eleventh century, has four wax writing surfaces and preserves Psalms. Its reusable surfaces allowed writing to be erased and the tablet used again.

What children practiced

The birch-bark exercises associated with children show that early learning involved repeated practice. Learners wrote out letters and grouped them into syllables, then moved on to short phrases and familiar texts. Religious language formed part of this practice: a child might copy a prayer or lines from the Psalms, which were used in Christian worship. Learning to write therefore involved both mastering the alphabet and becoming familiar with texts encountered in religious life.

Novgorod’s birch bark was soft enough for letters to be scratched into it with a pointed metal or bone stylus. The resulting records were often brief and informal, unlike carefully produced books. They also preserve local speech: Novgorod writers used forms of the local Old Novgorod dialect, while Church Slavonic remained important in religious writing. These different forms of language belonged to distinct settings of writing, even though the boundaries between them were not always simple.

Onfim’s lessons in thirteenth-century Novgorod

Onfim’s surviving exercises offer a rare glimpse of one child at work. Archaeologists found most of the pieces in Novgorod in 1956. They are generally placed in the mid-thirteenth century, with a broader dating range of 1234–1268. Onfim is thought to have been about six or seven years old, although his exact age is not recorded. Seventeen items are associated with him; twelve include drawings as well as writing.

Onfim practiced the Cyrillic alphabet, repeated syllables and copied passages from the Psalms. One prayer asks, “Lord, help your servant Onfim,” and other pieces contain Psalm fragments. His exercises suggest that instruction joined the mechanics of writing to the copying of familiar religious words. A message on one piece sends greetings from Onfim to Danilo, probably a friend or classmate. Another item associated with the group mentions collecting a debt from Dmitr; it may have served as a model for practice, though its purpose and authorship are uncertain.

The drawings make the exercises more personal. Onfim pictured horses, armed riders and figures in combat. In one image, a fantastic animal is accompanied by words meaning “I am a wild beast”; another shows a mounted fighter with Onfim’s name beside him, often understood as a self-portrait. The mixture of alphabet practice, prayers, messages and imaginative pictures shows a child using birch bark for more than one purpose.

Literacy beyond the classroom

Novgorod letters contain business instructions, personal messages and requests between household members. Both men and women participated in this written exchange, sometimes using a scribe. These practical settings gave literacy uses beyond clerical employment and the copying of formal books.

Novgorod’s waterlogged soil preserved bark that would normally decay. Onfim’s exercises belong to the thirteenth-century Novgorod Republic, where urban families used writing in ordinary affairs. His preserved alphabet practice, prayers and drawings let us follow the work and distractions of one young learner in unusual detail.

For the wider setting, see Kievan Rus daily life.