Zhivov is a reflection on what the Cyrillic script might have looked like if it hadn’t been reformed by Peter the Great in the early 18th century — as well as an experiment that goes in the reverse direction of that reform. While the change sought to bring Cyrillic letterforms closer to the shapes of their Latin counterparts, Zhivov does the opposite, applying Old Church Slavonic principles of letter construction to the Latin script.

The typeface is named after the philologist Victor Zhivov, with whom Yury Ostromentsky once had the pleasure of discussing Old Russian writing and, in particular, the critical lack of a universal and comprehensive typographic tool for scholars studying Old Russian (Old East Slavic) language and literature.

Zhivov’s glyphs are stripped of contrast, decorative elements, and stylistic features tied to a specific time period or any particular scribe. That is why the typeface would be equally appropriate for setting both, say, books on the Ostromir Gospels and content addressing birchbark manuscripts.

Zhivov supports the entire Old Church Slavonic part of Unicode: alternative glyph forms for certain characters, superscript symbols, ligatures, Old Church Slavonic numerals, as well as a number of characters not covered by the Cyrillic block of Unicode but found in manuscripts.

The typeface is free of charge for scholars working with Old Church Slavonic language and literature. If you’re looking to use Zhivov in your work, please contact us at yury@type.today, and we will send you the font files.

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