The Ukrainian orthography of 1928 (Ukrainian: Український правопис 1928 року, romanized: Ukrainskyi pravopys 1928 roku), also Kharkiv orthography (Ukrainian: Харківський правопис, romanized: Kharkivskyi pravopys) is the Ukrainian orthography of the Ukrainian language, adopted in 1927 by voting at the All-Ukrainian spelling conference, which took place in the then capital of the Ukrainian SSR, in the city of Kharkiv, with the participation of representatives of Ukrainian lands, which were then part of different states.
Mykola Skrypnyk, the People's Commissar for Education, officially approved the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 on 6 September 1928, which is why this orthography is also called Orthography of Skrypnyk (Ukrainian: Право́пис Скри́пника, romanized: Pravopys Skrypnyka), or Skrypnykivka (Ukrainian: Скрипникі́вка). The main linguist-ideologist of this orthography was Hryhorii Holoskevych, who compiled and published in 1929 the Orthographic Dictionary, which in practice showed all the innovations of the new orthography of 1928, so this orthography is sometimes called Orthography of Holoskevych (Ukrainian: Право́пис Голоске́вича, romanized: Pravopys Holoskevycha). Already on 31 March 1929, it was approved by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, and on 29 May by the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv, Republic of Poland. The compilers of the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 were well-known Ukrainian linguists, most of whom were later repressed and their careers destroyed by the Stalinist regime, such as Ahatanhel Krymskyi, Leonid Bulakhovskyi, Olena Kurylo, Oleksa Syniavskyi, Yevhen Tymchenko, Mykola Hrunskyi, Vsevolod Hantsov, Mykola Nakonechnyi, Hryhorii Holoskevych, Borys Tkachenko and others. Members of the spelling commission were such Ukrainian writers as Maik Yohansen, Serhii Yefremov, Mykola Khvyliovyi, Mykhailo Yalovyi and others.
Today, the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 is used by the Ukrainian diaspora in a large part of its publications, the most famous of which is the oldest Ukrainian-language magazine, Svoboda, which is still published. It has been used by some modern Ukrainian authors, literary editors, and Ukrainian linguists, including Iryna Farion,[1] Sviatoslav Karavanskyi, Oleksandr Ponomariv, and Mykola Zubkov, who are the most ardent defenders and propagandists of the Orthography of Kharkiv.
From 2000 to 2013, Ukrainian commercial television network STB TV used certain rules of this spelling together with the draft Ukrainian orthography of 1999 in the news program "Vikna".[2]
The press service of the All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom" uses the rules of Ukrainian orthography of 1928.
In 1926, the draft of the Ukrainian orthography was published for discussion (Український правопис (Проєкт). — Харків: ДВУ, 1926). The preface said:
On 23 July 1925, the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR decided:
"1. To develop rules for spelling the Ukrainian language, organize a State Commission under the People's Commissariat under the chairmanship of the People's Commissar for Education O. Shumskyi from the following persons: Comrade P. Solodub, M. Yavorskyi, A. Krymskyi, O. Syniavskyi, S. Pylypenko, O. Kurylova (Kurylo), Ye. Tymchenko, H. Holoskevych, M. Yohansen, E. Kasianenko, A. Richytskyi, N. Kaliuzhnyi, M. Yalovyi, O. Popov, M. Hrunskyi, V. Hantsov, M. Sulyma, V. Butvyn , V. Koriak, M. Khvyliovyi, S. Yefremov, T. Sekunda, S. Kyrychenko, I. Sokolianskyi and O. Skrypnyk.
2. In its work, the Commission must proceed from modern literary language, which is a synthesis of basic folk dialects, based on "The main rules of Ukrainian spelling of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences", approved by the NGO of the Ukrainian SSR in 1921.
3. In order to attract a wide range of scientific and literary forces to participate in the development of spelling rules of the Ukrainian language, to instruct the People's Commissar to convene a special conference to discuss the draft orthography rules developed by the Commission."
On 1 August of the same year, the People's Commissar convened an organizational meeting of the Commission, which was attended by Comrades O. Shumskyi, V. Butvyn, M. Yohansen, N. Kaliuzhny, Ye. Kasianenko, O. Popiv, A. Richytskyi, O. Syniavskyi, P. Solodub, M. Yalovyi. P. Diatliv and from Kyiv — S. Yefremiv, V. Hantsov, H. Holoskevych, T. Sekunda.
After considering the issue comprehensively, the Commission unanimously acknowledged that it faced a broader task than streamlining the spelling itself, 4 that in general the modern literary Ukrainian language, as a body of state. and public institutions, schools and science, needs a little more "stabilization", more uniformity than that language could acquire in the conditions of pre-revolutionary existence.
Thus, at the organizational meeting it was decided to include in the plan of the work not only purely spelling questions, but also other questions of normalization of literary language, namely it is planned to work out:
In addition, it was decided to organize the Ukrainian alphabet and compile a dictionary of difficult spelling words.
Individual referents — members of the Commission — were instructed to prepare all these sections and review them in special subcommissions, whereby several new members were co-opted into these subcommissions and wished to invite representatives of Western Ukraine to the Commission: Acad. S. Smal-Stotskyi, acad. V. Hnatyuk and Dr. V. Simovych.
Finally, the presidium of the Commission consisting of O. Shumskyi, P. Solodub, A. Krymskyi and O. Syniavskyi was elected. P. Diatlov was appointed Secretary of the Commission.
From 11-21 November 1925, a congress of the Commission (1st plenum) took place in Kharkiv and considered projects: V. Hantsova — Orthography of the invariant part of the word, O. Syniansky — The ending of distinctive words and Punctuation, O. Kurylova — Orthography of other people's words, M. Sulima and M. Nakonechnyi — Proper names. He also reviewed a project of elementary Ukrainian Grammatical Terminology, composed of several projects — M. Yohansen, L. Bulakhovskyi, the Kyiv Commission at the Institute of Scientific Language and M. Hrunskyi.
All sections of the orthography at this plenum of the State Commission have undergone significant changes, amendments and additions.
In its work, the Commission proceeded from the principles of orthography and language standardization and the possible simplification of orthography, so there are no radical changes in the schedule (alphabet and other characters), is not spelled. The commission tried only to precisely formulate the rules of spelling and language in order to eliminate the discrepancy that arises as a result of the struggle in the Ukrainian literary language of different dialects, influences, habits.
The basis for standardization and simplification was the practice and nature of the Ukrainian language: establishing a rule of spelling and language, the Commission tried not to violate without extreme necessity the established tradition, the usual norm, although, of course, all the time looked at the living language in its various dialects and its history.
Having considered all the material, the plenum of the Commission instructed it to be edited by the selected editorial trio — A. Krymskyi, V. Hantsov and O. Syniavskyi.
O. Syniavskyi summarized the material of the Commission, codified it, enclosing it in one continuous adviser, and then (7-13 February 1926 at 12 meetings in Kyiv) an editorial board consisting of the above-mentioned three persons and co-opted H. Holoskevych (who was instructed to compile an orthography dictionary for the adviser at the plenum) reviewed the prepared draft, making editorial amendments and necessary additions in the spirit of the plenary resolutions.
Finally, the draft was last revised at the 2nd Plenum of the Commission in Kharkiv from 5-8 April 1926, where some changes and amendments were again made to the draft in the direction of simplifying orthography. This plenum was chaired by the People's. Commission. Education of O. Shumsky with the participation of the following appointed and co-opted members of the Commission: A. Krymskyi, S. Yefremov, O. Syniavskyi, V. Hantsov. H. Holoskevych, M. Yohansen, M. Sulyma, E. Kasianenko, A. Richntskyi, M. Yalovyi. O. Popov, V. Butvin, M. Khvylovyi, S. Pylypenko, S. Kyrychenko, I. Sokolianskyi, T. Sekunda, N. Kaliuzhnyi, K. Nimchynov, M. Nakonechnyi; L. Bulakhovskyi, F. Kalynovych, V. Demianchuk, B. Tkachenko, M. Hladky, S. Vikul.
This project is being published to acquaint a wide range of people — both philologists and word workers, such as writers, editors, and especially teachers-practitioners.
The Commission requests that attention be sent to the editors. of the magazine "Visty" (Kharkiv, K. Liebknecht Street, 11), where they will be printed 6 in a special supplement, or to the address of the Commission (Kharkiv, Artema Street, 29, room 25).
After 2-3 months of discussion, the 3rd Plenum of the Commission (conference) will convene for final review and approval of the draft.
April, 1926[3]Among the participants in the All-Ukrainian Spelling Conference held in Kharkiv in 1927 were 4 high-ranking officials of the People's Commissariat, 5 academicians, 28 university professors of linguistics and philology, 8 teachers, 7 journalists and 8 writers. Three representatives of Western Ukraine also took part: Kyrylo Studynskyi, Ilarion Svientsitskyi, Vasyl Simovych.
The conference approved a new spelling code, with the exception of a few rules: this primarily concerned the debatable rules for writing letters to represent the phonemes /l/-/lʲ/ and /ɦ/-/ɡ/, because it was around them that the greatest controversy arose. The conference elected the presidium of the Spelling Commission consisting of 5 people, which in 1928 adopted a compromise decision on the rules of discussion: the Galician and Dnieper traditions of the Ukrainian language were taken into account. This decision, however, was not unequivocally approved by the orthographers. In particular, Ahatangel Krymskyi considered concessions to the Galician orthography to be speculation and political flirtation between Skrypnyk and the Galicians, and the Galician orthography itself was outdated.[4]
The orthography was printed and distributed in 1929 - since then all schools and publishing houses of the Ukrainian SSR were obliged to adhere to it. For the sake of the unity of the Ukrainian literary language, the leadership of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv decided to adhere to the norms of the new spelling in Galicia.
All further changes in the Ukrainian orthography were developed on behalf of the government by specially created orthographic commissions.[5] In 1933, an orthography commission headed by A. Khvylia (Olinter), which was destroyed by the Stalinist regime in 1938, reworked the Ukrainian Spelling, recognizing the norms of 1927-1928 as "nationalist." On 4 October 1937, a critical article appeared in the newspaper Pravda, according to which the Ukrainian language should be brought closer to Russian.
After that, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP (B) U adopted a resolution according to which:
«Consider it necessary to publish in the pages of the newspaper "Communist" a detailed, detailed critique of the distortions and errors made in the "Dictionary", in particular regarding the use of Polish and other foreign words in the Ukrainian language, while to denote new concepts are closer and familiar to Ukrainian folk n words. Instruct the commission to consider all the corrections that will need to be made to the dictionary».
But some norms that were rejected due to their absence in the Russian orthography were returned to the Ukrainian orthography of 2019.
Representatives of the literature of the "Executed Renaissance" and some of their successors used the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 in their works. As an example, we can cite an excerpt from a poem by Oleh Olzhych "Заходить сонце. Кане тишина...":
Заходить сонце. Кане тишина.
Холоне алябастрова Атена.
Не повернула втомлена луна
Лжепатетичний оклик Демостена.
Vasyl Stus also quite successfully showed in his poems the specific features of the Ukrainian language:[7]
На стільки кривд і стільки правд
одного вороття
замало буде. Чорний дріт
вишивано ухрест.
А вічність вічний творить міт
плачів, хоралів, мес.
Фіялка у степу росла
і непомітна, і мала,
але собою славна...
Ой-йой! Надбігло вже дівча,
фіялочки не поміча,
її маленька ніжка
стоптала фіялковий цвіт,
а та і в смерті шле привіт.
Отам і здобувши останню покуту,
Розпалим, як гроно, нагірний свій біль.
О царство пів серць, пів надій, пів причалів,
Пів замірів царство, пів змаг і пів душ.
Геніяльний поет
роздвоївся (на себе і страх!)
Пів поета роздвоїлося
(на чверть поета і страх).
Чверть поета роздвоїлося
(на осьмуху і страх).
Осьмуха поета роздвоїлася
(на понюху і страх).
Some features of a similar transfer of Ukrainian phonemes are witnessed in the classics of the 19th century:
Ти, брате, любиш Русь,
Як дім, воли, корови,
Я ж не люблю її
З надмірної любови— Іван Якович Франко
In the early 1990s, some linguists and politicians called for the restoration of at least some of Kharkiv's orthography. For the first time many books of emigrants were published in Ukraine, and it was in Ukrainian orthography of 1928. Several dictionaries that used this spelling were published without permission. However, of all the proposals, only the restoration of the letter "ґ" was accepted, which in 1933 was declared "nationalist" and removed without any discussion. For some time since 2000, the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 has been used by Channels 1+1, ICTV and Channel 1 of the national radio, and then until 2013 STB used separate rules of this spelling together with the "draft Ukrainian orthography of 1999" in the news program "Vikna". At the same time, the Lviv publishing houses "Litopys", "Misioner", "Svichado", "Zhurnal fizychnykh doslidzhennia", as well as Kyiv's "Sovremennost", "Krytyka" worked according to the key norms of Ukrainian orthography of 1928.
From 2008 to 2020, Ukrainian linguist Professor Oleksandr Ponomariv answered readers' questions every week,[8] using elements of the Ukrainian orthography of 1928.
In 2012, the Russian social network Vkontakte, which is currently banned in Ukraine, founded the «Classic Ukrainian Spelling» community, which actively fought for the return of specific Ukrainian norms. In 2017, community founders Andrii Bondar, Oleksii Deikun and Rostyslav Dziuba translated Vkontakte into the Ukrainian orthography of 1928. Due to the restoration of some norms of the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 in the Ukrainian orthography of 2019", the above-mentioned community was renamed "Language in Time", which is now a popular page of news about the Ukrainian language, its protection and approval.
On 22 May 2019, a new version of the "Ukrainian orthography"[9] was approved, which returned some items of the Ukrainian orthography of 1928, most of which are in a variant form. Naturally, the new orthography has been condemned by some Ukrainian linguists who advocate an officially unapproved draft in the late 1990s and early 2000s. According to Iryna Farion, it is the closest to the Ukrainian orthography of 1928.[10]