The process of latinisation of the alphabets among the Soviet states, which began immediately after the collapse of the USSR, continues at the present time. For example, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan adopted the Latin alphabet. Now, the rejection of the Cyrillic alphabet is intensively discussed in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Soon, the Kazakh alphabet will be transferred into Latin, the analyst of the news agency Vestnik Kavkaza, Yevgeniya Svatukhina said during a live broadcast of the National Question program on Vesti.FM.
The National Question is a weekly program of Vesti.FM, during which the hosts, Georgy Saralidze and Vladimir Averin, discuss various aspects of the national relations, primarily in Russia. Today's program was entitled ‘How did the peoples of the USSR receive written languages?” The presenters discussed both the phenomenon of the appearance of written languages in the Soviet Union and the topical issues of the process of transferring of the alphabets of the former Soviet republics to the Latin alphabet.
"Speaking about the latinisation of the alphabets of the peoples of the Post-Soviet space, we should not forget that the Russian language also experienced several attempts of latinisation,” she said.
"So, back in the times of Peter the Great, the Cyrillic alphabet was partially transferred into Latin during the process of transition to the new civic alphabet, with the Cyrillic graphics close to Latin - then the Greek letters xi, psi, omega and Slavic little and big yus disappeared," the analyst said.
According to her, during the 19th century there were at least six projects of the Russian alphabet’s latinisation, including the project of the Russian Latin alphabet by Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky, who strove to simplify the Russian grammar and improve the Russian alphabet, which he considered ‘ugly and irrational.’
"The next wave of attempts to transfer the Russian alphabet began in the aftermath of the 1917 Revolution. Then, in the course of a powerful wave of latinisation of the languages of the peoples of the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s, 66 languages were shifted into the Latin alphabet, for the rest this work continued till mid 30s, up to the reverse wave of cyrillization. The Kazakh language, by the way, used the Latin alphabet from 1929 to 1940,’’ Yevgeniya Svatukhina said, pointing out that the meaning of the total latinisation was that Soviet people should use the ‘alphabet of Marx and Engels’ , which was applied to the Russian language as well. It supposed to create a ‘unified international Latinized alphabet of socialism’, that means, the heart of the idea was supranational and planetary Marxism.
"Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself was an active supporter of latinisation of the Russian language, although he advocated for the gradual solution of this issue ‘’in more peaceful time, when the Soviet state grows stronger.’ It is clear that the introduction of a new font meant the re-equipment of the publishing houses, retraining of the people for reading and writing, re-edition of books. The head of the People's Commissariat for Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, personally worked on latinisation of the Russian language. In his opinion, the books written in the Russian alphabet would gradually become a subject of history, and they would be studied by the research experts, historians of literature, so, ‘it would be less necessary for the new generation,” the expert said.
"In 1929, the People's Commissariat for Education created a commission to develop the issue of latinisation of the Russian alphabet with the participation of linguists, book experts and printing engineers. The authors of the language reform considered the existence of the Cyrillic alphabet in the USSR not only an ‘unconditional anachronism’, but also as a graphic barrier separating the peoples of the Union from the revolutionary East and the proletariat of the West, " she said.
"The commission completed work in January 1930 and proposed three variants of Russian Latin, which differed in the variants of writing ‘y’, ‘yo’, ‘yu’, ‘ya’ and the soft sign. But the project was never implemented: on January 25, 1930, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin instructed Glavnauka to stop the development of this issue, " Yevgeniya Svatukhina concluded.
