The Soviet Experiment on Latinization of the Russian Alphabet, 1919–1931: Political Aspects

Introduction. The issue of writing reform has been actualized in recent decades, including in the post-Soviet countries. Among other things, there are calls to translate the Russian writing into Latin. Methods and materials. Scientific works do not fully clarify all the political characteristics of “Russian Latinization”. The sources used in the research presented in this article include published materials and documents from the collections of a number of archives. Analysis. In 1929, at the initiative of the People’s Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, activities were launched to develop a Latinized alphabet for the Russian language. The “Latinizers” believed that the new Russian alphabet would become the basis of the writing of other peoples of the USSR and even foreign countries. In January 1930, three variants of the Russian Latin alphabet were presented. However, a negative reaction followed from the leadership of the USSR to this initiative. “Russian Latinization” was banned. Results. The reason for its failure, the “Russian Latinization” should be considered that it was not originally planned and was not authorized at the highest state level. However, at the time of its ban, the USSR authorities had not yet opposed Latinization in principle, and the creation of Romanized alphabets for other peoples of the country continued. The complete abandonment of the Latin alphabet occurred only after a radical change in national policy in the USSR in 1933–1934. Nevertheless, the ban on Romanization of the Russian alphabet became a “trigger” for the cancellation of the translation into Latin of the writing of other peoples of the USSR.