Chronology of Ukrainian language suppression
The chronology of Ukrainian language suppression presents a list of administrative actions aimed at limiting the influence and importance of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine. Language situation in Ukrainian lands before the 19th century Before the Russian annexation, there were several writing languages in Ukraine. Religious texts were dominated by the Ukrainian variant of Church Slavonic (the so-called Meletian, after the reforms Meletius Smotrytsky). The language of administration since the 16th and 17th centuries (for western Ukraine this process began as early as the 15th century) was Polish, as well as Latin. The significant degree of Polonization of the Ukrainian elites led to the fact that Polish was also used in other areas, and in the 17th century it became the main language of religious polemics. Ukrainians who did not undergo language polonization used Church Slavonic in high-ranking texts (liturgical, theological, dramatic texts, poetry), and Ruthenian in lower-ranking texts (tales, private documents), also known as prosta mova (). The latter initially developed in the Belarusian territories and had many features of the spoken Belarusian language, but over time it took over the features of the local language in the Ukrainian territories, and also borrowed much from Church Slavonic and Polish. The language shaped in this way became the language of administration in the Cossack Hetmanate, it also began to be used as the language of literature, became standardized and moved away from the spoken language. At the end of the 18th century Ivan Kotliarevsky (1769-1838) initiated the process of formation of the modern literary Ukrainian language, based on south-eastern dialects and prosta mova. Due to restrictions imposed by the Russian government, the development of the Ukrainian language moved to western Ukraine, which led to changes in the language, called "Galicianisms." The systematic suppression of the Ukrainian language by the Russian Empire began with the conquest of a large part of Ukraine by Russia (Left-bank Ukraine) in 1654-1667, and also after the liquidation of the Cossack Hetmanate and the Zaporozhian Sich in 1764 and 1775. The unsuccessful rebellion of Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa (1708-1709), who attempted to throw off Russian supremacy, can be taken as the starting moment. Unlike Ukraine under Russian rule, there were no administrative obstacles to the development of the Ukrainian literary language in Western Ukraine, which was part of the Austrian Empire. However, due to its inferior status (the official language was first German, then Polish, the Ukrainian community lacked a Ukrainian-speaking intelligentsia) its development was hampered. 17-18th century 1620 – Patriarch Filaret of Moscow pronounces an anathema that was to last until the end of the century upon "books of Lithuanian imprint" (meaning Ukrainian and Belarusian), practically the only secular books available in the Russian tsardom. 1693 – Patriarch Adrian of Moscow allows only brief works to be printed in the "local dialect," bans their distribution outside the Ukrainian eparchies. He was following the teaching of Patriarch Joachim, who introduced an obligatory doctrine, repressing any peculiarities, including Ukrainian recension of Church Slavonic and about 300 books