CYRILLIC AND LATIN ALPHABETS IN UKRAINIAN DISCOURSE OF HALYCHYNA IN THE 30s OF THE XIXth – AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XXth CENTURIES

Abstract

The purpose of the research: to show the character, features, dynamics of the development of Ukrainian discourse on the choice of the Cyrillic or Latin alphabets as an alphabetical system for the formation of Ukrainian literary language in Galicia in the 30s of the XIXth – early XXth centuries through the prism of unfolding its two main stages.  The research methodology is based on the principles of scientific knowledge, objectivity, historicism and general scientific (analysis, synthesis, comparison) and special-historical methods (historical-genetic, periodization, historical-systemic, historical-typological). The research novelty is the systematic reconstruction of the unfolding of public discourse on the choice of the alphabetical system of Cyrillic or Latin for the formation of Ukrainian literary language in Galicia; substantiation of the periodization of this process, which is manifested in the personification and display of its essence, nature, tendencies, features at two stages of development: the first, covering the 30s – 50s of the nineteenth century and consists of two phases separating the “Spring of the Peoples” in 1848 and the second, which dates to the 60s of the nineteenth – the beginning of the twentieth centuries when a substantive understanding of the phenomenon of “alphabet wars” began, which appeared in the emergence of a number of source and analytical studies, which greatly influenced the further study of this problem. The Conclusions. Thus, the social discourse in Galicia in the 1830s – early XXth centuries according the choice of an alphabet system – Cyrillic or Latin – for codification of the Ukrainian literary language is a distinctive phenomenon in the history of the culture of the Ukrainian people and the formation of its literary language. Each party had its own compelling arguments, so there was no perfect solution to the problem. Supporters of the Cyrillic alphabet argued that it was a symbol of Ukrainian identity, and its replacement with Latin would lead to a split in the Ukrainian movement, enhance its polonization, slow down the development of national culture, and not bring Ukrainian literary language closer to European one. Latin adherents were correct in arguing that it more accurately conveyed the features of the Ukrainian vernacular in writing, and that Church Slavonicisms in Cyrillic prevented the formation of Ukrainian literary language on a lively national basis. The alphabetical discourse became an important factor in the development of the Ukrainian national social movement and a marker of the ideological orientations of its participants.