Yaryzhka

Yaryzhka (Ukrainian: яри́жка) or Orthography of Slobozhanshchyna (Ukrainian: слобожанський правопис) is the name of the pre-revolutionary orthography used to write and print works in the Ukrainian language in the Russian Empire. Yaryzhka included all the letters that were part of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet of the pre-revolutionary period: ы, ъ, and so on. According to the Ukrainian scientist Ahatanhel Krymskyi, even before 1876, in particular in the first half of the 19th century, such Ukrainian writers as Hryhir Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Yevhen Hrebinka, Taras Shevchenko, etc. used the yaryzhka. From 1798 to 1876 the use of yaryzhka was optional in the territory of the Russian Empire, but still quite common due to the lack of a separate standardized spelling for the Ukrainian language (alternative to yaryzhka were Latin alphabets and newly created Ukrainian alphabets — Orthography of Kamenetskyi of 1798, Orthography of Pavlovskyi, 1818, Maksymovychivka, 1827, Shashkevychivka, 1837, Kulishivka, 1856, Hatsukivka, 1857, etc.). After 1876, the use of yaryzhka became mandatory in the Russian Empire under the Ems Decree of 1876, which banned the use of the Ukrainian language in all areas, including the use of a separate Ukrainian orthography and a separate Ukrainian alphabet, in writing and printing. Censorship in the Russian Empire allowed the publication of only texts written or printed in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet of the period of Russian pre-revolutionary spelling. The Ems decree was in force until 1905, when it was abolished, but at the beginning of World War I in January 1915, the Russian military restored the Ems decree of 1876, closing all Ukrainian publishing houses within the Kyiv Military District, except for the magazine Ridnyi Krai, which had to start using yaryzhka so as not to close.