Ukrainian Alphabet

The Story of the Ukrainian Alphabet

The story of Ukrainian letters begins in the 9th century with two enterprising brothers from Thessalonica. Saints Cyril and Methodius created the Glagolitic script to write Old Church Slavonic, bringing the gospel to Slavic pagans in their own tongue. This script—full of curious looped characters—quickly spread to Kievan Rus' after Prince Vladimir's conversion in 988. (The famous Ostromir Gospels of 1056 remain the oldest East Slavic book written in Cyrillic.) Soon a new Early Cyrillic alphabet, adapted by Bulgarian scribes from Greek letters with Glagolitic influences, took root in Eastern Slavic lands. Ukraine's ancestors thus inherited the general shape of Cyrillic letters from Byzantium, even as their spoken language was already diverging from Church Slavonic. While Glagolitic script persisted in some western South Slavic regions, it gradually faded in the East, yielding completely to Cyrillic for both liturgy and secular writing.

Under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which ruled much of Ukraine from the 14th to 18th centuries, diverse spelling traditions flourished. Scholars like Meletii Smotrytskyi (early 17th century) codified Church Slavonic letters, adding new characters like Я, Е, and even Ґ while establishing formal grammar rules. Peter the Great's 1708 Civil Script reform in Russia inevitably influenced Ukrainian literacy as well: it eliminated archaic letters (Ѯ, Ѱ, Ѡ, Ѧ) and westernized letter shapes, spurring Ukrainian intellectuals to develop their own alphabetic responses. Throughout the 1800s, many Ukrainian writers advocated for phonemic spelling—following the example of Serbian reformer Vuk Karadžić—but conservatives (the so-called "Old Ruthenians" and Russophiles) resisted anything that smacked of "vulgar" vernacular. This period earned the nickname "War of the Alphabets," as newspapers and grammar texts battled between Russian-influenced orthographies and emerging Ukrainian systems.

The death blow nearly came in 1876 when Tsar Alexander II issued the infamous Ems Ukaz. This decree banned printing in Ukrainian (Latin script was already forbidden) and forced Ukrainian texts to adopt Russian spelling conventions—the lifeless "Yaryzhka" orthography. Publications using the phonetic Kulishivka orthography were driven underground, and Ukrainian letters teetered on the brink of extinction until the 1905 Revolution loosened restrictions. Meanwhile, in Austrian-controlled Galicia, a more nationally conscious script called the Zhelekhivka (1893) thrived. When Ukraine briefly gained independence during the chaos of 1917–1919 (through the Central Rada, Hetmanate, and other short-lived governments), the nation finally proclaimed its own official Ukrainian orthography.

Soviet power initially brought an unexpected gift: the policy of "Ukrainization." In 1927–28, a major conference in Kharkiv, led by Education Commissar Mykola Skrypnyk, crafted a unified Ukrainian orthography. This Skrypnykivka of 1928 masterfully balanced eastern and western spelling traditions, winning acceptance from both Soviet authorities and the diaspora. For one brief, shining moment, Ukrainian had a spelling system tuned to its own phonetics rather than Russian etymology.

But Stalin had other plans. By 1933, Ukrainization was denounced as a "nationalist deviation," and the alphabet was wrenched back toward Russian norms. The distinctive letter ґ (Ukrainian "ge") was purged, replaced by the Russian-style "г"; native combinations like льо and ля were altered; and older etymological spellings were resurrected. A new official orthography (dubbed the Postyshevka) appeared in 1936, with minor tweaks in 1945 and 1960, systematically erasing Skrypnyk's reforms. (Skrypnyk himself tragically took his own life in 1933 rather than face Stalin's show trials for "alphabet nationalism.") In Western Ukraine and among the global diaspora, however, the 1928 orthography lived on for decades as a symbol of resistance.

During Khrushchev's Thaw and especially under Gorbachev's Perestroika (1986–91), Ukrainian scholars began reclaiming their native letters and rules. In 1990, a new orthography triumphantly reinstated ґ and even reshuffled the alphabetical order (moving the soft sign Ь before Ю). By the time Ukraine declared full independence in 1991, the alphabet had assumed its essentially modern form. Today it contains 33 letters—10 vowels, 21 consonants, and 2 signs—including the distinctive Є, І, Ї, and Ґ that neither Russian nor Belarusian possess.

After 1991, the Ukrainian alphabet transformed from a mere writing system into a powerful symbol of nationhood. Schools and media standardized the post-1990 script, and in 2019 a new round of reforms restored several features from the 1928 Kharkiv orthography. Ukraine's National Orthography Commission explicitly stated that the 2019 edition "brought back" elements discarded during the 1933 Russification. While the practical changes mainly affected foreign name transliterations and pronunciation rules, the reform carried deep cultural significance: Ukraine was reclaiming a heritage long suppressed.

Walk through any Ukrainian classroom today and you'll see children learning their alphabet (called "азбука" or "абетка") with special emphasis on uniquely Ukrainian letters like Ґ and Ї. Every passport, every banknote, every street sign uses this Cyrillic script, asserting continuity with a thousand-year tradition. The alphabet appears everywhere in popular culture—from editions of Taras Shevchenko's immortal "Кобзар" (originally penned in 19th-century orthography) to modern street art celebrating individual letters. The Ukrainian script has become both tool and totem: it has outlived emperors and commissars, bent but never broken, and now stands proudly at the heart of national identity.