Cultural Assimilation: Replacement of the Native Language's Alphabet

ID Name
T0115.001 Replacement of the Native Language's Alphabet
T0115.002 Folklorization of the Native Culture
T0115.003 Cultural Chauvinism

As part of cultural assimilation, aggressors may forcibly change the graphic basis (alphabet) of the local population's language. Converting the script of the Indigenous people to the metropole's alphabet artificially cuts new generations off from the body of previously published national literature, historical documents, and cultural heritage, while simultaneously facilitating linguistic unification and creating the false impression of illiteracy and the absence of a written tradition before the arrival of the colonizers.

ID: T0115.001
Sub-technique of:  T0115
Tactic: Persistence
People: Ukrainians
Contributors: decolonial.ist project
Version: 1.1
Created: 21 April 2026
Last Modified: 9 August 2026

Procedures Carried Out


January 1876
C0047 The Ems Ukaz and Total Censorship (1876–1887)
G0009 Russian Empire
S0008 Government

A concession that was in fact a choice between two alien orthographies: the 1881 revision allowed dictionaries to be printed, but "on condition of their being printed in conformity with all-Russian orthography, or with the orthography used in Little Russia no later than the 18th century"[1]. That is, either the metropole's orthography or an archaic one was admissible - contemporary Ukrainian orthography was not allowed in any form. The same document permitted stage texts to musical scores to be printed only "on condition of generally accepted Russian orthography," and made Ukrainian-language performances dependent on administrative permission: "dramatic plays, scenes and couplets in the Little Russian dialect... may be performed on stage, each time, however, with the special permission of the governors-general, and in localities not subordinate to governors-general - with the permission of the governors"[1].

References