The New Orthography

Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom). Decree on the Introduction of New Orthography. December 23, 1917

This order made spelling a state matter. It required official publications to adopt the simplified orthography, targeting the old letters and habits that signaled imperial education and hierarchy. The document captures a quiet revolution in print, classrooms, and bureaucracy, where ideology worked through typeset.

Original Source: Собрание узаконений РСФСР, 1917, № 12, ст. 176

In order to facilitate the mastery of Russian literacy by the broad popular masses, to raise the general level of education, and to free the schools from the unnecessary and unproductive expenditure of time and labor in studying the rules of orthography, all state and government institutions and schools, without exception, are directed to carry out the transition to the new orthography in the shortest possible time.

Procedure for implementing the reform:

All government and state publications, both periodical (newspapers, journals) and non-periodical (books, works, collections, etc.), shall be printed in accordance with the new orthography beginning January 1, 1918.

In all schools of the Republic, the transition to the new orthography shall be carried out in accordance with the following principles:

1. The orthographic reform shall be implemented gradually, beginning with the youngest division of the primary school.

2. In implementing the reform, compulsory re-education of those who have already mastered the rules of the former orthography shall not be permitted.

3. For all current and newly enrolled students, only those orthographic requirements that are common to both the former and the new orthography shall remain in force, and only violations of these rules shall be considered errors. The State Commission is charged with taking measures to implement the new orthography.

Changes in orthography and new rules:

1. Eliminate the letter "ѣ" (yat), replacing it consistently with "е" (koleno, vera, semia, v izbe, krome).

2. Eliminate the letter "ѳ" (fita), replacing it with "ф" (Foma, Afanasii, fimiam, kafedra).

3. Eliminate the letter "ъ" (hard sign) at the end of words and parts of compound words (khleb, posol, mech, kontr-admiral), but retain it in the middle of words as a separating sign (s"emka, raz"iasnit', ad"iutant).

4. Eliminate the letter "і" (i with dot), replacing it with "и" (uchenie, Rossiia, pijavka, Ioann, vysokii).

5. Recognize as desirable but not obligatory the use of the letter "ё" (pës, vël, vsë).

6. Write the prefixes (iz, voz, raz, roz, niz, bez, chrez, cherez) with "з" before vowels and voiced consonants, but replace "з" with the letter "с" before voiceless consonants, including before "с" (izvinite, vozzvanie, nizvergatʹ, bezvol'nyi, chrezvychaino — ispravit', vospitat', vskhozhie semena, rasstat'sia, rospis', nisposlannyĭ, bespolezno, cherespolositsa, cheressedel'nik).

7. Write in the genitive case of adjectives, participles, and pronouns — -ogo, -ego, instead of -ago, -iago (dobrogo, piatogo, kotorogo, sinego, svezhego).

8. Write in the nominative and accusative plural of feminine and neuter adjectives, participles, and pronouns -ye, -ie, instead of -yia, -iia (dobrye, starye, sinie, kakie).

9. Write oni instead of one in the nominative plural of the feminine gender.

10. Write in the feminine gender odni, odnikh, odnim, odnimi, instead of odne, odnekh, odnem, odnemi.

11. Write in the genitive singular of the personal pronoun of the feminine gender ee (or eë), instead of eia.

12. In the hyphenation of words, limit oneself to the following rules: a consonant (one, or the last in a group of consonants) immediately preceding a vowel must not be separated from that vowel. Likewise, a group of consonants at the beginning of a word is not to be separated from the vowel. The letter й before a consonant must not be separated from the preceding vowel. Similarly, a final consonant, a final й, and a group of consonants at the end of a word may not be separated from the preceding vowel. In the hyphenation of words containing prefixes, the final consonant of a prefix may not be carried over to the next line if that consonant precedes a consonant — for example, one must hyphenate pod-khodit', not po-dkhodit'; raz-viazat', not ra-zviazat'.

13. Permit both joined and separate writing of adverbs composed of nouns, adjectives, and numerals combined with prepositions (vstorone and v storone, vtechenie and v techenie, sverkhu and s verkhu, vdvoe and v dvoe).

People's Commissar of Enlightenment A. V. Lunacharsky

Secretary Dm. Leshchenko