Ems Ukaz
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The Ems Ukaz or Ems Ukase, named after the city of Bad Ems, Germany, where it was promulgated, was a secret ukaz of the Tsar Alexander II of Russia issued in 1876, banning the use of the Ukrainian language in print, with the exception of reprinting of old documents. The ukaz also forbade the import of Ukrainian publications and the staging of plays or lectures in Ukrainian.
The Ems Ukaz was issued in response to the growing Ukrainian nationalism movement and the unrest of Ukrainian Cossacks.
The ukaz coincided with some other actions against Ukrainian national culture. The situation was exposed by professor Mykhailo Drahomanov in 1878 at the International Literary Congress in Paris. Drahomanov was subsequently expelled from Kiev University.
- Text of the ukaz
- (1) The importation into the Russian Empire, without special permission of the Central Censorship over Printing, of all books and pamphlets in the Little Russian dialect, published abroad, is forbidden,
- (2) The printing and publishing in the Empire of original works and translations in this dialect is forbidden with the exception of (a) historical documents and monuments; (b) works of belles-lettres but with the provision that in the documents the orthography of the originals be retained; in works of belles-lettres no deviations from the accepted Russian orthography are permitted and permission for their printing may be given only by the Central Censorship over Printing.
- (3) All theatrical performances and lectures in the Little Russian dialect, as well as printing of text to musical notes, are forbidden. (Radians’kyi knyhar 1930, quoted in Luckyj 1990:24–25)
References
- Drahomanov, Mykhailo, La littérature oukrainienne, proscrite par le gouvernement russe: rapport présenté au Congrès littéraire de Paris (Ukrainian Literature Banned by the Russian Government: Report Presented at the Literary Congress in Paris), Geneva, 1878.
- Luckyj, George S.N. ([1956] 1990). Literary Politics in the Soviet Ukraine, 1917–1934, revised and updated edition, Durham and London: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-1099-6.
- I.R., "Ne dozvoliaiu," Radians’kyi knyhar, 8 (April 1930):8
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