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Peter the Great approved the new alphabet
On January 29 (February 9), 1710 was completed Peter’s the Great reform of the Cyrillic alphabet – Peter I approved the new civil alphabet and the civil type. The Russian Orthodox Church continued to use the Church-Slavonic alphabet.
The reform was provoked by the national need of a large number of educated experts and the ability to provide an official information to the population. A low level of book printing focused mostly on the religious literature without taking into account the language changes put obstacles in the way of this objective. By the end of the 18th century the alphabet which came to Russia along with the Christian written language still had the archaic features in spite of the fact that some letters in temporal texts were not used or were used incorrectly. In addition the letters’ form appropriate for the handwriting was inconvenient for printed texts typesetting due to the presence of diacritical marks. Thus in the course of the reform not only the alphabet composition changed but the letters’ form too.
Tsar Peter the Great take an active part in search of a new model of the alphabet and type. In January 1707 according to drafts made supposedly by Peter I himself, a fortification engineer Kulenbakh made the drawings of thirty three lowercase letters and four uppercase ones (А, Д, Е, Т) of the Russian alphabet. The drawings were sent to Amsterdam for the letters fabrication. At the same time under the tsar’s order the Printing yard of Moscow was conducting letter-founding works. The Russian masters Gregory Alexandrov and Vasiliy Petrov led by a letter-founder Mikhail Efremov had made another type version. However the quality of the letters did not satisfy the tsar. Thus for book printing was adopted the type made by the Dutch masters. The first book set up in a new type, ‘The geometry of Slavic land survey’, was issued in March of 1708.
Later, having examined the results of typesetting samples, the tsar decided to change the form of some letters and restore some of the rejected letters of the traditional alphabet (supposedly at the insistence of the clergy). On January 18, 1710 Peter the Great made the last correction deleting the first versions of the new type letters and the old letter of the printing Cyrillic alphabet. The decree on the new alphabet imposition was dated January 29 (February 9), 1710. Soon after the issue of the Decree, the “Moscow State Bulletin” listed the books, printed in new alphabet, which were on sale.
As a result of Peter’s reform the number of letters in the Russian alphabet decreased to 38, their type face became simpler and rounder. The usage of capital letters and punctuation marks was streamlined. Arabic numerals replaced literal numerals.
The Russian alphabet composition and script continued to change and become simpler. The current Russian alphabet was put in use on December 23, 1917 (January 5, 1918) under the decree of the People’s Commissariat for education of the RSFSR ‘On the implementation of the new orthography’.
Lit: Брандт Р. Ф. Петровская реформа азбуки // Двухсотлетие гражданского шрифта. 1708-1908: Доклады, сделанные 8 марта 1908 г. на общем собрании Русского Библиографического Общества при Императорском Московском университете и обзор устроенной тогда же выставки. М., 1910; Григорович Н. И. Азбука гражданская с нравоучениями. Правлена рукою Петра Великого. СПб., 1877; Григорьева Т. М., Осипов Б. И. Русское письмо от старой азбуки до нового алфавита // Русский язык в школе. М., 2002. № 2; Григорьева Т. М. «Сими литеры писать…» // Новая университетская жизнь. 2008. 13 нояб. (№ 25); То же [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://gazeta.sfu-kras.ru/node/1218; Двухсотлетие русской гражданской азбуки 1708-1908 г. М., 1908; Ефимов В. Драматическая история кириллицы. Великий петровский перелом [Электронный ресурс] // Архивы форума ГПР. 1996-2016. URL: http://www.speakrus.ru/articles/peter/peter1a.htm; Кацпржак Е. И. История письменности и книги. М., 1955; Реформы азбуки и правописания // Российский гуманитарный энциклопедический словарь. Т. 3. М., 2002; Шицгал А. Г. Графическая основа русского гражданского шрифта. М.; Л., 1947; Шицгал А. Г. Русский гражданский шрифт. 1708-1958. М., 1959; Шницер Я. Б. Русская письменность // Шницер Я. Б. Иллюстрированная всеобщая история письмён. СПб., 1903.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Science, Education, and Culture // Peter I (1672–1725): [digital collection];
Архивы: История русского языка в выставочных экспонатах // Новости. 14 июня 2010.