In Kazakhstan, work continues on the future romanization of the Kazakh language with the introduction of the romanized alphabet. The idea itself, as you know, belongs to the president of the republic, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who, apparently, decided to remain in the history of Kazakhstan not only as the first president of an independent Kazakhstan state, but also as a super reformer.
The reform of the language for such a case, as it is seen by modern Astana, is best suited. Moreover, there are images, so to speak, for Kazakhstani imitation: by the decision of the head of state, Turkmenistan was translated into the Latin version of the language in 1996, Azerbaijan finally switched to the Latin alphabet in 2001, and by 2017, the Latinization of Uzbekistan continues (despite the fact that that according to the plan, Uzbekistan was to switch to the Latin alphabet and its widespread use by 2000, the overwhelming majority of local media and print media continue to appear in Cyrillic).
De facto, the post-Soviet space is implementing the main theses voiced 26 years ago - at the autumn conference of 1991 in Turkish Istanbul. These theses were that, on the initiative of Turkish, as it is now fashionable to say, partners, the post-Soviet republics that were related to the Turkic historical conglomerate were to begin the transition to the Turkish-style Latin alphabet. We are talking about Turkish romanization, which took place almost 90 years ago - in 1928 after the reform of Ataturk.
By the way, the twenties of the last century, romanization took place not only in Turkey. In Azerbaijan, in the same twenties of the XX century, the Arabic alphabet was used along with the Latin alphabet. In May 1929, the so-called spelling conference was held in Samarkand, at which the Latin alphabet for the Uzbek Republic was presented. This alphabet has been recognized to replace Arabic. And for more than 10 years in Uzbekistan, a "explosive" mixture of alphabetic Arabic and Latin alphabet was used, which in fact was not decisive for one simple reason. The literacy rate of the population of the then Uzbekistan was no more than 18% of the population (from about 5 million people).
The main question is - what did the union center think about the romanization of the union republics in the 1920s? An interesting question. In fact, the thoughts of the then Moscow on this matter were purely positive. The reason lies not only in the fact that the country needed to increase the literacy of the population not only within the Central Russian Uplands. Among the projects of reforms of the Bolsheviks after coming to power in 1917, there was also a project of a linguistic reform. More precisely alphabetical.
Anatoly Lunacharsky, who received a European education, who became the head of the People's Commissariat of Education (People's Commissariat of Education), became a zealot of the transition of Russian "calligraphy" to its Latin spelling. In fact, the idea to forge the Russian Cyrillic alphabet into the European Latin alphabet was on a par with other measures, if you will, to "Europeanize" Soviet Russia, including the transition to a new calendar for the country. The term "European variant" of the language really sounded. In the opinion of the elite of the Bolshevik movement, which won in October 1917, the Cyrillic alphabet is an impenetrable archaic, which reminded the peoples of "liberated" Russia of the "oppression of tsarism."
And the "oppression of tsarism" from the language began to be removed by revolutionary methods. Working groups sprang up that operated in the national republics of Soviet Russia and the emerging USSR. For 15 years, they tried to carry out romanization in more than thirty national formations and republics of the Land of the Soviets, including the aforementioned Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, as well as Ossetia, Kabarda, etc. …
From the collected works of the People's Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky on the preparation for the transition of the Russian Cyrillic to the Latin version ("Culture and Writing of the East", 6, 1930, pp. 20-26):
However, the "Leninist" ideas, multiplied by the ideas of Lunacharsky, were not destined to come true in Soviet Russia. Despite the fact that by the beginning of the thirties Lunacharsky literally demanded an acceleration of romanization due to the fact that “Russia, which remained with the old alphabet, had moved away from both Europe and awakened Asia,” the project began to fade away.
Another question: why did the same Lenin and Lunacharsky need romanization? “Avoiding the archaic tsarist regime” is like an excuse. In fact, it is well known that the Bolsheviks who came to power were not going to stop at the revolution in a single country. The declared goal at that time was a world revolution, an international. And this required, so to speak, a single linguistic principle - a common base.
The process was stopped by J. V. Stalin. In January 1925, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) ordered the leadership of Glavnauka to stop developing a plan to replace the Cyrillic alphabet in Russian with the Latin alphabet. The reason is that by that time the world revolution was clearly stalled, moreover, it was necessary to solve problems with the management of a "separate country", which was the Soviet Union. On July 5, 1931, a special decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was issued, which finally banned the process of romanization with the following wording:
"… as well as to stop any discussion about the reform of the Russian language in connection with its threat of fruitless and empty waste of the forces and means of the state."
On this basis, after another 4 years in the USSR, the translation of many languages of the Union began in its then borders into Cyrillic, which made it possible to consolidate within the framework of a huge state. The country demanded unity in everything, including such an aspect as the alphabet for national languages. It was in the mid-late 1930s that the first leap in the number of literate population in the national republics of Central Asia took place in the USSR.
So it turns out that the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev is a Leninist?.. How Leninists - and those who translated languages into Latin in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan? "Leninists" are all of them, perhaps, in the sense that they are clearly trying to join the formation of a separate conglomerate - not revolutionary, of course, but completely international - Turkic. With an eye to "please the West." That's just without wide advertising.
Just as at one time the "early" Bolsheviks, talking about the Cyrillic alphabet, called it a "relic of tsarism", so today our eastern partners are talking about the "Cyrillic archaic". The main argument: languages in the Latin alphabet will develop more actively. Well, of course…
Of course, this is an internal affair of the neighbors. But, by and large, this is an alarming signal for Russia. Neighbors, solving their own problems, are trying to get out of the Russian linguistic field, making it clear that they are going to form “their own”. Is it your own?..
And it can hardly be denied that the process is being conducted with the active support of Turkish non-governmental organizations, which use soft and effective power to draw the former Soviet republics (Asian) into their sphere of influence. In general, as the great Lenin bequeathed …
