Development trends and main aspects of language policy of Soviet state in the autonomous regions of the North Caucasus (1920-ies – early 1930-ies)

Abstract

The relevance of the topic lies in the fact that Soviet state purposefully formed legal and socio-cultural norms of language policy, achieving mass literacy in regional languages and a qualitative increase in the status of these languages. The tasks of language policy in the autonomous regions of the North Caucasus are particularly difficult. The purpose of the work is to determine the development trends and the main aspects of language policy of Soviet state in the autonomies of the North Caucasus Region in the 1920-ies – early 1930-ies. The article is based on the methodology of constructivism, systematic and comparative analysis. The source base of the article includes unpublished documents of party and state authorities, the results of censuses, speeches of political figures, articles by publicists. The novelty of the article consists in a systematic study of such aspects as the formation of writing and literature in the languages of the North Caucasus peoples, the elimination of illiteracy in their native languages, the replacement of the Arabic alphabet with Latin, the translation of office texts from Russian into regional languages, the unification of the alphabets of the languages of the North Caucasus, quotas for speakers of regional languages in government bodies. The activity of organizations implementing the Latinized alphabet: the National Commission of the North Caucasus Regional Committee of the VKP(b), the National Council under the Regional Executive Committee of Councils, the Regional National Publishing House, etc. is evaluated. The results of the language reform in the North Caucasus were contradictory and not efficient. Resources for the introduction of regional languages as the main ones in the education system, propaganda, and official records are limited. The causes of this problem were: the low level of literacy of the population, the weakness of publishing houses, the lack of educated teachers and journalists with knowledge of regional languages.