The most Belarusian letter? The Cyrillic "ў" appeared in Lithuanian before it appeared in Belarusian.
The letter «ŭ» has long been considered a symbol of the Belarusian language and even has its own monument in Polotsk. However, historical sources indicate that this symbol (along with the apostrophe as a separator) was developed and actively used for writing the Lithuanian language in Cyrillic as early as the mid-19th century — a little earlier than it became established in the modern Belarusian alphabet.
This interesting fact was brought to attention by historian Ales Bely in his Telegram channel Gorliwy Litwin, referring to the work of Lithuanian historian Darius Staliūnas «Poland or Russia? Lithuania within the Russian Empire» (2022).
Lithuanian Cyrillic: why was it needed?
The appearance of the letter «ў» in Lithuanian texts was a result of the Russian Empire's policies after the suppression of the 1863‑1864 uprising. Governor-General Mikhail Muravyov and his successor Konstantin Kaufman initiated a complete ban on Lithuanian printing in Latin script (spaudos draudimas).
The goal was to separate Lithuanians from Polish cultural influence and bring them closer to Russian culture. To achieve this, it was decided to translate the Lithuanian language into Cyrillic («grazhdanka»). However, simply taking the Russian alphabet was impossible — it did not reflect the phonetic features of Lithuanian speech.
Who came up with «ў»?
Interestingly, at the initial stage, which historian Giedrius Subačius calls the «enthusiastic beginning» of 1864-1866, not only Russian officials and linguists, but also the Lithuanian intelligentsia participated in the development of graphics for the new Lithuanian writing system. Among them are philologist Stanislav Mikutsky, publisher Laurynas Ivinskis, student of the Warsaw Higher School Tomas Žilinskis, and the Juška brothers. They were guided by several motives.
Firstly, there was the idea of linguistic «economy». Even before the uprising, brothers Antanas and Jonas Juška proposed reforming the writing system to convey the same sounds with fewer characters, and the modified Cyrillic alphabet with diacritics may have seemed to them a convenient tool for standardizing dialects.
Secondly, a conscious anti-Polish position of a part of the national elite played a role, which sought to distance itself from Polish dominance in culture. As Darius Staliūnas notes, a loyal attitude towards Cyrillic looks like a consistent manifestation of the desire to distance themselves from the Poles: Lithuanian figures hoped that government support for the new alphabet would paradoxically help develop their own Lithuanian ethno-culture in opposition to Polish culture.
Russian letters were not enough to convey specific Lithuanian diphthongs and sound combinations. Therefore, the reformers went for bold innovations:
- Introduced the letter ў — to denote the second part of the diphthongs [au], [eu], [iau].
- Introduced the letter ô — for the diphthong [uo].
- Replaced the hard sign (ъ) with an apostrophe (') — to denote abbreviations or separate the prefix and root (for example: at'ioti).
- They abandoned letters not characteristic of Lithuanian phonetics: ы, ф, щ.
Where can you see this?
The letter «ў» was actively used in a number of publications of that time, which were printed at that time in Vilnius and Warsaw:
- «Абецеле жемайтишкай-лѣтувишка…» (Vilnius, 1864) — a primer created by S. Mikutsky.
- «Абецеле лѣтувишкай-русишка…» (Warsaw, 1865) — a variant prepared by Tomas Žilinskis. It also contained both «ў» and an apostrophe.
- «Пасака апе жувиника ир жувеле» (The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish) — a translation of Pushkin, which also used the new graphics.
- «Аўкщеўсес Указас апе Лементоришкас Мокслинийчес Каралистее Ленку» (Highest Decree on Public Schools in the Kingdom of Poland, Warsaw, 1864) — official documents were also printed using this letter.
Why did the experiment fail?
Despite the linguistic ingenuity of the creators, «Lithuanian Cyrillic» did not catch on. Lithuanians perceived it as an instrument of Russification and violence against their culture. Peasants called such books «police books», burned them or refused to buy them.
In response, a powerful movement of book smugglers arose, who smuggled books in Lithuanian in the usual Latin script from East Prussia (Little Lithuania). The resistance was so strong that in 1904 the Russian Empire was forced to lift the ban.
The letter «ў» disappeared from Lithuanian usage along with Cyrillic, but by that time it had already taken its place in the Belarusian alphabet, where it became an indispensable means of conveying the unique phonetics of the Belarusian language.
Did Belarusians borrow «ў» from Lithuanians?
The presence of the letter «ў» in Lithuanian books of the 1860s may suggest that Belarusians later simply adopted this sign. However, the facts indicate the opposite: the Belarusian «ў» developed independently and evolved from the Belarusian Latin alphabet.
The need for a separate letter for the sound [w] (non-syllabic u) has long been brewing in the Belarusian language. The first recorded cases of using a special sign date back to the mid-19th century. Back in 1845, Gabriel Osowski used a prototype of the letter to convey the remarks of a Belarusian character in the novel «Mysterious Domino». In 1846, Jan Chechot in the brochure «Da milych mužyczkoú» denoted this sound as «ú». And ethnographer Alexander Rypinsky in books published in London in 1853-1854, already used specifically «ŭ».
As for Belarusian Cyrillic, «ў» appeared here no later than 1870. Russian researcher Pyotr Bessonov proposed the combination «u with breve» precisely as a correspondence to the already existing Latin «ŭ». In 1874, ethnographer Pavel Shein in the book «Belarusian Folk Songs» already consistently uses «ў» (for example: «a ўзяў вутку, заўтра раненька»).
Thus, the appearance of «ў» in the Belarusian alphabet is not a borrowing from «Lithuanian Cyrillic», but a logical result of transferring to Cyrillic the graphic tradition that had already developed in the Belarusian Latin alphabet in the mid-19th century. The Lithuanian and Belarusian projects in this sense developed in parallel, solving similar phonetic problems.
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