Ridna mova

Ridna mova («Рідна мова»; Native Language). A popular monthly journal published in Warsaw in 1933–6 and then Zhovkva to 1939 (a total of 94 issues). Edited by Ivan Ohiienko, it was devoted to standardizing Ukrainian orthography and grammar and advocated the adoption of the academic ‘Kharkiv orthography’ of 1927 by Ukrainians outside the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It published articles on the language of contemporary Ukrainian writers, etymology, word formation, phraseology, syntax, and dialectology, and a separate book series. In response to its harsh criticism of Russification policies in Soviet Ukraine, the journal was attacked by the Kyiv linguistic journal Movoznavstvo. Ridna mova was also reproached by some Western Ukrainians for its purism.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]