Movoznavstvo

Movoznavstvo [«Мовознавство»; Linguistics]. A nonperiodical journal initially published in Kyiv from 1934 to 1939 (14 issues) by the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Its editors were Naum Kahanovych (until 1937) and Mykhailo Kalynovych. Movoznavstvo was an instrument of the Party: it published articles denouncing ‘linguists-purists’ (Serhii Smerechynsky, Olena Kurylo, Dmytro Sheludko), rejecting the terminological dictionaries of the Institute of the Ukrainian Scientific Language, and attacking Ivan Ohiienko’s Ridna mova. New terminological material appearing in the journal was edited to promote Russification, and Nikolai Marr’s Japhetic theories on language were applied to the Ukrainian language. Yet some articles on word formation, the dialects of the Chernihiv region, the Kyiv region, and eastern Podilia, and particularly Leonid Bulakhovsky’s studies on accentology have made important contributions to linguistics.

From 1941 to 1963 a similar nonperiodical journal, Naukovi zapysky: Movoznavstvo, was published by the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. The editors were Leonid Bulakhovsky (until 1961, 16 issues) and Ivan Bilodid (1962–3, nos 17–18). After Bulakhovsky’s death the journal reverted to a predominantly political-propagandistic character.

Since January 1967, a new Movoznavstvo has been published bimonthly in Kyiv, initially by the Division of Literature, Languages, and Art Scholarship of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, and now by the Institute of Linguistics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The journal publishes articles dealing with the issues of general and comparative linguistics as well as such areas as dialectology, etymology, grammar, lexicology, lexicography, linguistic geography, onomastics, stylistics, and syntax. Its editors have been Ivan Bilodid (1967–82), Vitalii Rusanivsky (1982–8), and Oleksander Melnychuk (1988–96), and Vitalii Skliarenko (1996–).

Jacob Hursky

[This article was updated in 2017.]