S.P. OBNORSKY ON THE PROBLEMS OF NORMALIZATION OF THE ORTHOGRAPHIES OF THE POST-REFORM PERIOD (1917–1956)

The regulation characteristic of various spheres of social and industrial life of the Soviet state was reflected in the desire to create a generally binding spelling standard, in the development of which S.P. Obnorsky takes an active part. The article examines the scientist's views on the problem of normalization of spelling in the period after the reform of 1917–1918, the need for which is mentioned in a number of his works, clarifies the corpus of unstable spellings, and analyzes the causes of inconsistency and general disorder of writing. The most difficult to normalize is the spelling of o/e after hissing consonants under stress, where it seems appropriate to regulate the use of the letter ё. Of particular concern is the unjustified growth of the corpus of merged spellings of the adverbial character, which led to the appearance of "monstrous" quasi-words. S.P. Obnorsky points out the failure of the requirements of the new simplification of spelling in order to "deepen" the results of the past reform, notes the danger of spontaneous attempts by central and regional publishers to independently regulate post-reform practice, emphasizing the fundamental importance of scientific, academic resolution of all controversial spelling issues, while relying on the morphological "base" of Russian spelling defined as a "healthy social" principle of normalization. Among the most important points of ordering disputed spellings attention to the historical past of the language, awareness of the mobility of spelling norms, taking into account the facts of written sources of different genres of the previous fifty years, the rejection of variable spellings and personal spelling habits are also called.