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[ONE OF THE FIRST UKRAINIAN PRIMERS] Ukrains’ka abetka [i.e. Ukrainian alphabet]

Hatsyuk, Mykola

Item #2343

Moscow: University Press, 1861. [censor approval - 7th of March, 1860]. VI, 117 p.: ills in text and one full-page frontispiece with verse. 20 х 15,5 cm. Paper wrappers, modern protective case. Owner’s period inscription on the frontispiece verso and on the title page (faded). Pale water stain on the top right corner of the block, going through the block. Very good condition for a primer.

First edition. Very rare. The only copy in US is located at Harvard University. The edition opens with the woodcut image of the Zaporizhia Cossack resting under a tree, with the four line verse on his fate printed underneath.

Mykola Gatsuk (1823-unknown) was an Odesa-born Ukrainian folklorist, linguist and writer. He published the collections “Harvest of the Native Field” (1857), featuring Ukrainian songs, ballads, proverbs, and sayings, and “Nine Strings of the Ukrainian Bandura” (1863), which presents Ukrainian songs with musical notation. In this primer, he has included a great deal of folklore as well: such as Ukrainian ballads about Hvesko Hanzha Andiber, another one on the death of a Cossack bandurist and other ballads along with Ukrainian proverbs, sayings and carols.
However, the main importance of this book is in the fact that it’s one of the first attempts to standardize Ukrainian language.

Active attempts to do that began immediately after the publication of Ivan Kotlyarevsky's Aeneid (1798) and continued until the infamous "Emsky Decree" of 1876, which, among other things, imposed a government ban on printing in Ukrainian alphabet, instead of which it was necessary to use exclusively the so-called "yarizhka" - an alphabet based on Russian.

Mykola Hatsyuk produced two spelling variants: one based on pre-revolutionary Russian spelling, the second based on the ustav - the written Church Slavonic Cyrillic alphabet. In order to reflect the various dialectical nuances of the Ukrainian language, Gatsuk streamlined the use of diacritics. Gatsuk's spelling (gatsukovka) did not become widespread, but it is to him that modern Ukrainian orthography is based, thanks to the restoration of the ancient paerik - the current apostrophe. With that one can argue, that modern Ukrainian took more from Hatsyuk’s system, than from Kulish’s ‘kulishovka’, that viewed as a rival spelling form at the time. Taras Shevchenko’s primer came out later the same year (1861), it was intended for use in schools and had 24 pages.
It was not before in 1908–1909, B. Grinchenko’s “Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language” was published, completing the formation of the Ukrainian alphabet and its graphics in their modern form.

Price: $15,000.00