Day of the letter "Y"

Birthdays are celebrated not only by people, but also by the letters of the Russian alphabet "Yo", one of the youngest letters, appeared relatively recently - in 1783 The initiator of its introduction into use at a meeting of the Russian Academy dedicated to the project of an explanatory dictionary was ER Dashkova The princess drew attention to the fact that the sound “ё” is conveyed in writing by two letters “io”, which is not correct The initiative of Catherine II's favorite was supported by the famous poet GR Derzhavin, playwright DI Fonvizin, linguist II Lepyokhin and other academicians The date of the meeting, November 29, became the birthday of the letter “e” The innovation was offered to be evaluated by Metropolitan Gabriel of St Petersburg and Novgorod, a member of the Academy Despite his approval, the new letter was not accepted by the majority of the population of Imperial Russia for a long time It was believed that only commoners and the mob use “e” in their speech, while cultured and noble people should speak “e” in the church manner Opponents of the use of letters were the poets AP Sumarokov and VK Trediakovsky In 1784, the new letter received official recognition - G Derzhavin and other members of the Academy began to use it in personal correspondence However, in the printing house at Moscow University, the first stencil for transferring letters on letters was made only in 1795 The use of the symbol was associated with some difficulties due to its greater height than the standard one The letter “ё” for writing the words “everything”, “light” and others began to be used in the collection of stories “My Trinkets” by II Dmitriev A year later, it will appear in N Karamzin’s book of poems “Anodes” The poet used the letter in the words “dawn”, “flowed”, “eagle”, “moth” and “tears” The letter took its place in the alphabet in the 1860s on the initiative of VI Dahl, who placed it next to “e” in the first edition of the explanatory dictionary But LN Tolstoy made “е” the 31st letter in his “New ABC” The Great Soviet Encyclopedia erroneously attributes the authorship of “yo” to N Karamzin The poet did not invent it, but used it when writing poetry However, for some reason Karamzin did not consider it necessary to write words with “e” in his scientific works - for example, in “History of the Russian State” The controversial letter was recognized as “desirable, but not obligatory” in 1912 by the Spelling Commission of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, and in 1918 by the People’s Commissar of Education A Lunocharsky And only in 1942, on the initiative of the RSFSR Commissioner V Potemkin, it became mandatory for schoolchildren to use the letter “e” in writing At the same time, she was assigned 7th place in the alphabet Despite the frequent replacement of “ё” with “e” in printed publications, there are requirements for compliance with the rules and use of the symbol with two dots in school textbooks, when writing proper names in documents issued to citizens by executive authorities The path of the letter from the moment of its appearance throughout its existence was quite difficult Apparently, out of a desire to pay tribute to this ambiguous symbol, a funny holiday was established on November 29 - the Day of the letter "e"