The Ukrainian orthography of 1928 (Ukrainian: Український правопис 1928 року, romanized: Ukrainskyi pravopys 1928 roku), also Kharkiv orthography (Ukrainian: Харківський правопис, romanized: Kharkivskyi pravopys) is the Ukrainian orthography of the Ukrainian language, adopted in 1927 by voting at the All-Ukrainian spelling conference, which took place in the then capital of the Ukrainian SSR, in the city of Kharkiv, with the participation of representatives of Ukrainian lands, which were then part of different states.
Mykola Skrypnyk, the People's Commissar for Education, officially approved the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 on 6 September 1928, which is why this orthography is also called Orthography of Skrypnyk (Ukrainian: Право́пис Скри́пника, romanized: Pravopys Skrypnyka), or Skrypnykivka (Ukrainian: Скрипникі́вка). The main linguist-ideologist of this orthography was Hryhorii Holoskevych, who compiled and published in 1929 the Orthographic Dictionary, which in practice showed all the innovations of the new orthography of 1928, so this orthography is sometimes called Orthography of Holoskevych (Ukrainian: Право́пис Голоске́вича, romanized: Pravopys Holoskevycha). Already on 31 March 1929, it was approved by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, and on 29 May by the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv, Republic of Poland. The compilers of the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 were well-known Ukrainian linguists, most of whom were later repressed and their careers destroyed by the Stalinist regime, such as Ahatanhel Krymskyi, Leonid Bulakhovskyi, Olena Kurylo, Oleksa Syniavskyi, Yevhen Tymchenko, Mykola Hrunskyi, Vsevolod Hantsov, Mykola Nakonechnyi, Hryhorii Holoskevych, Borys Tkachenko and others. Members of the spelling commission were such Ukrainian writers as Maik Yohansen, Serhii Yefremov, Mykola Khvyliovyi, Mykhailo Yalovyi and others.
Today, the Ukrainian orthography of 1928 is used by the Ukrainian diaspora in a large part of its publications, the most famous of which is the oldest Ukrainian-language magazine, Svoboda, which is still published. It has been used by some modern Ukrainian authors, literary editors, and Ukrainian linguists, including Iryna Farion,[1] Sviatoslav Karavanskyi, Oleksandr Ponomariv, and Mykola Zubkov, who are the most ardent defenders and propagandists of the Orthography of Kharkiv.
From 2000 to 2013, Ukrainian commercial television network STB TV used certain rules of this spelling together with the draft Ukrainian orthography of 1999 in the news program "Vikna".[2]
The press service of the All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom" uses the rules of Ukrainian orthography of 1928.