MONOCULTURE | A Recent History

Krasnaya Niva was an illustrated Soviet-era magazine, published weekly from 1923 until 1931 as a supplement to the Izvestia newspaper. The title literally translates  to Red Crop Field, but the word 'niva' can also refer to fertile land. The subject of this particular issue is ‘cultural revolution’ in Soviet Central Asia – a policy that was aimed at radical transformation of national culture and social life. In Central Asia, North Caucasus and Azerbaijan, it implied some major language reforms, one of which was the so-called Latinisation Campaign. In the frameworks of this campaign, held during the 1920s-1930s, national alphabets and traditional writing systems were replaced with a Latin-script based uniform Turkic alphabet.The reason for such standardisation of languages across the Soviet republics was not only the urgent need to “educate the masses”. This new alphabet was also supposed to eliminate the lingering prejudices and religious superstitions, which were regarded as the consequences of the influence of traditional Islamic culture. The Latinisation campaign was deeply connected with the process of liberation of women in the East, as well as with the Bolshevik fight against religions.