Abstract

The author examines Soviet language policy in 1930s Abkhazia, arguing that centrally planned “language fusion” used orthographic reform to assimilate minority tongues into dominant scripts. Drawing on archival sources from Moscow, Tbilisi, and Sukhumi, the study reconstructs successive orthographic reforms in 1930s Abkhazia – first Niko Mari’s analytic script, then a Latinised orthography promoted by Soviet linguists, and finally the imposition of Georgian Mkhedruli – and demonstrates how each change functioned as a politically driven instrument of administrative and cultural consolidation. The research links technocratic reforms to social consequences – disrupted vernacular transmission, local tensions, and altered political belonging – and situates the Abkhaz case within broader debates on imperial modernity and Soviet centre-periphery strategies.