Spelling Commission of Russian Academy of Sciences agrees to capitalize 'Holocaust'
14.03.2023
Professor Aleksei Shmelev, chairman of the Spelling Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), believes that the practice of capitalizing the word "Holocaust" should be taken into account in academic reference publications and responses from information services. Mr. Shmelev expressed this position in a letter to the Russian Jewish Congress (RJC), which was distributed by the press service of the organization.
Alexey Shmelev—Photo: From the personal archive of the authors
“In official documents, this word is written almost exclusively with a capital letter. It seems that this practice should be taken into account in academic reference publications and in the responses of reference services, including the Reference Service of the Institute of the Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences,” Mr. Shmelev said in response to the relevant appeal of the Russian Jewish Congress.
The professor also pointed out that earlier in Russian the terms “Catastrophe” and “Shoah” were used to describe the tragedy of the Jewish people (both were written with a capital letter). At the same time, according to the scientist, the word "Catastrophe" in this context "belittles the meaning of evil will, presenting the event as a kind of natural disaster", and the word "Shoah" is alien to the norms of Russian phonetics. “That's why the word ''Holocaust'' can now be considered the main and stylistically neutral designation,” Mr. Shmelev summed up.
The RJC made a proposal to clarify the spelling of the word "Holocaust" on 9 March. The organization explained that the word means "a specific historical tragedy, genocide on a national basis of the Jewish people", which killed 6 million people.