On the evolution of graphic styles of Siberian documents written in the XVIII to the XX centuries

The article studies the issue of using abbreviation as an integral part of verbal culture. It looks at different types of abbreviation such as writing words under titles and introducing ascenders/descenders in the text. Through the example of Siberian manuscripts of the XVIII to the XX centuries, it is shown that abbreviation was turned to regardless of the scribe's social status, education or language and of the type of texts being rewritten. Some hypotheses are made as to the sources of this phenomenon. First, this could be the case as a result of home education or of the presence, among the books read, of both civil press books and books of the Cyrillic tradition. Thus, there was no momentary substitution of the Cyrillic tradition by civil reading conventions - instead, it was a lengthy process which is in fact under-researched. Second, it has already been hypothesised before that for the majority of the population in the Russian Empire during the period in question, the Church Slavonic language was more understandable than the language of Russian classical literature, and the documents studied by the author indirectly prove this. The research results achieved allow explore everyday reading and writing practices of the Siberians in order to reconstruct their reading habits and to study their verbal culture.

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