After 1876, the use of yaryzhka became mandatory due to the ban on the use of the Ukrainian language in the Russian Empire under the Ems Decree of 1876, which banned the use of the Ukrainian language in all areas, including the use of a separate Ukrainian orthography and a separate Ukrainian alphabet, in writing and printing. Censorship in the Russian Empire allowed the publication of only texts written or printed in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet of the period of Russian pre-revolutionary spelling.