The formation of the Polesian literary language itself began in 1988 thanks to the efforts of the philologist and poet
Nikolai Shelyagovich. Then the social and cultural association "
Polesie"
(Полісьсе) was created and the development of a written norm of a special Polesian ("Yotvingian" in the terminology of Shelyagovich and his supporters) language began. In 1990, a constituent conference was held, at which various ethnographic and linguistic problems of Polesia were discussed, and, in particular, the creation of a written Polesian language. In the newly created literary language in 1988–1990, several inserts with the title "Балесы Полісся" (Pages of Polesia) were published in the Belarusian newspaper "Чырвоная змена" (Chyrvonaja Zmena), several rotary issues of the "information bulletin" (small newspaper) "Zbudinne" ("Awakening"). In 1990–1995, the newspaper "Zbudinne" was published every 2 weeks, was widely sold in newsstands in the
Brest Region and in
Minsk, and one could subscribe to it. The circulation of the newspaper averaged about 2-2.5 thousand copies. Also in this language were written several theses for the Yotvingian (Polesian) scientific-practical conference, held in Pinsk on April 13–14, 1990. The rest of the abstracts were written in Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian. In 1992, a book of chess miniatures "Jitveža Šaxova mynjatjura" was published in the Western Polesian language in Shelyagovich's version. ==Orthography==