19th-century spelling in modern texts

[Margaret Samu]

Dear Colleagues,

Is there a standard for transcribing 19th-century spelling (in LC
transliteration)? Do you modernize it, or leave is as it is? I need to know
what the standard is for the endnotes of essays that cite 19th-century texts
and titles.

For example, do you keep the plural adjective -yia in "Khudozhestvennyia
pis'ma," and the masculine genitive adjectives "khudozhestvennago"
and "literaturnago"--or do you use current standard spellings? What about
hard signs?

My instinct is to modernize the spelling (charming as it is!), especially
because all the hard signs at the end of words would be impossible to
distinguish from quotation marks, and the various letters for i and e are
indistinguishable from one another due to lack of Latin equivalents.

Any advice would be most welcome!

Margaret

=========================
Margaret Samu
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dept of 19th-Century, Modern and Contemporary Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY  10028-0198
212-396-5308

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