The secret decree of Ems Ukaz, issued by Russian Tsar Alexander II in the German city of Bad Ems, was aimed at stopping the printing and distribution of Ukrainian-language publications in the Russian Empire.

The Ems Ukaz or Ems Ukase, was an internal decree (ukaz) of Emperor Alexander II of Russia issued on 30 May [O.S. 18 May] 1876 banning the use of the Ukrainian language in print except for reprinting old documents. The ukaz also forbade the import of Ukrainian publications and the staging of plays or lectures in Ukrainian. It was named after the city of Bad Ems, Germany, where it was promulgated. The decree limited the development of the Ukrainian language in the Russian Empire, however it was not fully effective and publishing and importation of Ukrainian-language media continued in a limited way.

Alexander II was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 2 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881. Alexander's most significant reform as emperor was the emancipation of Russia's serfs in 1861, for which he is known as Alexander the Liberator.

Bad Ems is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Rhein-Lahn rural district and is well known as a spa on the river Lahn. Bad Ems was the seat of Bad Ems collective municipality, which has been merged into the Bad Ems-Nassau collective municipality. The town has around 9,000 inhabitants.

Ukrainian is an East Slavic language, spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the first (native) language of a large majority of Ukrainians.

The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about 22,800,000 km² (8,800,000 sq mi), roughly one-sixth of the world's landmass, making it the third-largest empire in history, behind only the British and Mongol empires. It also colonized Alaska between 1799 and 1867. The empire's 1897 census, the only one it conducted, found a population of 125.6 million with considerable ethnic, linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic diversity.