On the Day of Russian Science, 8 February, the Department of General Linguistics and Stylistics celebrated its 50th anniversary. The event was attended by current and former employees, students, friends of the department, and colleagues.
The department received congratulations from two deans, Zhanna Grachova, Dean of the Faculty of Philology, and Olga Boriskina, Dean of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology. Zhanna Gracheva talked about the role of the department at the faculty, recalled her teachers, Professor Zinaida Popova, Professor Iosif Sternin, and Associate Professor Anastasia Lapotko. Olga Boriskina congratulated the department on its 50th anniversary, talked about close ties between the Department of General Linguistics and Stylistics and the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology, and expressed hope for further cooperation between the faculties.
Employees of the department, associate professors Natalia Kozelskaya, Galina Selezneva, Alexandra Rudakova, Maria Salomatina, and senior lecturer Nadezhda Akovantseva, PhDs in Philology, presented the history of the department.
The Department of General Linguistics and Stylistics was established in 1973 by Professor Zinaida D. Popova, PhD in Philology, who headed the department from the day of its foundation up to 1995. From 1995 to 2014, the department was headed by Professor Iosif Sternin, between 2014 and 2022 Professor Olga Charykova was the head of the department, now the head of the department is Associate Professor Alexandra Rudakova, PhD in Philology.
A great contribution to the scientific work of the department and the training of students was made by the authors of numerous scientific works who worked at the department for a long time: Professor Inna Chernukhina, a prominent specialist in the field of linguistics of literary text; Professor Tatiana Kolosova, a well-known researcher of Russian syntax; Professor Natalia Vakhtel, a specialist in the theory of language, persuasion arts, and dramatic reading; and Associate Professor Anastasia Lapotko, a specialist in the theory and practice of editing literary texts. Professors Gennady Kovalev, Alexey Kretov, and Anatoly Lomov started their scientific career at the department, Professor Viktor Koprov, Marina Sternina, Anatoly Babushkin, Valentina Toporova, Zinaida Fomina, and others defended their DSc dissertations.
Former employees of the Department of General Linguistics and Stylistics gave speeches during the celebration: professors Gennady Kovalev, Alexey Kretov, Natalia Vakhtel, associate professors Ludmila Sandler, Anna Shishlyannikova, and Larisa Rybacheva.
The congratulatory speech of Professor Anatoly Babushkin was in a form of a poem.
The department was congratulated by colleagues: the heads of the departments of the Faculty of Philology, Professor Olga Berdnikova, Marina Panova, and Sergey Churikov, as well as colleagues from other universities in Voronezh and beyond: Elena Maklakova, Professor at the Department of Foreign Languages of Morozov Voronezh State Forest Engineering University; Galina Zavarzina, Head of the Department of Russian Language, Modern Russian and Foreign Literature of Voronezh State Pedagogical University; Anna Stebletsova, Head of the Department of Foreign Languages of Burdenko Voronezh State Medical University; and Olga Polyanskaya, Head of the Department of Reading Halls of the Nikitin Regional Scientific Library.
The department also received congratulations from: Natalia Ufimtseva, Professor at the Department of General and Comparative and Historical Linguistics at the Faculty of Philology of Lomonosov Moscow State University; editorial staff of the journal “Issues of Psycholinguistics”, staff of the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language of South Ural State University, staff of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of Omsk State University, staff of the Department of Theory of Language, Translation, and French Philology of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and International Communication of Tver State University, staff of the Department of Theory of English Language and Translation Studies of Bryansk State University; staff of the Department of Social Studies and Humanities of Borisoglebsk Branch of VSU, and staff of the Faculty of Philology and Communication of Demidov Yaroslavl State University.
The anniversary meeting ended with a performance and singing of the anthem of the Department of General Linguistics and Stylistics based on the song “Team of our Youth”.
