The SSU eldest professor, a linguist, a world-class scholar Olga Sirotinina celebrates 100th anniversary.
On June 27, Olga Sirotinina turns 100 years old, she is not much younger than her alma mater, Saratov State University, which is already 113.
With special enthusiasm, awe, and delight, the SSU staff congratulates a legendary professor and researcher of the Russian language, the Queen of syntax, dialectology, phonetics, morphology, and rhetoric on the unique anniversary!
Olga Sirotinina, a linguist known in many countries of the world, has been working at Saratov State University for 75 years! She started teaching the history of the Russian language in 1948, immediately after finishing her postgraduate course.
Today, Olga Sirotinina has Terminal degree in the Russian Language, Professor of the Department of the Russian Language, Speech Communication, and Russian as a Foreign Language, the Institute of Philology and Journalism, Saratov State University. She is Honoured Scholar of the Russian Federation, Honoured Professor of SSU, Honourary Worker of Education, has been awarded with the medal of the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature, medals of many universities, the Order of Friendship, and the Badge of the Governor of Saratov Region.
In academic reference books, she is called the creator and head of the Saratov Linguistic School. Her research interests include dialects, colloquial speech, text problems, media languageб and speech culture. She is the author of more than 800 research papers and still demonstrates an example of creative longevity: recently, under her editorship, there was published a collective monography Communication Effectiveness: How Communication Spheres Influence its Positive and Negative Factors, as well as a monography The Dynamics of the Norms of the Russian Language: Responding to the New Challenges and Environment, co-authored with Professor Anna Degaltseva.
Having lived for a century, she has done a great job in a variety of scientific positions: for 20 years she chaired the Department of the Russian Language, was the author and editor of the research collections Stylistics Issues, Issues of Speech Communication, as well as many collective monographies and textbooks on the Russian language and culture of speech. In 1995, calling for the purity of the Russian language there was established the First Russian Language Council under the Russian President and as its offshoots – the Institutes of the Russian language. For the entire Volga Region, Olga Sirotinina was approved as the director of such an institute, and, therefore, a member of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation.
For many years, Olga Sirotinina has worked as Deputy Chair of the Academic Council. 58 candidate's and 17 doctoral dissertations were presented personally under her leadership. She has always been an exclusive and in-demand specialist, by invitation she taught courses at universities in Kalmykia, Volgograd, Ivanovo, Samara, Chelyabinsk, Yakutsk, and other cities in the country. At one time, several thousand books from her personal library were donated to Volgograd State University on the day of its opening.
As a unique specialist in oral speech, the text and language of the media, she has been hosting the Service of the Russian Language show on local radio for many years and still does not part with a notebook where she writes down the passages of television or radio commentators.
Olga Sirotinina's whole life is overcoming. She has proved by her own example that a person is the master of his destiny. The reader of her autobiographical book, Life In Spite of, or I am a Happy Person, can easily show this – an expanded edition has recently been published for the anniversary of the author.
Despite poor health and frequent “sentences” of doctors, she has always remained a real workaholic. It is proved by ten years in dialectological expeditions and countless experiments making colleagues listen to colloquial speech anew! For reliable conclusions, Olga Sirotinina has considered it necessary to study the speech of different people. The results of these studies sometimes have contradicted with generally accepted theories, but she has steadfastly and confidently held the blow of opponents. How many different “language concepts” have had to go through in her lifetime! She has always gone along her own way, never recognised the conclusions that were “adjusted” to the theory. And, according to her, the task of linguistics is primarily in identifying the diversity and richness of forms of speech, looking for an explanation for each new fact and coming to a theory, rather than going from it.
Today, she is still worried about the Russian language. And we are worried about Olga Sirotinina. We hope she will confidently step into her new century! Professor Olga Sirotinina, we are calm and happy beside you! We wish you cordiality, good health, and reliable assistants!
