Lyudmila Alekseevna Verbitskaya: The “Ukrainian Start” of the Russian Philologist

Abstract

The activities of the prominent Russian organizer of science, scientist, and teacher of higher education, Lyudmila Alekseevna Verbitskaya (Bubnova), are extremely relevant. Studying of her experience allows us to form an effective work algorithm for our contemporary seeking to make a personal contribution to the development of national science and education. To conduct the study, the authors have used such methods as analysis, synthesis, generalization, comparison, as well as a number of purely historical methods: historical-systemic, comparative, retrospective. The publication is to analyze the previously unpublished documents from the archive of the Ivan Franko Lviv State University on Lyudmila Bubnova’s stay in the Lviv Children’s Labour Colony, where criminals and children of repressed Soviet citizens were kept together. Lyudmila Alekseevna Verbitskaya is a famous Russian philologist and organizer of science, the only female rector in the history of the St. Petersburg State University. Lyudmila Alekseevna began her career in Ukraine, being admitted to the Ivan Franko Lviv State University from the Lviv Children's Labor Colony, where she was kept as the daughter of an “enemy of the people.” The article is based on unique archival documents that permit to analyze the initial formation of the future philologist; among them L. A. Bubnova’s handwritten autobiography (1953), petition of the head of the department of children's colonies of the Lviv region, Major Chumakov, to the rector of the Ivan Franko Lviv State University for her admission to the faculty of philology (department of Russian philology), L. Bubnova's texts in Russian and Ukrainian written for entrance examination in the university, documentary data on her grades at entrance examination in Russian language and literature, Ukrainian language, history of the USSR, geography, and foreign language. Of interest is her personal data sheet, her academic certificate for the first year at the university with results of 8 exams and tests in the first semester and 12 tests and exams in the second semester, as well as her coursework. The authors conclude that the “Lviv period” in her life and education gave L. A. Verbitskaya (Bubnova) a launching pad for her future scientific and administrative career.