International Translation Day
понедельник 30 сентября 2024, 15:44
 Photo: by the book History of Ural Federal University Library in reports, memoirs, and publications |
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On September 30, the world celebrates International Translation Day as a tribute to the language experts whose work plays an important role in bringing nations together, in promoting understanding, and in transposing scientific and cultural heritage. UrFU Library has many items in translation as an academic category, in academic writing. But today we would like to focus on the fact that library has always been attracting specialists having excellent command of English and other languages, and contributing into development of a dialogue with international students. One of such unique specialists was Olga Mikhailovna Vesyolkina (1873-1949), a woman whose life was shrouded with mysteries and legends and could have become a basis for a captivating series. She was known as a kinswoman of Lermontov and Stolypin, the last head of Imperial Alexander (Tsarskoye Selo) Lyceum, she attended lectures at the Sorbonne, perfectly spoke English, German and French. She was called “the maid of honor from Sverdlovsk”. In 1923 she was exiled to Sverdlovsk for three years, but then decided to stay there voluntarily. From 1929 Olga Vesyolkina was a chief librarian at the Library of Ural Industrial Institute. She was succeeded in cataloguing rare books in foreign languages since no one before knew foreign languages. Vesyolkina founded and headed the regional courses in technical translators’ training. In 1930 she founded the department of foreign languages at the Ural Industrial Institute and headed it up to the end of her life in 1949. It is believed that the legendary Soviet intelligence agent Nikolay Kuznetsov was one of her students. She taught him not only German but good manners and etiquette as well. Another outstanding representative of the Library heads was Professor Ivan Alexeyevich Dergachev (1911-1991), one of the founders of the philological faculty at the Ural State University and the founder of the academic school “Russian literature: national development and regional features”. Returning from the Great Patriotic war in 1945 he became Library Director at the Ural Polytechnic Institute and parallel he initiated teaching Russian language to the university international students (in fact, the today course “Russian as a foreign language”). From 1955 onwards his life was inseparably related with the Ural State University. And the today Library team of translators do continue the long-time traditions. Author & translator: Natalia Krasnogor
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