Published on: 2026-06-10
Source: Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University of Peter the Great –
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At the Humanities Institute of SPbPU, the Ludmila Alekseevna Verbitskaya Language Laboratory was opened — named after an outstanding scientist and public figure. The event took place as part of the activities dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Ludmila Alekseevna’s birth.
The opening ceremony of the laboratory was attended by the rector of SPbPU Andrey Rudskoy, the vice-rector for educational activities Lyudmila Pankova, the director of the Humanities Institute Natalia Chicherina, representatives of the university administration, teachers and students of the Humanities Institute, as well as the pupils of Lyudmila Alekseevna Verbitskaya.
Our Humanities Institute continues the philological traditions established by Lyudmila Alekseevna, so the creation of a Language Laboratory is a logical continuation of the work that is conducted daily by the scientists and staff of the Polytechnic. The new space will become a platform for studying languages, developing speech and communicative competencies, conducting practical classes, and organizing scientific and educational events. I am confident that the laboratory will be a place of attraction for everyone for whom the path of the “Russian speech, the great Russian word” is dear,” noted the Rector of the Polytechnic, Andrey Rudskoy.
Lyudmila Alekseevna Verbitskaya (1936-2019) — a teacher, organizer of higher education, and public figure whose professional activity had a significant impact on the development of domestic Russian studies, university education, and Russia’s language policy. Lyudmila Alekseevna’s childhood fell on the years of blockade and post-war repressions. After returning to her native Leningrad, she enrolled in the philological faculty of LGU.Having progressed from laboratory assistant to professor of the phonetics department, she defended her candidate dissertation in 1965 and her doctoral dissertation in 1977, becoming one of the leading specialists in the field of phonetics and the culture of Russian speech. Over the years of her scientific activity, she has published about 300 scientific works.
In 1994, Lyudmila Alekseevna made history as the first woman rector of Saint Petersburg State University, leading the university until 2008, and then serving as president of SPbSU. During her leadership, the university achieved significant development: new training programs were opened, including faculties of international relations and medicine. She made a considerable contribution to the development of language policy and the popularization of the Russian language. Lyudmila Alekseevna’s professional merits received wide international recognition.In 2001, she was awarded the title of honorary doctor of the Saint Petersburg State Polytechnic University of Peter the Great.
Lyudmila Alekseevna Verbitskaya left behind not only a significant scientific legacy but also formed an educational guideline based on the understanding of the university as a space for the formation of culture, personality, and intellectual development of society.
A special moment of the opening ceremony of the L.A. Verbitskaya laboratory was the speeches by colleagues and students of Lyudmila Alekseevna. Among them were professors Polina Krundysheva, Anna Krundysheva, and Sofya Krasnoshchekova.
Lyudmila Alekseevna Verbitskaya was an outstanding personality of planetary scale! She was not only a great linguist, but also a great methodologist, one of the founders of the methodology of teaching the Russian language as a foreign language. At our Polytechnic University, this specialty is now being taught, and colleagues who studied under Lyudmila Alekseevna work in this program. She taught us how to teach foreign students Russian phonetics.During the lessons, she brought a tape recorder with recordings of foreigners reading various texts in Russian, and we had to determine which language was native to them, recalls Associate Professor Mikhail Krundyshev of the Higher School of Linguistics and Pedagogy at SPbPU.
A warm message from the Verbitsky family was conveyed by Viktoria Verbitskaya, daughter of Lyudmila Alekseevna. It contains words of gratitude for preserving the memory of Lyudmila Alekseevna and her scientific legacy.
Lyudmila Alekseevna Verbitskaya is a world-class scientist and an unquestionable leader of the domestic linguistic school, whose scientific ideas and professional principles have determined the development in the study of the Russian language. For the Humanities Institute, it is especially important that the linguistic laboratory becomes a continuation of her scientific and pedagogical values: attentive attitude to the word, the culture of speech, and deep understanding of language as a living system. Here, these principles will not only be preserved but also developed in work with students and young researchers,” noted the director of the Humanities Institute, Natalya Chicherina.
At the end of the ceremony, laureates of the L.A. Verbitskaya International Creative Competition performed — foreign students of the Humanities Institute: Zhang Xinyue, Lyu Aide, and Berdieva Aisoltan. And the reading of poems about Russia in Russian became a living confirmation that language truly unites people and cultures.
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