“The Power of the Living Word”: 100 years of Alexander Zhovtis

April 5, 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the literary critic and translator, Doctor of Philology, Professor of the International PEN Club Alexander Zhovtis.

Alexander is a researcher of the theory of versification and poetics of Taras Shevchenko, the author of more than 30 fundamental works in various philological areas. In 1942 the family was evacuated to Alma-Ata. Remaining in Kazakhstan, in subsequent years he made a significant contribution to the development of Kazakh literary criticism. It was he who was one of the first to translate the poems of the disgraced Kazakh poet Magzhan Zhumabaev, and for friendly relations with the writer Yuri Dombrovsky he was fired for political reasons. In 1956 he began to seriously study the theory of verse, in 1971 his work was published in the Brief Literary Encyclopedia about verse libre, which almost all literary critics began to perceive as a concept. He translated several hundred Ukrainian folk songs into Russian, translated from Ukrainian, Kazakh, Korean, English into Russian.

On this day, undergraduates and teachers of the EP “Russian Language and Literature” held an event dedicated to the anniversary of A.L. Zhovtis.

The biography of Alexander Zhovtis was introduced to the participants by Daria Dedova, a 1st year undergraduate student of the program “Russian Language and Literature”.

The main creative moments of Alexander Zhovtis’s life were introduced to the participants of the event by Milena Khalygova, a 2nd year master’s student of the program “Russian Language and Literature”.

The event was prepared and held under the guidance of Tatyana Levina, Associate Professor of the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology, under the technical support of the Senior Lecturer Natalya Moshenskaya and Daria Ryabischenko, a student of the EP “Journalism”.

Thank you for your cooperation and we wish you creative success!

Department of Pedagogy and Psychology