Guerrilla History - The Life and Times of Svetlana Grigorevna Ter-Minasova [From the Archives]

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

A very unusual episode, where returning guest-panelist Safine Hakamaki (Née Ashirova) co-hosts an interview with Henry of the esteemed Svetlana Grivorevna Ter-Minasova.  In this episode, Henry and Safie discuss the life of Professor Ter-Minasova, from her early childhood during WWII up through the present, where she continues to work as the Founding President of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies at Moscow State University!  During this oral-autobiography, we learn why she credits Joseph Stalin with saving her life, what it was like growing up during WWII and the immediate aftermath, and her career as the "Mother" of Soviet (and subsequently Russian) foreign language education.  We're sure you'll enjoy! Svetlana Grigorevna Ter-Minasova is the founder and President of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University, and retains a position as Professor Emeritus at the university.  She has been Chairperson of the Foreign Languages Teaching Council (part of the Ministry of Education) since 1987.  Among many other credits, she also has been the Founding President of both National Association of Applied Linguistics and National Association of Teachers of English.  Her book "Notes by a Soviet Dinosaur",  came out in 2015, and has been excerpted in East-West Review. Safie Hakamaki is a Russian linguist and foreign language educator.  You can follow her telegram channel @amusing_musings. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

Hello, guerrilla history listeners. This is co-host Henry, and today for you we have a very exciting and special episode from our archives. This episode was recorded over three and a half years ago, but has only been on our Patreon since that time. Now, a little bit of background information as to why it has only been on our Patreon for that long and why we are taking the step to actually release it to the public now. The episode that you're going to be hearing is titled The Life and Times of Svetlana Gregorievna Ternasov. Svetlana Grigovna is widely regarded as the mother of Soviet foreign language education and therefore as a result of being known as the mother of Soviet foreign language education is also known as the mother of Russian foreign language education.

She is the founder and president of the faculty of foreign languages and area studies at Lomonas of Moscow State University, which is the preeminent university in Russia in that field, as well as many other fields, Moscow State University, as my wife, who is going to be co-hosting this episode that you'll be listening to, it always reminds me Moscow State University is the most prestigious university or the best university in Russia. And I'm going to make this note up front for her in particular,

so that she knows I haven't forgotten. That being said, Svetlana Grigorovna also has been chairperson of the Foreign Language's Teaching Council, which is part of the Foreign Ministry of Education since 1987, and is still a professor emeritus at Lomonas of Moscow State University. She's written multiple books. She has authored numerous papers. There is a very interesting book, which listeners may find interesting, called Notes by a Soviet dinosaur, which is a bit of a memoir, and came out in 2015 and has been excerpted in East

West Review. In this episode, we talk about Svetlana Gregorovna's life and her work. Svetlana Grigorovna is, despite being rather advanced in years, is still a fascinating person to talk to, and she really did a terrific job in this episode, and I was very much looking forward to everyone hearing it. However, and here is the note as to why it has only been on our Patreon since it was originally recorded. This episode was recorded a couple of months before the launch of Russia's special operation in Ukraine, special military operation in Ukraine. This was originally slated to come out the week after the operation began.

Now, Sartlanda Gregorievna is a very sweet and kind person. As I mentioned, she is rather advanced in years, and I'm sure that you remember listeners, but the moment that the special operation began, even within left circles, even within anti-imperialist left circles, anything that had Russia or Russian connected to it was attacked viciously online and in many cases in person. I myself, despite not being Russian myself, I think everybody who is listening to, listening to this knows that I have been living in Russia for over four, about four and a half years now, I would say. Despite the fact that I'm not Russian, my Russian language level is not very high. Just because I was in Russia and living in Russia when the special military operation

kicked off, I lost numerous friends, lost contact with many professional contacts, and have been, I don't want to complain too much. because obviously this is not a terrible trauma for me personally compared to what other people have faced. But I have lost contact with a lot of people who were rather special to me in my life. And many of them have not come back into my orbit, have not reached back out, have continued to essentially shut me out. And this is despite the fact that, again, I'm not Russian. I had only been living in Russia for just over a year,

at that point when the special military operation got started. But nevertheless, that was the impact that I saw immediately, even amongst people whom I knew and considered to be friendly with. Whether or not we were friends is a different question, but certainly we were friendly. We also saw here in Russia that if people had contacts abroad, those contacts abroad cut ties with them or even denounced them publicly. We had many cases of violence against Russians, ordinary Russians.

We had new, I could go on and on about all of the things that were seen in the immediate aftermath of the launching of the special military operation. So in order to kind of shield Svetlana Gregorovna in that way, rather than putting the episode out the week after the special military operation began, which was about her life and work, in developing the Soviet foreign language education, we decided that we would put it on a Patreon first, and that shortly thereafter, we would release it on the general feed when things kind of settled down. Well, I think, as you know, listeners, things haven't fully settled down even yet.

But that being said, we did lose listeners as a result of me living, in Russia. I have been attacked about living in Russia. But by this point, more than three and a half years after the fact, those of you who are still listening and are listening to me talk far too long in this introduction, probably are not upset by the fact that I live in Russia, are not upset by the fact that I work in Russia and certainly aren't going to be upset that Svetlana Gregorovna is Russian. So we are going to now release this episode, which again was recorded I believe it was recorded in November of 2021.

So this was recorded almost exactly four years ago at this point. It might have been December. Now, that being said, I have one other small note. You're going to be hearing a guest host in this episode. That would be I announce her as Safi Ashirova. That was her maiden name. I'm sure many of the listeners know that Sepheneh is my wife. now we got married a couple months after we recorded this episode, but just to update you on,

you know, where she is and what she's doing. At the time, she had just finished her linguistics education at Loma Nas of Moscow State University, which is where she met Svetlana Gorgorovna. She was one of her students. And we announced her as such. So a Russian linguist, Russian literature, aficionado. It's a et cetera, et cetera. Since that time, in addition to us getting married, she also has completed advanced study and achieved advanced degrees in scholarships in foreign language teaching in the United States, where she studied, and then has now come back to Russia and is teaching foreign languages, primarily English these days. So just in case you are interested in what she is,

up to, you can follow her telegram channel. We announced in the episode that she had at Twitter, and I believe her Twitter still exists, but she does not use it. But you can follow her telegram channel, which is mostly about her experiences, her teaching, some of the research that she has done with regards to teaching of foreign languages and English in particular. You can follow that telegram channel at Amusing underscore. musings on telegram. Again, that's at amusing underscore musings. Most of those posts are written in

Russian, but as those of you who are on Telegram know, the translation, automatic translation feature works fairly well. So feel free to give her a follow there and be kind. So with that being said, and without further ado, I'm going to get into this episode, the life and times of Shetlanaggorovna Netarminasava. I hope you enjoy and look forward next week to a continuation of our African revolutions and decolonization series. You remember Den Van Boo? The same thing happened in Algeria. In Africa, they didn't have anything but a rank.

The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to a guerrilla history intelligence briefing. This intelligence briefing is going to be a little bit different than our usual. intelligence briefings. We have an excellent guest lined up and I have a guest host who listeners, I guess, are starting to get a little bit more familiar with by this point. So listeners, as you know, I'm one of the co-hosts of guerrilla history, Henry Hakemacki, and I'm joined with a co-host, Sophie Escherova, who is a Russian linguist. Hello, Sophie, nice to have you

on the microphone again. Hello, Henry. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Yeah, fine, thanks. Well, we have an excellent guest lined up, somebody who you suggested that we bring on. And perhaps you would like to say a few words of why we're bringing on this guest, because I know this is something that we're both very excited for. But we have Professor Svetlana Grigorovna Thermanavsova joining us. And we couldn't be happier to have her on. So, hello, professor. It's nice to have you on. I'm going to let Sophie talk briefly about why we're bringing you on.

and then we'll just start asking the questions that we have laid up for you. Hello, Henry, and hello, Stephanie. And I'm happy to meet you. Well, through the Internet or right, it's better than nothing. And I'm ready to answer your questions. Yeah, that's amazing. And I'm not going to be impartial here because I've been excited about this interview for months, to be honest. and I'm actually quite proud of the fact that I had the honor of listening to your lectures a couple years ago.

So, yeah, for me, that's a reason enough to bring Swetlander Gregorievna on. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So, Swetlana is a world-renowned linguist, and we're going to be talking not so much about linguistics during this conversation. Linguistics, of course, are going to play some role in this. We're hoping that a professor will come on to a future conversation to talk about that topic more specifically. But for this conversation, what we really are going to be doing is getting something of an autobiography of Professor Svetlana Gregorovna during the conversation.

Because to understand where Swetlana comes from when we're talking about her work and her story and the way that she views the world, it's very useful to have this biographical sketch. of her background. And what we're trying to do is help us understand that so that when we have that future conversation that's focused more on her work and her experiences, we have the understanding of where that comes from. So, Professor, I guess I'll open the interview with this first question, which is to say, you grew up in Moscow during the Great Patriotic War, or as it's called in most of the World War II, and as well as the immediate post-war era. You were born just before the war started. And this period took up essentially your entire childhood, of course. So it's going to have left an indelible impact on your life. So how did these events and the material

conditions that they imposed influence you and your worldview early on, talking about your childhood and your early, perhaps adolescence? And also, did you find there, do you find there to be any of the aspects that were, I guess you could say, imposed upon you from this period of your life, that you still carry with you and have carried with you throughout your life? Well, I was born in Moscow, and I was in Moscow when the war broke out. And I was almost three years old in 1941. one. Not quite. But, and so I was seven when the war was over, and I went to school. It was the first grade. And so my story, my wartime story, is the story of a, well, a child.

You know, but, and my, you will be probably shocked or surprised, but I was happy. because I suddenly became free. You know, my first three years, well, I was looked after my parents. They were very good parents. They were doting on me, and I was put to bed on time, and I was fed to on time, and so on and so forth.

So it was normal, normal life. But suddenly, my parents sort of disappeared from my life. My father was working in the railway business. You know, he was, and as you understand, during the war, railroads were instrumental because planes were only meant for war, for the war in those days. And all the transportation of soldiers, evacuation of people, everything was done through there.

So I never saw him because he was always busy. She also went to the front of him and did something mysterious. But I was beyond it. Suddenly I became free. I could do what I like. My mother was very frightened by the war. She was scared and she, I could do what. I had two friends whose parents also were real people

because it was the block of flats for the Ministry of Railway. And so we, two boys and me, we were the same age. I remember their names and surnames, and they were my best friends. Nobody called us back home. Nobody told us it's time to go to bed and so on and so forth. So we played non-stop outside. Our mothers were scared and were thinking about same. I had a sister who is 11 still half.

I have a sister who is 11 years old, and she was 14. And she was, every night, she was on duty. They were doing something with bombs, and you understand. They were even, her post was on the roof of our house, because bombs could get there. So we went to the shelter. In our block of flats, there was a place where we had to run if there was Moscow being born.

And so there we also had fun. Our mothers were very frightened and they were things. thinking about the older brothers and sisters who were outside, and we could do what we liked. So I suddenly became free. I was out much longer than I used to be and so on. So my impressions were strange. Well, there was no, we were not starting.

No, Moscow, we have some food. Of course, the food was different. And of course, the, let's think, when you are a child, It doesn't matter. Why, freedom, was much, meant much more to me than just that we don't have some feasts at home, so I'm afraid that you may be disappointed,

but that's my view. I was frightened only when the war was over. And we were in Moscow all the time. And when there was, that victory parade. And before that, German war prisoners marched, sort of, not marched,

but were driven. I don't know, I don't know. I'm afraid to use a wrong verb, you know, through Moscow. And very many people went out to see them. I was at home. I didn't want to go out.

And even we had a balcony, but I was afraid of them. And I even only kept through the curtain. I didn't even go out in the world because I remember still them. But to me, Germans were some sort of monsters who kill people, and I was afraid of them. And I remember very well the procession of German people. prisoners of war who

I was frightened and I of them and I was afraid of them well so after the war I went to school and the new life

again but of course there were many very many people in our class because many schools were ruined and we had no nothing.

They had no nothing. We had nothing. Sorry. We had nothing because well, the country was in the ruins and so books, textbooks, we were given one for three people, for three

children and we have to share it. So it was strange, but as we knew nothing else, so it was just more life to us. So, well, I'm afraid. You may be disappointed, but that's the war

through the eyes of a three-year-old child who was five-year-old then, and six-year. But even so, I still was, and my parents, my mother looked after me very well, and my father was always absent. But she swore away. Well, we're not disappointed at all and we're very happy that he had a happy childhood

but jumping on to the next question. It's not, well, it wasn't happy. That's an exaggeration. Oh, okay. But it was sort of not so bad because, you know, so many children had horrible, went through horrors of the war. But I was in school, settled.

Right. Yeah, the next question is, how did your family upbringing in your family life impact you in your further life? Well, I was brought up by school. Well, of course, they did bring me up. But my father was always busy, very busy. I've loved him all his life, you know, more than my mother. And still, I love him more than anybody else in the world because he was very kind. But during the war, I hardly ever saw him because he was always away, you know.

So my mother was frightened by the war and was worried about my sister, who was always in more dangerous situations than I was. So, well, I just don't know what to say. I was not, I was brought up by the society, by school. by then later by the universities and so on. Family was very, I had a very good family. They did their best. But we lived like everybody else.

And when you, in those days, of course, there was not much choice, you know. We couldn't choose the food or something. We were happy that the world, was over and in school I was also quite happy I was I was taught of course as for linguistics for foreign language learning that was of course very strange because we were sitting behind there in curtain and we had well I was doing English I calculated that I've been learning English for 75 years of my life.

Because, can you imagine? Well, I discovered it a couple of days ago because I was asked to write, to speak about the history of foreign language teaching in Russia, blah, blah, blah. And

I calculated that I began it under third form when I was 7, 9, I was 9. And so at 75 years, I've been learning English nonstop. And I've been teaching it English for 60 years. After I graduated from the English department at Moscow State University. And as you can hear, still, I can't say that

and I've been to London University for a year as a teacher already and I had very many friends in the United States and in Britain in English-speaking countries in Australia and New Zealand everywhere but still I'm very grateful to when I was

in London University there's a probation I listen to lectures on phonetics though I must confess that I don't like phonetics and I keep saying that I like everything in linguistics except phonetics

because in phonetics there is too much of physics it's a sound a sound is a physical phenomenon that physics is not my field you know and on the whole

I don't probably have a proper ear for phonetics but so I love everything about languages and did everything but every aspect but no phonetics and

so what I mean to say what I want to say is just the following that I listened to lectures on phonetics in England In Russia, I could choose, and they never chose phonetics. But when I was there, and I did what I was given, you know. And I listened to Dr. O'Connor, who was a very good phonetician and quite a famous one,

and he armed me with a saying, which I very often use now, because he said to us, there is nothing more suspicious than a foreigner who speaks your language the way you do. And I always, very often, when I have to speak publicly, I sometimes quote him, well, of course, with his name, as a quotation. And they say that I am not suspicious, because although I've been learning English for 75 years and teaching it for 60 years, still, it can't be compared to my mother turn. No, because other languages have very many unnecessary grammar points and so on,

like articles, for instance. We don't have any articles, but managed to create the very world-famous literature or authors without a single article. Well, on the other hand, I understand that the English-speaking people don't have gender with a nouns, and still they also have. created. But I'm not suspicious. I know that it's not my language, though I can read, I can write, I even wrote poetry. It was even published in England in English, quite decent, all articles were there. But still, it is a foreign language to me. Because, of course, in the Soviet

Union, when we were learning the language behind their garden, there was nobody to speak to, nobody to listen to nobody to write to which was even dangerous because that was a document that you had contacts with our enemies behind the heart and curtain

so the only thing was reading you could read and we read all my English learning English was reading first in school they were Russian texts well text on Russian with Russian

about collective farms, about a boy called Vanya, who went to school and so on and so forth. Then, when the situation changed, we read Clive. When I entered most of the state university, the English department, which was my lifetime dream, and that's a separate story. And when I entered it, I immediately joined the Literature Department. because I wanted to study Shakespeare, that's a separate story, as I said. I never studied Shakespeare because it was English Literature Department, but on the Soviet Union we did what we were offered by the department.

And we never offered Shakespeare. The first years I was doing Australian literature, and I was not impressed by it. I'm sorry, though I have very many good friends in Australia, and writers as well. and what the literature we had, because it had to be literature where all political aspects must be to be ours, you know. And so it was only if after Australian literature, then there was English literature.

But again, only the literature where the, the, all the negative sides of the society were described. You know, like if it was American literature, well, for Negroes were slave and so on, blah, blah, blah, blah. You understand. And I became a linguist. I never wanted to be a linguist. I saw that linguistics is a very dull thing,

or not for me, you know. Literature, that's the highest peak of linguistics. of languages. But and I wanted to be a literary critic. But I was offered a

place to teach English of the English department at the philological faculty because I had very good marks and blah blah

and so then I discovered and no I'm very happy actually. I thought all right Shakespeare is being

studied for 400 years and that is quite difficult I believe to find something new. And now I have the English language at my disposal, which is a living language, and which changes non-stop.

So I have my hands full and my head full over the English language, and I'm lucky. I feel that I was happy. It was a piece of luck that I managed that I stopped being a literary critic and started linguistics as my subject. Now I'm very happy.

I don't know whether I answered your questions or not. I did. Yes, you did. I'm going to ask a two-part question, though, because the first part is going to be just a brief follow-up to the previous answer that you gave. And then another question that may be slightly related. So the first part is you mentioned that you were raised mostly by the schools and then the universities. So what I'm wondering and feel free to answer.

as briefly or as in depth as you as you would like to on this, how did that more collective or communal upbringing impact you? Do you think that there was any sort of, how would things have turned out different if you didn't have as communal of an upbringing as you did? You know, we think a lot on this show about primitive communism, for example, where, you know, we were talking about the origin of the family, the origin of private property, things like this. And we're trying to figure out, you know, and there's no concrete answer.

It's just things that we try to explore deeper and deeper. How does the nuclear family imprint itself on us, you know, psychologically as well as ideologically, versus how did these more communal collective? forms of upbringing that were the norm for very long periods of human history and are still the norm in some different communities, mostly indigenous communities these days, but have kind of fallen out of favor in what we would consider advanced societies.

We've kind of left those communal ways of upbringing by the wayside. So just if there's any reflections that you have on that, how you think that that has impacted you, And then the second part of the question, and this one is perhaps a little bit more funny. And I know that you have a very concrete answer about this. In the past, you've also mentioned that, and this is perhaps tongue and cheek, but that you owe your life to Stalin. And I would first like you to tell our listeners why you say that, but then also how you think that that impacted you as well. because I think that, and this is why I said they may be slightly related,

a communal upbringing and also, you know, did you feel like you were, that you were indebted to the society in any sort of way or that, you know, you had to give back to the society because of this reason why you credit Stalin with your survival as, you know, an infant. No, well, Stalin is a very simple question. I mean, I can answer it immediately, because actually it was not a joke. Indeed, I do my life to Jerusalem.

But I have to open, well, a bit of an unpleasant sort of part of the private life of my family. Because the thing is that my father was 18-year-old when he married my mother. She was 20. And he fell in love with her when they were, they got acquainted

when they were studying in the same sort of technical college. They never had higher education. And she was in love with another man. And this man was in a Zybarjani. And my father was Armenian. And so you understand. And both families, my fathers and my mothers,

they met in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, which was a very multinational city, and there was no problem there, with what nationality were. But both their fathers were killed by Azerbaijan's where they were. They came from different places and met in Baku.

And my mother filled in love with this. I understand that he was a very nice man. He told me, asked about him. But of course, her family was against this.

And they sort of protested and said that He belongs to the people who killed your father, that sort of thing. So they, and her help my mother's family, they were all for my father. And she sort of got married to him, but against her will. And all through my family life, I felt it. my father still loved my mother very much.

And my mother could be, well, I didn't like her. Well, I hope my sister doesn't, we'll never see this because she doesn't like the subject. But that's it, you know. And I loved my father very much. I still love him. And still, you will not believe it, but I have three very good children, nine, eight grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.

And they are all extremely nice, loving and so on. Still, number one person for me is my father from my childhood, especially because I saw my sister got married very quickly when she was 18 and left the family. And I stayed there for quite a long time. And there's so much more than she had seen. Well, so that's when I say that I owe my life to Joseph Stalin. My mother, my father wanted to have as many children, especially sons as possible. My mother didn't want to have any children.

She gave birth to my sister because it was her first pregnancy and first baby. after that she had abortions and my father pleaded that she wanted to have another child but in 19397 Stalin issued a decree that prohibited abortions because the population

decreased in Russia the revolution, the civil war repressions, blah blah I understand and my father told my mother If you have it again, have abortion again, this abortion again, then I'll be arrested. I'll go to prison. And that stopped her.

And that's how I was born, thanks to that decree that prohibits abortions. I had to reveal the backstage life of my family. But that's why I... Stryka came and we had very many visitors who were eager to listen to stories about the Soviet Union, I became a very popular lecturer. And that was my little trick when they told me, tell me about yourself. I say, I owe my life to Joseph Stalin. And then there was a long interval pause. And they all looked into my face and later some of them confessed that they had had seen some features or Stalin's features in my crazy.

You see? And after that, I said, just he prohibited abortions. And that's how I was born. So it was my little trick, actually. It's not serious. Did that impact you in any way at all in terms of your thinking of things? Like, did you feel that, I don't want to say indebted. It's not the right word.

But, you know, did you have this little thing in the back of your head when, when you're thinking about that period of time, when you're thinking about Stalin, his legacy, is there anything niggling at the back of your head that's thinking about, you know, if it hadn't been for that, you wouldn't be around? No. You see, with Stalin, the story is simple. I grew up at school in my childhood,

and even in my teen years, as long as he was alive. We were killed. every day, in school, everywhere, pioneer meetings and so on, we were told that he is the father of the nation, he is the best person, blah, blah, blah. You understand? And we believed it.

We were told it by our teachers. We were told it by, I was a pioneer, a council of everything. I was very excellent. And again, I was never taught anything wrong. We were taught to do good things. We did good things. We helped people who were,

After the war, there were very many people who needed some help. So we, children, visited them and did something for them and helped them and so on and so forth. I was never taught to do something bad, or was to do good, you know? And like everybody else, I believe that Stalin is my father, with the capital F, the father of the nation, and I'm the nation, a member of the nation, and so forth. Then suddenly came the news that he was a tyrant and there were horrible things

and we knew about these horrible things because they were next door. My father twice suffered very seriously. Some people disappeared and my mother told me horrible stories later on. All this is true. But when I was growing up in school, in my childhood in school,

in the university even still. We were doing, we were studying and so on, but we knew that Stalin was there, it's all right. When he died, everybody thought that it was just the end of the world. It wasn't. It was the beginning of a new life.

But you never went anywhere when it's happened, and many people were, well, died when just there was such crowds

to see him and you know the story but remember the Danish and like that they just stayed at home state is home but so just

I was a normal average Soviet citizen first child and girl. I went through it. I was never taught

to do something bad or wrong. No, I believed what I was taught to help other people, and we did help other people and so on. So I still I'm an optimist, and also I

somehow think, I'm happy. I keep the life is said that I'm happy. I had an eventful, interesting life, and especially my 65 years in Moscow State University were full of all sorts of discoveries and joys and so on. So I was asked once, have you ever met a happy person? Some conversation with colleagues. And they said, well, you can't say about anybody whether one is.

he or she is happy or not, because what do you know about them? But I know one person, and they said, that's me, I'm happy. And interestingly, my colleagues, it was already, I wasn't the level of colleagues, were sort of negatively impressed. They didn't like it. They said, about how can you say it about yourself? I said, I can't say it about anybody else. I can speak only about myself.

But I think I had decent parents. I went to school, which I liked. I had school friends and university friends, and I'm happy. And I still think I'm really happy and lucky. Now I feel historic, historically important, because I'm a product and a participant of this great historic history. experiment. I've lived my first 50 years in the Soviet Union.

So that's why I've written my memoir and I keep now telling everybody with me, I'm invited to speak about the Soviet Union. You know, I clearly remember you saying in one of your lectures, that after living for 50 years in one country, you suddenly woke up in a completely different country. That just, yeah, that's still... Well, that's a good point, by the way, because I keep telling my colleagues,

teachers of English all over the country, especially in schools, mostly they're elderly people because young people don't want to teach in school, we understand, to be school teachers. And then, so I... I'm worried about it, but I keep telling my colleagues in the university that we are now teaching foreigners. Our students are foreigners. And because they were born and they lived now in a different country, not just different, just the opposite.

Because we, you know, it's a revolution. So what was there became, went up. and that were around. So I kept saying that we are teaching foreigners. No, and indeed they are foreigners. I know it very well because their reactions are different. Now this COVID panic and so on. They behave in a different way.

It's an interesting situation when our own grandchildren say are foreigners. Yeah, absolutely. So we already learned what events and influences pushed you into the field that you've been in your whole life. It was literature and then, well, Shakespeare. Now let's talk about how your experience of being a woman in the field influenced your career. Do you think that things would have been different if you were a man?

Well, you know, I never thought or felt women. I mean, there is some difference between me as a woman and my colleagues or my students or my teachers as men. Well, no, I just am surprised

by the question, frankly speaking, because somehow I think we knew from the start that we are equal, we are all equal, men and women, from my childhood, I knew it was written everywhere.

It was told by the teachers and blah, blah, blah. And indeed, of course, there are some professions that are, I don't know, require some physical efforts and living can't be as good as met. But that's no longer. And I never felt any sex problems, but meaning gender problems. Women, that I'm a woman, so what? I'm just, I'm in school, girls usually had better marks than boys.

And so we've felt superior, voice, and so on, and so forth. And there are quite a number of fields where women feel superior. There are fields where men are superior, that's all right? No. This is where the Soviet Union worked well. Indeed, I never thought about it, never saw anything of this kind.

It didn't exist, at least in my world. And that's very interesting. You know, I have a follow-up, actually. Was the gender distinction different than the Soviet Union than it is now, like in modern day in Russia? I don't know. Just I don't know what to say. In the Soviet Union now, you mean the same question, but... Yes, you said that you felt very equal.

Yes. Again, I don't think I can answer this question because I have noticed any say. Neither with me nor with my children, no problem, I think. Well, let me ask a question to Sophie, since you're in. in the field now as a young person. So how would you answer that question that you asked, Professor? So as we asked you, Professor, you said that you really noticed no difference. And in many cases, women were superior in these fields. And you felt superior. That's the important thing, is that not only did you perform superior, but you were feeling as if you were superior. I think that that's

something that's different in the context of the United States, where I think, that's something. come from is that in virtually every academic field, females perform higher. We have more women in basically every academic field except for the case of engineering. And the grades are generally significantly higher for women as well. And yet once you get into society, as well as the pressures that are put in place in university, it is definitely patriarchal and biased towards the men. And we see that manifest in ways including the gender pay gap, for example, in the United States. where I believe it's 23% lower pay for women in the same fields as for men in the United States, despite the fact that women are performing higher in basically every single field that there is.

So that's, you know, the experience that I come from. And we heard that your experience was the complete opposite of that. And, well, I might as well ask you, what are you noticing as somebody who's in the field of linguistics right now as a young person? is what Professor Termanasova is saying, is that more true to what you're experiencing? Or is the things that, you know, I've told you about the experience within the United States, ringing a little bit more true to you? In all fairness, I would say that linguistics is a fairly female-dominated field right now. And, well, it's actually empirically proven that females tend to do better at foreign languages

than, or, you know, generally it's schoolwork, than males. It's something I learned in a course in that. When it comes to equality, like parity of pay, I don't really have that much to say on that because I haven't experienced myself yet. But just, you know, from my own observations, there is over, 90% female studying linguistics at my department, Department of Foreign Languages in Regional Studies. So, you know, we extrapolate from that, then I would say that it's a very female-dominated field. No, that's good to hear that the experience within, at least the field of linguistics within Russia is very different than the pressures that are put on women in the United States.

So I'm glad to hear that from both of you, really. Shifting along now towards getting a little bit closer to the end here, I would like to ask you, Professor, you have this incredible CV. You have so many experiences. You have so many, you know, very important things that you've done over the course of your life. And you're still doing things today that are, you know, very interesting.

You're going to be putting out a second memoir. It sounds like very soon, which, you know, is very interesting as well. So of all of these things that you've done in your life, of all of these things that you've pushed for academically, and all of the things that you've had in your personal life, what are some of the things that you're most proud of, both within the academic context as well as in a personal context? What are you really proud of as, you know, when when people are remembering you, what do you want them to remember about you? you. When you put it that way, I'm still alive. So what people will remember of me? I don't think I will ever know.

But I think they will remember me, many of them, because I had many generations of students whom I taught and so on and so forth. That's why I think I'm very happy. I feel happy all the time because my former students became professors and so on. and so forth. I've lived long enough to see the results of my work. But I'm still alive, and I'm working, and I'm lecturing, and I have very good, very responsive,

very good first-year students this year. Poor things, they never saw me. I mean, only through the Internet, Zoom question, online lectures. But at the end, last year and this year, when the lectures are over, they insist on meeting me. And I met them both times this year and last year, and I have some very good friends. And they are 17, 18 years old, and they are my friends,

just colleagues and friends after the lectures. and well, just, no, no, I live, I'm alive. And I'm glad I wrote those memoirs and they were published. Now I'm still alive and life goes on. So I wrote the expat of mine and I'm going to publish it. because I feel that it is already historic, you know, that's part of history. And when we all die out, Soviet, former Soviet people, then the next generations will not know our view.

I want them to know my view. I'm a product of this system. And I am still alive, and I am happy. Though, of course, it doesn't mean that I never saw anything wrong or bad or no harm. No, well, it's normal life because you have ups and downs and so on, and something was good. What was good became bad. What was bad became good.

What was to revolutions, you understand. For instance, that our education was free. That was a very important thing. It was a very, I know I have among my fellow students and colleagues and so on, people from very poor families, well, they are so talented and they were number one students and then number one professors and so many social. And I think about my husband who would never, ever, had not been the Soviet Union coming from a

tiny little village in Smolensk region and Smolensk is in the West and all the enemies who came from the West they went through this village the French, the Germans, all of them

and what he saw in his childhood when Germans came and he was but and well what I mean to say is that in every generation

there are well, all sorts. It takes all sorts to make a nation, see. And therefore, in the Soviet Union, also there were all sorts of people and one of the sorts. Well, I don't know

whether I answered your question or not, but I like the way you interview me and you smile and I can see that you are interested. And I'm glad if I managed to tell you, I'm always open, very open, too open sometimes. But that's how I was born, nothing comes to done about it. It all depends on us. You know, it's impossible to express how grateful we are for the opportunity to hear your take on things because you're knowledgeable,

not only about linguistics, but also about life, both in the Soviet Union and in Russia. And that's why we're going to ask you for a couple of parting words for our listeners. So is there anything that you'd like our listeners to take away from this conversation, maybe something to inspire them? well, I just don't know, you know what? The first thing that occurs to me now is the way, you know,

waiters say in restaurants, when they bring you food and say, enjoy. It's funny how they love we enjoy. Well, but if you put it in a different way, I recommend to enjoy what you have. because you can't have everything you like but there is a lot in what you have and because it's a nuisance

when you realize that it was so good when you lose it so it's better to enjoy when you have it you see well so my words here will be just one word enjoy I love it. I love it. And as Safi said, we are incredibly grateful that you agreed to come on and do this.

And I'm hoping that we can talk again with you in the near future as well, because I had a lot of fun listening to you and really, really enjoyed the opportunity to speak with you. So thank you very much for coming on the show. Thank you very much. So listeners, until next time, solidarity. Thank you. Thank you very much. I liked everything.