The older generation of Turkologists is leaving... Liya Levitskaya, an outstanding specialist in Turkic linguistics, comparative historical phonetics, grammar and lexicology of Turkic languages, Turkic etymology, historical phonetics and morphology of the Chuvash language, died on October 2, 2009.

Liya Sergeevna was born on November 23, 1931. In 1948, she entered the Eastern Department of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University (in the Department of Turkic Philology). She was one of the most talented students of N. K. Dmitriev and was fully imbued with his understanding of the significance and tasks in the development of this branch of Russian humanities. This scientist who passed away prematurely (he died on 22.12.1954, when L. S. Levitskaya was in the 5th year) he determined her scientific career, including her interest in the Chuvash language.

After graduating from university, Liya Sergeevna went to Turkmenistan to work as an editor for a newspaper (she grew up in the family of a well-known journalist and had an undoubted literary talent herself, and the opportunity to study the Turkmen language was an additional incentive). There she was an editorial staff member of the newspaper " Turkmen Iskra "(1953-1955), but due to illness she was forced to return to Moscow. Then she worked in the Department of Oriental Studies

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A. M. Gorky Scientific Library at Moscow State University (1956-1958); in 1958 she moved to the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the sector of Turkic languages, later Turkic and Mongolian, now the Department of Ural-Altaic languages, and at first headed the Department of postgraduate studies of the Institute, where she left the warmest memories of herself.

Having independently studied the Chuvash language, which was not taught at the Eastern Department of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, Liya Sergeevna brilliantly defended her PhD thesis (1966) on the topic "Historical phonetics of the Chuvash language", and then created a classical historical morphology of this language. Her dissertation work, unfortunately, was not published, but all the author's phonetic publications were devoted to its key problems, although they had purely specific titles: "Notes on Chuvash Consonantism "(Uch. zap. Cheboksary, 1965), "On Chuvash nominal bases with the final A, E" (ibid.), " Notes on the phonetics of Chuvash dialects "(Voprosy dialektologii tyurkskikh govorov, Vol. 4. Baku, 1966), " On one possible explanation correspondence of the Chuvash J to the general Turkic Q" (Studies on Turkology. Alma-Ata, 1969), " Common Turkic L and R in the Chuvash language "(Uch. zap. Chuvash Research Institute. Issue 34 / Philologiya. Cheboksary, 1967) and others.

L. S. Levitskaya was interested in the relationship of Chuvash with other Turkic languages and the place of the Chuvash language among other Turkic languages ("Notes on Chuvash-Tatar relations" / / Uch. zap. NII pri SM Chuvash ASSR. Issue 34 / Philologiya. Cheboksary, 1967; "Are there Oguz elements in the Chuvash language" / / Chuvach Studies. Budapest, 1982). While working on her dissertation, Liya Sergeevna passed an invaluable school of comparative studies under her supervisor, Academician B. A. Serebrennikov, which determined the special place of the young scientist in Russian Turkology. For Chuvash linguists, who also occupy a special place in Turkology primarily because of the uniqueness of their language - an eternal riddle of Turkologists, she was an unquestionable authority and a sympathetic and kind colleague.

Participating in the creation of the fundamental work - " Etymological Dictionary of Turkic Languages "(ESTL), which was carried out in the Turkic languages sector of the Institute of Linguistics, after the death of the initiator and leader of this work E. V. Sevortyan (1978), Liya Sergeevna headed this group, taking on the main burden in collecting and processing colossal material on all Turkic languages. In fact, at least 60% of the dictionary entries in the dictionary volumes published since that time were written by her personally.

In the second equally significant collective work of the sector - " Comparative Historical Grammar of Turkic Languages "(SIGTYA) - it contains sections in the volume "Phonetics". Lia Sergeevna's strong comparative base and extensive knowledge of the factology of all Turkic languages allowed her to offer a convincing reconstruction of proto-Turkic vocalism and show its representation in the phonetic systems of modern languages and dialects (SIGTYA, 1984, pp. 16-66, 67-83). The scientific significance of this work of Lia Sergeevna is recognized by all those who work in this field of Turkology. In the volume "Morphology", she is the author of the sections: "Adverb" and " Postpositions "(SIGTYA, 1988). For the volume "Regional Reconstructions" (SIGTYA, 2002), she did not write for health reasons, but managed to collect material on Oguz morphology, so the section " Oguz languages. Phonetics. Morphology: the name " appears under the authorship of A. V. Dybo with the participation of L. S. Levitskaya. Already retired, she actively participated in the creation of the volume " Vocabulary "(1997), together with A.V. Dybo, she prepared a dictionary for this work. Her articles here make up a quarter of the volume of this solid volume, including the sections "The world of the Late Turks", "Meteorology", "Trade, property, Finance", a significant and very important part of the huge section "Material Culture" ("Fire, making fire", numerous crafts, as well as " Clothing The last, sixth volume (SIGTYA, 2006), devoted to the reconstructed phonetics and morphology of the proto-Turkic language state, also contains a picture of the world of the Proto-Turkic ethnic group according to the language data. Here, on the principle of "mirror reflection", large lexical areas that are important in ethno-cultural terms are based on sections by L. S. Levitskaya from SIGTYA 1997/2000, namely, the essays "Climate" and " Material Life. Clothing". It should be noted that back in 1987, Lia Sergeevna's research attention was focused on the traces of cosmological representations of the Turkic peoples in the vocabulary and phraseology of their languages (collection "The essence, development and functioning of the language", Moscow, 1987, pp. 186-189).

Lia Sergeevna's works in Chuvash studies are quite special. Erudition in the field of comparative historical linguistics allowed her to create two unique works: on historical phonetics (PhD thesis) and historical morphology ("Historical morphology of the Chuvash language". 1976). The basis of reconstruction of the Chuvash morphological

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the system was based on knowledge of Chuvash dialects, although even here there was a general Turkological background and a thorough analysis of all existing points of view regarding the Chuvash phenomenon. The work of Lia Sergeevna immediately entered the circle of widely cited scientific works.

Along with the unprecedented hard work on the volumes, Estya Sergeevna was constantly thinking about the need to tell "what was conceived by N. K. Dmitriev or written in his works, but for one reason or another has not yet been implemented in Kumyk linguistics, that is, about the part of N. K. Dmitriev's scientific program that emerges when reading L. S. Levitskaya, N. K. Dmitriev and modern Kumyk linguistics / / N. K. Dmitriev: to the 100th anniversary of his birth, Moscow, 2001, p. 64). See also her article "On the history of Kumyk vocabulary" (Sov. turkology. Baku. 1973. N 3).

Liya Sergeevna set out to compile an etymological dictionary of the Kumyk language, which, according to N. K. Dmitriev, is "a complex and very peculiar component of the languages of the Turkish system." The first experience on the way to creating such a dictionary of a separate language was her articles under the general title " Chuvash etymologies "(Sov. turkologiya. 1974. N 2. pp. 80-84; 1976. N 3. pp. 89-92 and in the collection " Problems of historical lexicology of the Chuvash language "(Cheboksary, 1980. pp. 58-60). See also "Kumyk etymologies" (Turkological studies, Moscow, 1976), " Names of body parts in the Yakut language" (Siberian Turkological collection. Novosibirsk, 1976). The principles of compiling an etymological dictionary of a particular Turkic language developed by her were formed in the collection " Problems of Turkic Philology "(Alma-Ata, 1980). In fact, thanks to Lia Sergeevna's interest in the theoretical and methodological issues of compiling an etymological dictionary of a particular Turkic language, the first meeting on the problems of compiling such dictionaries was initiated (the meeting was held in Cheboksary on the basis of the Research Institute of Language, Literature, History and Economics in June 1983). Later, the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences under the editorship of Lia Sergeevna published two issues with the title "Theory and Practice of Etymological Research" (Moscow, 1985; 1988); in the last of them, in collaboration with D. M. Nasilov, Lia Sergeevna published an article on the issue relevant for the general Turkic etymological dictionary: whether to include Iranian and Turkish languages in such a dictionary. Arabic borrowings (using specific examples). In the last years of her life, Liya Sergeevna tried to organize the material she collected for the Kumyk etymological dictionary; unfortunately, she was not able to finish this work.

Let us add that in N. K. Dmitriev's autograph entitled "Comparative Dictionary of Turkish-Tatar dialects by L. Budagov", preserved by L. S. Levitskaya and published in the collection "N. K. Dmitriev: to the 100th anniversary of his birth", the scientist's attention was not attracted by the Kumyk and" Dagestan " lexemes of L. Budagov's dictionary. They became the object of Leah Sergeevna's research almost 70 years later.

L. S. Levitskaya was deeply rooted in the difficult fate of Russian Turkology. Her contribution to the historiography of Turkic linguistics was the article "P. M. Melioransky (To the 100th anniversary of his birth", which she published in the journal " Peoples of Asia and Africa "(1968. N 6). In this article, she highlighted Melioransky's position on the problem of the genetic commonality of the Ural-Altaic languages, which continues to be discussed at the present time. Her article "Ervand Vladimirovich Sevortyan and Turkic historical Lexicology" (author of the introduction - K. M. Musaev), published in the collection "Theory and Practice of Etymological Research" (1985), is problematic and deep, and has not lost its relevance to our time. Liya Sergeevna traced the scientist's path to the creation of the "Etymological Dictionary of Turkic Languages". The difficulties lay in the fact that a complete reconstruction of the Turkic phonetic system had not yet been carried out, but only individual fragments of lexical semasiology were available, and it was necessary to simultaneously develop the theoretical foundations of the dictionary and accumulate a factual base. Levitskaya outlined the urgent tasks of studying Turkic etymology, including: assessing the sources used in etymological analysis and their reliability; assessing the role of the material of contacting languages, related and unrelated. Along with this, her contribution to the historiography of Turkic linguistics was the already mentioned article "N. K. Dmitriev and modern Kumyk linguistics" and " Ashmarin and Turkic Linguistics "(collection "N. Ya. Ashmarin-the founder of Chuvash linguistics". Cheboksary, 1971), as well as a complete translation from the German "On the language of Turkmens (from N. I. Ilminsky's letter to A. Schifner") (VYA. 2005. N 6. pp. 107-111).

In her private conversations with colleagues, Lia Sergeevna often raised the topic of preserving and highlighting the best traditions of Russian Turkology, the contribution of scientists to the study of Turkic languages and to the training of turkological personnel in the Turkic-speaking republics. Often such a conversation

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it ended with Lia Sergeevna, smiling shyly, holding out to the interlocutor either a few thin prints of A. N. Samoilovich's publications, which she had extracted from the second-hand rubble, or some rare book with the words " What if it comes in handy?". Lia Sergeevna's strict mind and broadest factual and bibliographic erudition, combined with a sincere and disinterested desire to "turn" her interlocutor to somewhat "neglected" scientific problems and at the same time reveal his intellectual resources as fully as possible, made her words especially convincing. In fact, it initiated, for example, the publication " N. K. Dmitriev. Ksenia Savelyevna Kashtaleva" (East (Oriens). 2001. N 1. pp. 114-119).

Liya Sergeevna grew up in an intelligent family, where she developed a solid, principled character, modesty, and sincere openness. Lia Sergeevna's father was repressed in the 1930s, and the family of relatives in which they lived with their mother tried to keep her world bright and kind. She carried this kindness through her entire life: she loved her mother dearly, and left the institute early to provide hourly support for her progressive illness. How many impractical steps were made by her from the philistine point of view, if only it would be good for her native person. Liya Sergeevna studied at Moscow State University in the same group with Khakass students, and all her subsequent life corresponded with them and was aware of their affairs. It was a joy for her to send greeting cards to people she loved, often accompanied by her own poems, both wise and sad. People close to her tried to help her in some way, especially in recent years, but they met with a firm refusal, which hid the dignity of a big personality, which she kept even in her retirement existence.

Lia Sergeevna, an immensely generous person, was characterized by the "joy of giving": she recklessly gave away the only material wealth that she had accumulated throughout her life - books. During her lifetime, she wisely took care of completely unselfishly investing the bulk of her wealth, showing firmness and surprising practical acumen; as a result, the books fell into the hands of Cheboksary Turkologists, with whom she maintained good creative relations for almost half a century.

Levitskaya's name, we are sure, will go down in the history of Russian Turkology. Her work will be read by future generations. The Etymological Dictionary of Turkic Languages has already become a reference book for Turkologists, and she made a huge contribution to its creation. A man of great spiritual wealth and high professional qualities left. Good memory to her.

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