Yelizaveta Kishkina (Li Sha), the legend of China's Russian philology, turns 100

BEIJING, March 20 (Itar-Tass) - The eminent teacher of China's scholars specializing in Russian Studies, Yelizaveta Kishkina, known in the People's Republic of China as Li Sha, turns 100 on Thursday. The merited professor has truly become a legend of China's Russian Studies. Due to her years-long work, the Beijing-based Foreign Languages University, where she has been teaching students for more than half a century, has turned out professional specialists in Russian philology, who are now distinguished professors and ambassadors in various countries. A symposium has been held on the occasion of Kishkina's birthday and the 68-year period of her teaching activities at the university. Colleagues, learners from her, friends, relatives, and Russian Embassy officials congratulated Kishkina in speeches of gratitude. Andrei Denisov, the Ambassador of Russia to China, when reading out a congratulatory message, emphasized Kishkina's special contribution to the establishment and development of friendship between the peoples of Russia and China. Yelizaveta Kishkina, did not attend the symposium because of illness. Congratulations were accepted by her daughter Li Innan, Director of the Russian Language Center at Beijing University for Foreign Languages. Yao Peishen, former Ambassador of the PRC to Ukraine, related, "I remember how our classes were held at the institute. Pronunciation in the Russian language is elaborated. I shall never forget how Yelizaveta Pavlovna trained us in pronouncing every sound and letter. Afterwards all people thought that I had studied Russian abroad. However, I used to tell them with pride that I had an ethnic Russian teacher at the Chinese university". In the 1930s, Yelizaveta Kishkina, a girl from an old noble family, graduated from the Foreign Languages Institute in Moscow, acquiring the "French Language" speciality. In 1936, Kishkina married Li Lisan -- one of the then leaders of the Communist Party of China. In 1946, together with her husband she arrived in China where she took up translation and teaching. During the years of the so-called Cultural Revolution period (1966-1976), Yelizaveta Pavlovna served an eight-year prison term in a solitary confinement cell of a Beijing-based jail and subsequently spent several years in exile in the countryside. In 1979, after she was fully rehabilitated, Kishkina was awarded the title of professor. Throughout the subsequent years she worked at the Russian Language Department. For her work, Kishkina was honoured with the A.S. Pushkin Medal -- the award of the International Association of the Teachers of the Russian Language and Literature. Last year Kishkina became an officer of France's Legion of Honour.