In memory of N.I. Lebanon

In the ninety-eighth year, the oldest teacher of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, Nikolai Ivanovich Liban, passed away. He did not defend either a doctoral or candidate's dissertation. Didn't write books or articles. (Only a few years ago, the students who once recorded his brilliant lectures compiled a solid volume from the notes.) He gave lectures and led seminars. And he knew about Russian literature - from ancient times until the beginning of the twentieth century - if not everything, then almost everything. At least that’s what it seemed to students and graduate students listening to N.I. and in the late forties, and in the stormy sixties, and in the strange seventies. And just recently.

Liban was a fantastic lecturer - artistic, charming, internally free. He was listened to in fascination by both those students who seriously aspired to become scientists and those who came to the philology department by accident. Even brighter is the mentoring gift of N.I. manifested itself in seminar classes and during discussions of graduate work. First-year students are required to study various types of “introductions,” including literary studies. It seems that Liban once taught this course, then he stopped, but in every lesson he introduced his students to science. And he introduced more than one hundred future scientists into it, who learned from him what logic of presentation, argumentation, scientific style, composition of research work, and bibliography are.

Along with professional knowledge, Liban students received lessons in intelligence, responsibility, and goodwill. The role that N.I. played not only in the history of Russian philology of the second half of the twentieth century, it remains to be considered. His students will remember Nikolai Ivanovich for a long time.

The civil funeral service will take place tomorrow at 10.30 at the address: st. Rossolimo, 12; funeral service - in the Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God, in the Novodevichy Convent, at 12.00. N.I. was buried Liban will be at the Vostryakovsky cemetery.

Andrey NEMZER