The Birthday of the Slavist Scholar, Alumnus, Professor, and Honorary Doctor of Karazin University, Yuri Shevelov

Kharkiv — is a place of birth of those who shape the course of history, culture, and science.

Yuri Shevelov is one of them. He is an outstanding linguist, Slavist, and educator whose name is forever inscribed in the history of Ukrainian linguistics and global philology.

Studying philology at the Kharkiv Institute of Public Education named after O. O. Potebnia (by the time he graduated in 1931, the institution was renamed the Kharkiv Pedagogical Institute of Vocational Education, now Karazin University), Yuri Volodymyrovych Shevelov demonstrated through his own example how a love of words could grow into genuine science. It was here, within the university walls, that the foundation for his remarkable scholarly journey was laid. He not only studied but also lived and breathed Kharkiv: its university lecture halls, bookcases, and conversations with colleagues teeming with a spirit of innovation.

Yuri Shevelov was a student of prominent university scholars: linguist Leonid Bulakhovsky and literary critic Oleksandr Biletsky. Later, he became an associate professor of the university’s Department of Ukrainian Language and, in the early years of World War II, its head. Reflecting on this period, he wrote:
“The university was closed even before the Germans arrived. When they entered the city, reopening the university was the least of their concerns. However, the new city administration, Ukrainian, wanted to restore the university’s operations — they appointed a rector (Professor Vetukhova, a biologist), who, in turn, appointed department heads. I was among them. But the real power was in the hands of the occupiers; they did not allow the university to open. Indeed, there were no conditions for such an endeavor near the frontline. Thus, I was officially the head of the department only on paper.”

Between 1944 and 1951, Shevelov taught Ukrainian and other Slavic languages at various institutions in Europe (Munich, Lund) and actively participated in the socio-cultural activities of the Ukrainian diaspora.

Yuri Shevelov was one of the first critics of the Russification of the Ukrainian language. Even in his youth, he noted the linguistic policies in Soviet Ukraine and strived to preserve the purity of the Ukrainian language. His research on phonetics, historical grammar, and the evolution of East Slavic languages established him as a global authority. Yet, the city that remained forever in his heart was Kharkiv:
“The trouble with Kharkiv is that once you visit it, you cannot help but return.”

His unique work, A Historical Phonology of the Ukrainian Language, is a monumental contribution to global Slavic studies and reflects his deep connection to the Ukrainian linguistic domain. Shevelov debunked the theory of the “common Russian language” from which Ukrainian supposedly derived, convincingly arguing that tribal and regional dialects independently gave rise to the three East Slavic languages. This theory, which refutes Russian narratives, remains widely accepted in global academia.

Yuri Shevelov was not only a researcher but also an intellectual unafraid to be a dissident during the most challenging times. He called on Ukrainians to recognize themselves and their language as a force capable of shaping the future.

Today, Karazin University proudly honors this outstanding figure — a defender of the Ukrainian word, a phenomenal intellectual, the most renowned literary scholar of the Ukrainian diaspora, and a linguist who dismantled the Russian perspective on the history of East Slavic languages: Yuri Shevelov!