The Karazin University Community Extends its Heartfelt Congratulations to Viliy Savbanovych Bakirov on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday!

Today, the entire large and friendly family of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University extends its heartfelt congratulations to you on the occasion of your remarkable 80th anniversary with deep respect and admiration!

You are a person of an era whose name has been forever inscribed not only in the history of our University but also in the history of Ukrainian higher education and science as a whole. Your wisdom, strategic vision, and unwavering devotion to Karazin traditions have become the solid foundation upon which the University confidently entered the 21st century.

Your 23 years of leadership of the University (1998–2021) marked a true renaissance for Karazin University. Under your guidance, the University gained new momentum and achieved heights that remain a source of our shared pride today. Thanks to your efforts, in October 1999 the University was granted national status and named after its illustrious founder, Vasyl Nazarovych Karazin. At your initiative, seven new schools were established, enabling Karazin University to respond to the challenges of the time and educate the professionals of the future. It was you who, in 1990, founded and headed the first School of Sociology in Ukraine, setting the standards for sociological education in our country.

For us, you will always remain a model Scholar in the highest sense of the word, whose research on university democracy and the challenges of globalization has consistently been ahead of its time. Your name is known far beyond academic circles — it is engraved in the heart of Kharkiv, of which you are an Honorary Citizen, and even in the vastness of space, where asteroid 18731 VilBakirov orbits the Sun, bearing your name.

Dear Viliy Savbanovych,

We sincerely thank you for your kindness, intelligence, your ability to listen to and hear every member of the Karazin community, and for your unique gift of uniting people around the lofty ideals of enlightenment and humanism. We wish you strong health, inexhaustible energy, peace, and harmony. May your wisdom continue to guide and protect Karazin University for many years to come!