Faithful son of Ukraine

13.5.2020

May 14, 2020 marks 85 years since the birth of Doctor of Philology, Professor, Honorary Professor of Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University Viktor Uzhchenko (May 14, 1935 – February 07, 2010).

Viktor Dmytrovych Uzhchenko is an outstanding scientist whose name went down in the history of linguistics not only in our country, but throughout the post-Soviet world. Honored Worker of Science and Technology of Ukraine, awarded numerous awards, including the Order of Petro Mohyla. 

For many years, Viktor Dmytrovych headed the Department of Philological Disciplines at the Educational and Research Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology and the Department of the Ukrainian Language at the Faculty of Ukrainian Philology and Social Communications.

Viktor Dmytrovych devoted more than 40 years of his life to Ukrainian science. He devotedly loved his native language, knew it perfectly, was an exemplary carrier of literary speech. This love influenced the nature of his scientific interests: he was more concerned with the issues of phraseology. His works (“The Birth and Life of Phraseologism”, “Ukrainian Phraseology”, “East Ukrainian Phraseology”, “Phraseology of the Modern Ukrainian Language”, “Images of the Native Language”, etc.) have opened a new page in this area.

The scientist developed an original methodology of historical and etymological analysis of stable expressions, ideographic classifications of phraseological units, defended his doctoral dissertation “Historical and Linguistic Aspect of the Formation of Ukrainian Phraseology”. His essays on the history of phraseology constitute a fascinating book, which is interesting to read not only to phraseological specialists.

Viktor Dmytrovych highlighted a wide range of problems in the semantics and pragmatics of stable expressions, showing the systemic and cultural relations between phraseological units, between the seme of the component word and phraseological unit, which, according to the scientist, is the whole diversity of the material and spiritual life of the ethnos. Professor Viktor Uzhchenko noted: “Phraseologisms are specific speech formulas, pictures of the world with encoded information about the past, of our ancestors, their way of perceiving the world and evaluating everything that exists; they accumulate the cultural potentials of the people, only in the proper way they manifest the spirit and originality of the mentality of the nation.”

Viktor Uzhchenko enriched Ukrainian phraseology with a comprehensive lexicographic database. He created the “Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language”, which is used by scientists, teachers, students, and schoolchildren throughout Ukraine. His “Dictionary of East Slobozhansky and Steppe Dialects of Donbas” (co-authored with Dmytro Uzhchenko) became a real encyclopedia of phraseology of Slobozhanshchina.

When compiling the dictionaries, Viktor Dmitrievich took into account that the phraseological meaning is complicated information content, additional estimated workload, and its content is realized through an image saturated with expression and subjective assessment, which are extracted from the values ​​of the components.

Fell in love with the beauty and deep wisdom of a living folk word, the Professor began scientific conferences “The figurative word of the Luhansk region”, “Problems of general linguistic and areal semantics”, in which the East Ukrainian phraseological theme is traditionally the leading one.

Viktor Dmytrovych was the founder of the Bulletin of Luhank Taras Shevchenko National Pedagogical University (philological sciences), the professional scientific collection “Linguistics”, and was a member of the editorial boards of these publications.

For many years, under the scientific guidance of Professor Viktor Uzhchenko, a phraseological seminar worked at the university, which has turned into a regularly functioning scientific center for the study of Slavic languages.

Viktor Dmytrovych belongs to outstanding figures of national education. He taught at many educational institutions, brought up several generations of Ukrainian linguists, to whom he transmitted a love of phraseology and dedication to science, and founded a phraseological school in Luhansk city.

Professor Viktor Dmytrovych Uzhchenko was and remains a symbol of devotion to the work, an outstanding scientist and real person, a faithful son of Ukraine.

On the occasion of the 85th birthday of Viktor Uzhchenko, the university scientific library organized an exhibition of the scientist’s works, which was visited by Rector Serhii Savchenko, Vice-Rector Dmytro Uzhchenko, Oleksandr Babichev, Director and teachers of the Educational and Research Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology, where for many years he headed the Department of Philological Disciplines, was the founder of the specialty “Primary Education. Ukrainian Language and Literature.”

The staff of the Educational and Research Institute
of Pedagogy and Psychology