The family of O. B. Sirotinina and Saratov University

The life path of Olga Borisovna Sirotinina, an outstanding contemporary Russian linguist, was determined, according to her own words, by literature and several generations of her closest people. It is symbolic and not accidental: almost all members of the family, in one way or another, were connected with Saratov University throughout its 115-year history. The significance of the personalities of the Sirotinins dynasty is demonstrated, as well as the remarkable harmony in their worldview and attitudes toward life values. Olga Borisovna’s grandfather, Nikolai Nikolaevich (Senior), the secretary of the Saratov City Duma, played a very active role in the opening of the Imperial Saratov University in 1909. The name of Andrei Nikolaevich, a renowned philologist, writer, and associate professor of Saratov University, is included in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary. Olga Borisovna’s father, Boris Mikhailovich Brin, from 1918 combined his studies at the medical faculty of Saratov University with work in anti-typhus vaccination units. A future Doctor of Medical Sciences, he was awarded the medal “For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945”. Her mother, Olga Nikolaevna, a member of the Academic Council of the Ministry of Health of the USSR, taught at the biological faculty of the university after defending her doctoral dissertation. Her uncle, Nikolai Nikolaevich Sirotinin (Junior), a favorite student of A.A. Bogomolets, became an academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR. The spiritual affinity of all family members and strong connection with the university – these enduring and unchanging values – are reflected in the biographies of her aunts and her daughter, Tatyana Nikolaevna Sirotinina.