On December 15, 2010, Dr Golda Ch. Kaplan celebrated her Jubilee.

Dr G.Ch. Kaplan has been connected with our Institute for almost 50 years. When she was a student at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Leningrad State University (1957-62), she got interested in Akkadian and then continued her studies of this area as a doctoral student at the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS (1962-65), under supervision of Dr I.M. Diakonoff. He insisted on her admittance to the staff of the Institite, in 1966, as ‘the only expert in Akkadian in our country’. In 1969, she defended her PhD Dissertation, Verbs in the Middle Assyrian Dialect of Akkadian [Глагол в среднеассирийском диалекте аккадского языка]. Later she published two monographs such as Use of aspect-tense verbal forms in Akkadian texts of the Hammurapi period (1792-1750 B.C.) (Lincom Europa 2002) and An Outline of Akkadian Grammar [Очерк грамматики аккадского языка] (St Petersburg, 2006). Another interesting and important research of Dr Golda Ch. Kaplan was that of the history of Assyriology in Russia up to 1917.

Dr Golda Ch. Kaplan is a well-known and respected expert in Akkadian Grammar both in Russia and abroad.

Dr G.Ch. Kaplan is ‘a child of war’, most of her relatives died in Holocaust, they were victims of the Baby Yar massacre, in Kiev. The little Golda was luckily taken away by her mother in the last train that left Kiev for the Northern Caucasus, her father died in the front line. In spite of her tragic life Dr Golda Ch. Kaplan realized herself as a bright person, kind, friendly, wise and quick to sympathize. At the same time, she is strong enough to maintain her own opinion.

All the colleagues and friends of Dr Golda Ch. Kaplan congratulate her with wonderful Jubilee and wish her health and new academic achievements.

Prof Dr Irina F. Popova, the IOM’s head