December 6, 2025 is the anniversary of Natalia Sergeyevna Yakhontova, Candidate of Sciences in Philology, Associate Professor, Senior Researcher at the IOM RAS.

After graduating from the Leningrad State University (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Department of Mongolian Philology) in 1979, N.S. Yakhontova has been working at our Institute. In 1983, a year after completing her postgraduate studies under the supervision of Dr. Georgiy A. Zograf, she successfully defended her Candidate of Sciences in Philology dissertation entitled “The Oirat literary language (based on the text of “The Sutra of Golden Light”)” [Ойратский литературный язык (по материалам «Сутры золотого блеска»)]. She was a Junior Researcher (1982–1986) and Researcher (1986–1991) at the Leningrad branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies. In 1990–1995 she served as the Academic secretary of the Institute. Since 1995, N.S. Yakhontova has been working as a Senior Researcher at the Department of Turkology and Mongolian Studies (Saint Petersburg branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies) and the Department of Central and South Asia (IOM RAS). In 2012 she became Associate Professor.

N.S. Yakhontova has published over 90 scholarly works on Mongolian philology. Her main research interests are linguistics and the study of Mongolian languages and written works by Mongolian peoples. In particular, she focuses on the study of the Oirat writing (tod bichig), known as the Clear Script, used by ancestors of modern Kalmyk people to record a significant written heritage.

In 1996 N.S. Yakhontova published her first monograph “The Oirat Language of the 17th century” [Ойратский литературный язык XVII века], edited by Academician V.M. Alpatov. Later she published two additional monographs on Oirat written works. “The Oirat Version of the Molon-toyin story” [Ойратская версия “Истории о Молон-тойне”], published in 1999, presents for the first time the unique 18th-century Oirat manuscript from the IOM RAS collection and contains a comparative study of all known texts on this topic in Mongolian, Tibetan and Chinese. In 2010 N.S. Yakhontova published “Oirat Dictionary of Poetical Expressions” [Ойратский словарь поэтических выражений], which contains a study and translation of the Oirat manuscript (kept at the IOM RAS) by the famous Zaya Pandita Namkhaijamts, inventor of the Oirat script and translator of the 17th century.

In 2023 the collective monograph “The Sutra of the White Old Man” [Сутра Белого Старца] was published in Moscow. N.S. Yakhontova and N.V. Yampolskaya co-edited this volume and worked on it together with a team of Kalmyk authors. The monograph presents for the first time the results of a comparative analysis of “The Sutra of the White Old Man” texts kept in Russia, Mongolia and China, contains a study of prose texts and prayer poems dedicated to the White Old Man, a deity worshipped in Central Asia and the Far East.

As a highly qualified editor, Natalia S. Yakhontova has been often invited by colleagues to check pre-publication drafts of their works. She has edited two books by Dr. B.A. Bicheyev: “The Oirat Version of the Story of White Tara” (2015) and “The Oirat Version of the Story of Uneker Torliktu-khan” (2018). In 2017 N.S. Yakhontova was the editor of the monograph “The Oirat Version of the Story of Gusyu-lama” prepared by A.G. Sazykin and B.A. Bicheyev, and in 2016 she edited the monograph “Buddhist precepts and prophecies in Kalmyk and Oirat culture” by her student B.V. Menyayev.

N.S. Yakhontova is a member of editorial boards of the journals “Written Monuments of the Orient”, “Pis’mennye pamiatniki Vostoka” and “Mongolica”. She is a secretary of the editorial board of the renowned academic series “Pamyatniki pis’mennosti Vostoka”.

She is an excellent lecturer. For many years she has been teaching linguistic courses at the Department of Tibetan and Mongolian Studies (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Saint Petersburg State University).

She was the supervisor of two Candidate of Sciences dissertations on Mongolian languages. One was defended by a postgraduate student from Mongolia who now works at the Institute of Language and Literature of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, and the other by B.B. Menyayev who now teaches at the Kalmyk State University in Elista.

In 2006 N.S. Yakhontova received the medal “800 years since the formation of the United Mongolian state” from the Mongolian government. In 2016 she was awarded the prize in honour of Academician B. Rinchen by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sport of Mongolia.

She actively participates in Russian and international events, conferences, forums, congresses, roundtables, such as the Congress of Mongolian Studies held in Mongolia and the regular Russia-Mongolia conference “Cultural heritage of Mongolian peoples: manuscript and archival collections” that takes place since 2012 with support of the Government of Mongolia.

High professional qualities of N.S. Yakhontova as an Orientalist and linguist, profound knowledge that she had acquired at the Faculty of Oriental Studies and based on which she conducted fruitful research on Oirat texts, place her among the best representatives of the Russian Leningrad/Saint Petersburg school of classical Mongolian studies.

Her kindness is in wonderful harmony with sympathy and readiness to always help others. Natalia S. Yakhontova is highly respected by her colleagues for these qualities. At the same time she is an incredibly modest person.

On this anniversary, we wish Natalia S. Yakhontova good health and further successes in scholarship!

We would like to thank Natalia S. Yakhontova for many years of diligent and dedicated academic work.