[Ura-list] Rif Nasibullin 1936–2026

[Esa-Jussi Salminen]

Again sad news from Udmurtia. On September 24, 2026, Rif
Shakrislamovich Nasibullin—a Doctor of Philological Sciences,
professor, Udmurt dialectologist, poet-translator, and literary
critic—passed away at the age of 89. This was announced on the
VKontakte page of the Institute of Udmurt Philology, Finno-Ugric
Studies, and Journalism at Udmurt State University.

Rif Shakrislamovich was born in the village of Chetyrman in the Yanaul
District of the Bashkir ASSR. He received his primary education in
Udmurt, studied in Tatar during his middle school years, and in
Russian during his senior years. In 1960, he graduated from the Birsk
State Pedagogical Institute.

He began his career as a translator for the Tatyshly District
newspaper and subsequently worked as a teacher in Udmurt schools in
Bashkiria, while simultaneously collecting folklore and compiling a
dictionary of Udmurt dialects.

>From 1969 to 1972, he pursued full-time postgraduate studies at the
Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences under the
supervision of the prominent Finno-Ugrist V. I. Lytkin. After
defending his Candidate of Sciences dissertation in 1972, he joined
the Udmurt Research Institute of Language, Literature, and History,
where he worked on the Udmurt section of the Linguistic Atlas of
Europe. In 1983, he moved to Udmurt State University, and from 1992,
he headed the Laboratory of Linguistic Mapping.

Rif Nasibullin is the author of over 300 scholarly and popular-science
works and a co-compiler of several dictionaries. He created Russia’s
first digital dialectological atlas, led the compilation of the
multi-volume *Dialectological Atlas of the Udmurt Language*, and
served on the Russian commission for the Linguistic Atlas of Europe.

As a poet and translator, he translated more than 20 Bashkir and Tatar
songs, poems by Ashalchi Oki and Kuzebay Gerd, and short stories by
Udmurt writers into the Tatar language. The most famous of his
translations is surely the Tatar version of the famous Udmurt song Oh
you beautiful girls. The entire Tatar world is singing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xwoO-2YiMo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IChpYarO98

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ORCID-tunniste: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8694-9094

https://puheenvuoro.uusisuomi.fi/author/ejsalminen/
https://vapaavuoro.uusisuomi.fi/author/ejsalminen/

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