Trubachev, Oleg [Трубачев, Олег; Trubačev], b 23 October 1930 in Stalingrad (now Volgograd), RSFSR, d 9 March 2002, Moscow, Russian Federation. Russian etymologist; corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences from 1972. A graduate of Dnipropetrovsk University (1952), he worked at the academy’s Russian Language Institute from 1961 and was head of its Sector of Etymology and Onomastics. He wrote many articles on the etymology of Slavic (including Ukrainian) words and names and on the ancient Slavs’ linguistic contacts with other Indo-Europeans, particularly on the Black Sea and Sea of Azov littorals. He is the author of books on the history of Slavic kinship terms (1959), the origin of Slavic names for domestic animals (1960), the hydronyms of the upper Dnipro River basin (1962), the Slavic terms in the crafts (1966), and the names of rivers in Right-Bank Ukraine (1968). He was editor of the academy’s multivolume Slavic etymological dictionary (1974–) and of annual collections of articles on etymology.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]