The department was founded in 1983. Since 2001, it has been named after Mykola Zerov (1890-1937), a prominent Ukrainian translator, poet, and representative of the “Executed Renaissance” generation.
The department has been training specialists in translation from French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and, for some years, Romanian for the longest time in Ukraine, making it the country’s leading educational and academic unit in this field. In 1994, the department was the first in Ukraine to adopt international standards in translator training, with separate specializations in interpreting and written translation.
Currently, the department employs 2 Professors, Doctors of Philology, 12 Associate Professors, and 15 Assistant Professors, five of whom have a PhD in philology. The Head of the Department is Professor Iryna Smushchynska, Doctor of Philology.
The majority of the department’s faculty members are literary translators and translators of specialized literature, or interpreters of government negotiations, and international conferences.
The department employs four foreign lecturers from Spain, Portugal, and France. It maintains close ties with higher education institutions in Ukraine and other countries and actively cooperates with French, Spanish, and Italian cultural centres operating at the Institute of Philology.
The department’s research activities are carried out within the framework of the complex theme “Current issues of translation studies and stylistics of Romance languages” under the guidance of Professor Iryna Smushchynska. The research is conducted in general theory and history of translation, partial translation theories, comparative stylistics, and contrastive studies.
The department’s faculty members are actively engaged in research and methodological work, publishing specialized textbooks and teaching manuals. In 2013, the department founded the academic journal Style and Translation (indexed in a scientometric database), which features articles in foreign languages. For several years, the department has also organized and hosted the All-Ukrainian Translation Olympiad at the Institute of Philology.
Since the early 2000s, the department’s faculty has published monographs, textbooks, and manuals, most of which are in foreign languages.
The department provides comprehensive professional training for students studying Specialty 035 Philology with a bachelor’s degree in “Translation from Spanish/Italian/Portuguese/French and English”, a master’s degree in “General and specialized interpretation and translation from Spanish/Italian/French and English”, as well as PhD and doctoral students. Most of the disciplines and special courses developed by department members aim to build the skills and abilities necessary for professional translation.
Over the years, the following people worked at the department:
- Halyna Verba
- Olena Krushynska
- Tetiana Teletska
- Oleksii Tkachenko
- Olena Maksymenko
- Oleksandr Cherednychenko
- Yuliia Chernyshova
- Tetiana Kachanovska
- Kristina Honcharova