One of Russia’s best scholars of Romance languages who authored ten monographs and around 70 articles, an expert in the theory and history of French, in text linguistics and in the history of linguistic doctrines, E. Referovskaya was born in 1907.

In 1931, R. graduated from the Philological Faculty of the Leningrad State University. She started her 65-year teaching career in 1932 as an assistant (teacher) of the LGU Foreign Languages Chair headed by Academician L. V. Shcherba. In the spring of 1941, she defended her Cand. of Science dissertation Istoriya slozhnogo perfekta vo frantsuzskom yazyke [The history of the complex perfect in French] supervised by Academician V. Shishmaryov, who later became her long-time partner in their productive cooperation.

During the Great Patriotic War, R. served as an interpreter with the military unit 59001 at the Leningrad Front.

In 1945, she headed the LGU Chair of Foreign Languages and continued her research and teaching activities (the courses she gave were “History of the French language”, “Introduction into the Romanic Philology”, “A theoretical grammar of Romanic languages”, and “The Classical Latin”.)

In 1956, R. defended her doctoral dissertation Razvitiye kategorii zaloga vo frantsuzskom yazyke [Voice category evolvement in French] with the Academic Council of the Leningrad Department of the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences (as of 1991, ILS RAS) and became one of Russia’s first women-doctors of linguistics in the field of Romanic languages. In 1957, she was awarded the title of a professor.

In 1958, R. changed her permanent employment and moved to the Leningrad Department of the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences where she worked for over 40 years while continuing as a part-time professor at the LGU and at the Leningrad Herzen Pedagogical Institute. She collaborated with such outstanding linguists as Ac. V. Zhirmunsky, A. Desnitskaya, I. Tronsky, V. Admoni, L. Zinder, S. Katznelson.

R.’s scientific and teaching activities brought her international recognition. In 1960-1961, she taught Russian at the Sorbonne University (Paris) and was elected a member of the Paris Linguistic Society (1961).

R. demonstrated an exceedingly broad range of scientific interests and made substantial contribution into many lines of research such as the grammatical system of Romanic languages at the early stages of their emergence (Razvitiye predlozhnykh konstruktsiy v latinskom yazyke pozdnego perioda [Evolvement of prepositional constructions in late Latin]. M.; L.: "Nauka", 1964; Istoki analitizma romanskikh yazykov (Ocherki po sintaksisu rannesrednevekovoy latyni) [The sources of the analytism of Romanic languages (Essays on the history of the Early Middle Age Latin)]. M.; L.: "Nauka", 1966); formation of the Standard French and its functioning outside France (Formirovaniye romanskikh literaturnykh yazykov. Frantsuzskiy yazyk [Formation of Standard Romanic Languages. French]. L.: "Nauka", 1980; Frantsuzskiy yazyk v Kanade [The French Language in Canada]. L.: "Nauka", 1972); the theoretical grammar of Modern French (Sintaksis sovremennogo frantsuzskogo yazyka: Slozhnoye predlozheniye [Modern French Syntax: Complex Sentence]. L.: "Nauka", 1969; Teoreticheskaya grammatika frantsuzskogo yazyka". (Na frants. yazyke). Chast I. Morfologiya i sintaksis chastey rechi [A Theoretical Grammar of French (in French). Part I. Parts of Speech Morphology and Syntax]. M., "Prosveshcheniye", 1964; 2d edition.: 1973; 3d edition: 1982; Chast II. Sintaksis prostogo i slozhnogo predlozheniy [Part II. The Syntax of Simple and Complex Sentences]. M., "Prosveshcheniye", 1973; 2d edition: 1983 – co-authored with A. K. Vassilyeva); text linguistics (Lingvisticheskoye issledovaniye struktury teksta [A linguistic study of text structure]. L.: "Nauka", 1983; Kommunikativnaya struktura teksta v leksiko-grammaticheskom aspekte [The communicative structure of text in its lexical and grammatical aspect]. L.: "Nauka", 1989); history of linguistic doctrines (Filosofiya yazyka i grammaticheskiye teorii vo Frantsii (iz istorii lingvistiki) [The philosophy of language and grammatical theories in France (on the history of linguistics)]. SPb.: "Peterburg-XXI vek", 1996); modern linguistic theories in France (Filosofiya lingvistiki Gyustava Giyoma [Gustave Guillaume’s Philosophy of Linguistics]. SPb.: "Akademicheskiy proyekt", 1997).

On her retirement, R. continued active participation in research activities by the ILS RAS Department of the Theory of Grammar. One of her last publications was the chapter Morfologiya i sintaksis v kontseptsii psikhosistematiki Gyustava Giyoma [Morphology and Syntax in the Psycho-Systemic Theory of Gustave Guillaume] in the collective volume Problemy funktsionalnoy grammatiki: Kategorii morfologii i sintaksisa v vyskazyvanii [Functional Grammar Issues: Morphology and Syntax Categories in Statements]. SPb.: "Nauka", 2000.