Moscow Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages

(full name, the Maurice Thorez Moscow Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages), one of the leading educational and scientific centers of the USSR for the training of foreign-language teachers and translators. Founded in 1930, the institute was named in honor of Maurice Thorez in 1964.

In 1973, the institute included the pedagogical departments of English, German, and French; a translation department, training translators in 11 European languages; evening and correspondence divisions of the pedagogical departments; a department for improving the qualifications of foreign-language teachers; advanced pedagogical courses and advanced courses for translators; a department for improving the linguistic qualifications of diplomaed specialists; a preparatory division; a workers’ school (rabfak); a graduate school; 44 subdepartments; six scientific and educational laboratories, including a laboratory for studying spoken language with two 180-seat audiolingual rooms; over 60 laboratories with modern instructional equipment; and an educational television center. The library contains over 200, 000 volumes.

In the 1972–73 academic year, over 5, 500 students were enrolled at the institute. There were 750 teachers, including 33 professors and doctors of sciences, and 250 docents and candidates of sciences. The institute accepts doctoral and candidate’s dissertations for defense. The institute’s periodical, Sborniki nauchnykh trudov (Collections of Scholarly Works), has been published since 1940. Between 1930 and 1972, the institute trained more than 20, 000 specialists.