Anne Pennington

Anne Elizabeth Pennington (1934-1981) was a British philologist specialising in Slavic studies. She was particularly interested in songs as well as the development of the language. Life Penninngton was born on 31 March 1934 to Janet Winifred (born Aitken) and Alan Mather Pennington. Her father was a manufacturer and her mother was a teacher. She was born at their home in Pigeon Lane in the seaside town of Herne Bay. She went to Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School before joining Lady Margaret Hall where she studied French and Russian and in 1955 she earned a first class degree from the University of Oxford. She had also met Boris Unbegaun who was to be her mentor and she followed in a similar field of study. She continued at Oxford and in 1959 Lady Margaret Hall made her a fellow. The following year she was a lecturer as she studied the development of the Slavonic languages. Her research focused on an account of Russia written by Grigory Kotoshikhin in 1666. 298 years after that account was written, Pennington was awarded a DPhil for her thesis on Kotoshikhin, in 1964. In 1980 she became a Professor holding the chair in Slavonic philology that had belonged to Robert Auty and once to her mentor, Boris Unbegaun. Pennington frequently visited the Balkan Slav states although her studies included Bulgaria, Poland and what was then Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. She would record songs, learn dances and collect cultural items such as clothing and jewellery. Later she would translate songs and poems.