Terence Leslie Brian Wade (19 May 1930 – 22 November 2005) was an English linguist who was Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Strathclyde from 1987 to 1995. After reading German and French at Durham University, he was both a student and instructor in the Joint Services School for Linguists, during which time he studied Russian at Cambridge. He arrived in Glasgow in 1963, and taught and developed courses at Strathclyde, where he received a PhD in 1977. He had a successful stint as chairman of the university's Department of Modern Languages from 1985 to 1993.
In the course of what The Scotsman described as his "55-year love affair with the Russian language",[2] Wade wrote a dozen books about grammar and linguistics, including his Comprehensive Russian Grammar (1992) and Russian Etymological Dictionary (1996). The Times has called his works "classics in their field",[1] and Wade is considered one of Britain's pre-eminent Russianists.[1][3] He was awarded the Russian government's prestigious Medal of Pushkin in 1996.[4]
Three years later, Wade helped to establish the postgraduate diploma in Russian at the Scottish College of Commerce in Glasgow, which became part of the University of Strathclyde the following year[2] – it was an intensive course in Russian intended for teachers of other languages, and later for graduates in fields like politics and economics.[6] Wade taught classes on Russian grammar, literature and political thought,[6] and also helped to design the new university's Bachelor of Arts degree in Russian.[2] In 1968, Wade graduated from the University of London with a first-class degree in Russian with Polish, and in 1977 he received a PhD from Strathclyde:[6] his dissertation was about Russian prepositions.[2] As well as teaching and planning courses, Wade served as a mentor to his colleagues and a counsellor to his students.[2] He was promoted to senior lecturer in 1969, reader in 1981, and professor in 1987.[2]
In 1985, at the behest of his colleagues, he became the chairman of the university's Department of Modern Languages, serving two terms in the role until 1993.[2] In 1988, the University Grants Committee decided that the university's Italian and Spanish sections should be closed as they lacked the resources to provide for their students; Wade successfully campaigned for their survival.[2] He worked to strengthen the university's link with the University of Łódź,[2] and for several years, he and his wife travelled to the isolated village of Konopnica, southwest of Łódź, to teach English to academics without pay.[11]The Scotsman describes his leadership as "quiet [and] unassuming but very effective", and "enormously successful in strengthening the image of the department throughout the university".[2]The Times writes that Wade's knowledge of conflict and other cultures allowed him to "lead the department with sensitivity, and without being corrupted by the power he could command as chairman".[1]
Wade formally retired from his post in 1995, but remained an honoraryresearch fellow.[2] The university began to discontinue its BA in Russian shortly before Wade's death in 2005,[12] and the postgraduate diploma that he developed was transferred to the University of Glasgow in September 2004.[13] In a letter to The Scotsman in June 2004, Wade denounced "the dismantling of innovative Russian departments at Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde universities" and the "virtual disappearance [of Russian] from [school] timetables" in Scotland.[14]
A Comprehensive Russian Grammar (1992; 2nd ed. 2000; 3rd ed. 2011, revised by David Gillespie; 4th ed. 2020, revised by David Gillespie, Svetlana Gural and Marina Korneeva)
A Russian Grammar Workbook (1996; 2nd ed. 2013, revised by David Gillespie)
Russian Etymological Dictionary (1996)
The Russian Language Today (1999, with Larissa Ryazanova-Clarke)
Wade, Terence (1975). "Teaching Russian Across the Ability Range". Journal of Russian Studies. 29: 21–27.
—— (1978). "A Contrastive Analysis of the Use of Prepositional Phrases of the Types: v + Locative Case and za + Accusative Case in the Expression of Distance". Journal of Russian Studies. 36: 27–34.
Wade, Terence (1974). "Trudnosti slovoupotrebleniya i varianty norm russkogo literaturnogo yazyka: Slovar'-spravochnik" [Variant Linguistic Forms in Modern Russian]. Journal of Russian Studies. 28 (3): 41.
^Jameson, Andrew (2000). "Review: Russian Etymological Dictionary by Terence Wade". The Slavic and East European Journal. 44 (2). American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages: 356. doi:10.2307/309992. JSTOR309992.
^"Медаль А.С. ПУШКИНА" [The A.S. Pushkin Medal] (in Russian). International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature. Retrieved 17 August 2017.
^Wade, Terence (2011). Gillespie, David (ed.). A Comprehensive Russian Grammar (3rd ed.). Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. p. xxxi. ISBN9781405136396.
^Elliott, Geoffrey; Shukman, Harold (2003). Secret Classrooms: A Memoir of the Cold War (Revised paperback ed.). London: St Ermin's Press. p. 59. ISBN1903608139.
