Elizabeth Hill

Dame Elizabeth Mary Hill DBE (born Yelizaveta Fyodorovna Hill; Russian Елизаве́та Фёдоровна Хилл; 24 October 1900 – 17 December 1996) was a Russian-born English academic linguist. In addition to a career with the London University School of Slavonic Studies, she was course director of the Joint Services School for Linguists (JSSL), a UK Government training programme to produce linguists and interpreters of Russian, for military and intelligence purposes. The family had fled the Bolsheviks in 1917 in fear for their lives. Elizabeth celebrated her seventeenth birthday on the ship that carried them away.

Career Often known as "Lisa", Hill worked in several language teaching jobs before entering University College London, where she gained a First-class degree in Russian in 1924 and a PhD in 1931. Hill trained military recruits in Russian. A fellow of Girton College, in 1948, she became the first Professor of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. Professor Hill is buried in the grounds of the church of St. Andrew & St. Mary, Grantchester.