Xenia Youhn

Xenia Youhn, a Russian citizen and eventually naturalized U.S. citizen in 1963, worked as an Assistant Professor in Northwestern’s Slavic Department in 1962. Before this, she had worked as a Lecturer and Instructor in the department since 1959. Prior to her appointment at Northwestern, Ms. Youhn completed a five year course of study with honors at the First Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages in 1929. From 1930 to 1933 Ms. Youhn worked at the Metallurgical Plant at Kuznetsk, Siberia as a USSR official government interpreter for the Freyn Engineering Company in Chicago, IL.

During her time teaching at Northwestern, Ms. Youhn led a group of students on a study abroad to Moscow as the Director of the Russian Seminar in the USSR in summers 1970 and 1971, and later in winter 1975. In 1970, Ms. Youhn published a Russian language textbook titled Russian: A Complete Elementary Course. This same year, she was awarded the Faculty Honor Award by the Associated Student Government at Northwestern. She was named a Professor Emeritus at Northwestern in 1975.