Serge Elisseeff, Professor of Far Eastern Languages, and Michael Karpovich, Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, will retire at the end of this academic year.

Professor Elisseeff, an authority on Japanese, came here in 1934 to head the Harvard-Yenching Institute. He was born in Russia, and taught there until taken hostage by the Communists in 1920. Escaping to France, he taught at the Sorbonne until coming here.

Professor Karpovich was also born in Russia, and came to the United States with the diplomatic mission of the Kerensky government. He joined the faculty here in 1927, and in 1949 became chairman of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.