Colleagues in Yoshkar-Ola have informed us about the passing of Ivan Grigor’evich Ivanov, at the age of 76 years.
Ivan Ivanov, (retired) professor of the Mari State University, was one of the most esteemed native-speaker researchers of the Mari language.
He published numerous works on the Mari language, wrote articles and monographs (especially on the history and development of the Mari literary language), textbooks, (co-)authored dictionaries, and continued his
diligent work even in his last years.
With condolences to his colleagues, students and friends of the Mari language everywhere in the world.
Univ.Prof. Dr.
Johanna Laakso
Source: URA-LIST
MariUver 
URAL-LISTA is the list of Finno-Ugric student activists in Helsinki, the Kindred Peoples’ Commission (Sukukansavaliokunta). But this message comes from URA-LIST, which is an international scholarly information and discussion list for Uralic studies and neighbouring disciplines (see: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A0=URA-LIST ).