Introduction. In 2026 the Republic of Mari El will celebrate the 95th anniversary of the region’s higher education institution. We should mention one coincidence – 2026 marks the 95th anniversary of Gennady Matveevich Tuzharov, professor, an outstanding Mari linguist who devoted his life to the development of Finno-Ugric studies in Russia. G. M. Tuzharov is famous for the development of the morphological categories that was fundamentally new for Mari linguistics. It is therefore symbolic to address his legacy in the year of the university’s scientific anniversary. G. M. Tuzharov is renowned above all for his innovative theory of morphological categories and his in-depth study of the north-western dialect of the Mari language. The study of Gennadiy M. Tuzharov’s scientific and pedagogical legacy remains highly interdisciplinary. Firstly, in the context of global linguistic unification, there remains an urgent need to record and theoretically understand the dialectal substrate of the Mari language. G. M. Tuzharov’s conclusions on the independence of the north-western dialect of Mari, as well as its objective characterization of the case system (the inclusion of comparative, comitative, causative, and abesive), remain a methodological guideline for modern comparative and typological research. Secondly, 2026 marks the 95th anniversary of the scholar’s birth, which actualizes the tasks of institutional memory: preserving archival collections, republishing key monographs, and integrating his didactic work into modern teacher training programs for national schools. Among Mari linguists, the name of G. M. Tuzharov occupies a special place. He dedicated his entire academic career to the study of the morphology of the Mari language. He studied grammatical (morphological) categories of the Mari literary language and he was one of the leading morphologists in Mari linguistics. Thus, the biography of Gennadiy M. Tuzharov reflects the institutional trajectory of Moscow State Pedagogical Institute, from the post-war restoration of its pedagogical potential to the establishment of a regional center for Finno-Ugric studies. The article is devoted to the description of the life path, scientific and creative work of Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor Gennady Matveevich Tuzharov (1931–2008). The scientist's contribution to the study of grammar, dialectology, and lexicology of the Mari language is characterized. He was engaged in the study of problems of grammatical (morphological) categories in the Mari literary language. He was one of the leading morphologists in Mari linguistics.