Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov (russian: Вячесла́в Все́володович Ива́нов , 21 August 1929 – 7 October 2017) was a prominent
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
/
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
n
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
,
semiotician
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves Sign (semiotics), signs, where a sign is defined as anything that commun ...
and
Indo-Europeanist
Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical pro ...
probably best known for his
glottalic theory
The glottalic theory is that Proto-Indo-European had ejective stops, , instead of the plain voiced ones, as hypothesized by the usual Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions.
A forerunner of the theory was proposed by the Danish lingu ...
of
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
ism and for placing the Indo-European
urheimat
In historical linguistics, the homeland or ''Urheimat'' (, from German '' ur-'' "original" and ''Heimat'', home) of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the r ...
in the area of the
Armenian Highlands and
Lake Urmia
Lake Urmia;
az, اۇرمۇ گؤلۆ, script=Arab, italic=no, Urmu gölü;
ku, گۆلائوو رمیەیێ, Gola Ûrmiyeyê;
hy, Ուրմիա լիճ, Urmia lich;
arc, ܝܡܬܐ ܕܐܘܪܡܝܐ is an endorheic salt lake in Iran. The lake is ...
.
Early life
Vyacheslav Ivanov's father was
Vsevolod Ivanov
Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich Ivanov (russian: Все́волод Вячесла́вович Ива́нов, ; , Lebyazhye, Semipalatinsk Oblast – 15 August 1963, Moscow) was a Soviet and Russian writer, dramatist, journalist and war correspondent.
B ...
, one of the most prominent Soviet writers. His mother was an actress who worked in the theatre of
Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Emilyevich Meyerhold (russian: Всеволод Эмильевич Мейерхольд, translit=Vsévolod Èmíl'evič Mejerchól'd; born german: Karl Kasimir Theodor Meyerhold; 2 February 1940) was a Russian and Soviet theatre ...
. His childhood was clouded by disease and war, especially in
Tashkent
Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of ...
.
Ivanov was educated at
Moscow University
M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
and worked there until 1958, when he was fired on account of his sympathy with
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (; rus, Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к, p=bɐˈrʲis lʲɪɐˈnʲidəvʲɪtɕ pəstɛrˈnak; 30 May 1960) was a Russian poet, novelist, composer and literary translator. Composed in 1917, Pa ...
and
Roman Jakobson
Roman Osipovich Jakobson (russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н; October 11, 1896Kucera, Henry. 1983. "Roman Jakobson." ''Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America'' 59(4): 871–883. – July 18,[Indo-European studies
Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical pro ...]
and became one of the leading authorities on
Hittite language
Hittite (natively / "the language of Neša", or ''nešumnili'' / "the language of the people of Neša"), also known as Nesite (''Nešite'' / Neshite, Nessite), is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken by the Hittites, a people ...
.
Career
* 1959–1961 — head of the Research Group for Machine Translation at the Institute of Computer Technology of the
Academy of Sciences of the USSR
The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...
, Moscow
* 1963–1989 — head of the Structural Typology Sector of the
Institute of Slavic Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow
* 1989–1993 — director of the
All-Union Library of Foreign Literature in Moscow (VGBIL)
* 1989–1995 — chair of the Department of Theory and History of World Culture of the Philosophical Faculty of
Moscow State University
M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
* 1992–2017 — founding director of Moscow State University's
Institute of World Culture
* 2003–2017 — founding director of the Russian Anthropological School at the
Russian State University for the Humanities
The Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH, RGGU; russian: Росси́йский госуда́рственный гуманита́рный университе́т, РГГУ, translit=Rossijskij gosudarstvennyj gumanitarnyj universit ...
in Moscow
* from November 1991 — professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Program of Indo-European Studies at
University of California — Los Angeles; retired in 2015, distinguished research professor since then
The member of the academies of sciences and learned societies:
* the
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...
* the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
* the
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...
* the
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Croatica, hr, Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, abbrev. HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia.
HAZU was founded under patronage of the Croatian bishop Jo ...
* the
Latvian Academy of Sciences
The Latvian Academy of Sciences ( lv, Latvijas Zinātņu akadēmija) is the official Academy of Sciences, science academy of Latvia and is an association of the country's foremost scientists. The academy was founded as the ''Latvian SSR Academy o ...
* the
Linguistic Society of America
The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...
* the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
He was elected a full member of the
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...
in 2000, and he has been a Foreign Fellow of the
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...
since 1977.
British Academy Fellows. Record for: IVANOV, Professor Dr Vjaceslav
/ref>
Also, in 1989 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of Russia
The Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR (russian: Верховный Совет РСФСР, ''Verkhovny Sovet RSFSR''), later Supreme Soviet of the Russia, Russian Federation (russian: Верховны ...
, but left for the United States soon thereafter.
Scholarly contribution
During the early 1960s, Ivanov was one of the first Soviet scholars to take a keen interest in the development of semiotics
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...
. He worked with Vladimir Toporov
Vladimir Nikolayevich Toporov (russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Топоро́в; 5 July 1928 in Moscow5 December 2005 in Moscow) was a leading Russian philologist associated with the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. His wife was ...
on several linguistic monographs, including an outline of Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
. In 1962 he joined Toporov and Juri Lotman
Juri Lotman (russian: Ю́рий Миха́йлович Ло́тман; 28 February 1922 – 28 October 1993) was a prominent Russian-Estonian literary scholar, semiotician, and historian of Russian culture, who worked at the University of Tart ...
in establishing the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School. During the 1970s Ivanov worked with Tamaz Gamkrelidze
Tamaz (Thomas) Valerianis dze Gamkrelidze (Georgian: თამაზ ვალერიანის ძე გამყრელიძე, 23 October 1929 – 10 February 2021) was a Georgian linguist, orientalist public benefactor and Hittitol ...
on a new theory about the Indo-European phonetic system: the famous Glottalic theory
The glottalic theory is that Proto-Indo-European had ejective stops, , instead of the plain voiced ones, as hypothesized by the usual Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions.
A forerunner of the theory was proposed by the Danish lingu ...
. These two academics worked together also on a new theory of Indo-European migrations
The Indo-European migrations were hypothesized migrations of Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) speakers, and subsequent migrations of people speaking derived Indo-European languages, which took place approx. 4000 to 1000 BCE, potentially expla ...
, during the 1980s, which was most recently advocated by them in ''Indo-European and Indo-Europeans'' (1995).
Other interests
In 1965 Vyacheslav Ivanov edited, wrote extensive scholarly comments, and published the first Russian edition of previously unpublished "Psychology of Art" by Lev Vygotsky
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (russian: Лев Семёнович Выго́тский, p=vɨˈɡotskʲɪj; be, Леў Сямёнавіч Выго́цкі, p=vɨˈɡotskʲɪj; – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet psychologist, known for his work on ps ...
(the work written in the first half of the 1920s). The second, extended and corrected edition of the book came out in 1968 and included another Vygotsky's unpublished work, his treatise on Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's ''Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' (written in 1915-1916). The first edition of the book was subsequently translated into English by Scripta Technica Inc. and released by MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962.
History
The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...
in 1971.
Apart from his scholarly pursuits, Vyacheslav Ivanov wrote poetry. He also published several books of memoirs, including two on his acquaintances with Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (; rus, Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к, p=bɐˈrʲis lʲɪɐˈnʲidəvʲɪtɕ pəstɛrˈnak; 30 May 1960) was a Russian poet, novelist, composer and literary translator. Composed in 1917, Pa ...
and Anna Akhmatova
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko rus, А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко, p=ˈanːə ɐnˈdrʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡɐˈrʲɛnkə, a=Anna Andreyevna Gorenko.ru.oga, links=yes; uk, А́нна Андрі́ївна Горе́нко, Ánna Andríyivn ...
.
Selected publications
* ''Sanskrit''. Moscow: Nauka Pub. House, Central Dept. of Oriental Literature, 1968.
* ''Borozdy i mezhi''. Letchworth: Bradda Books, 1971. 351 p.
* with Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze
Tamaz (Thomas) Valerianis dze Gamkrelidze (Georgian: თამაზ ვალერიანის ძე გამყრელიძე, 23 October 1929 – 10 February 2021) was a Georgian linguist, orientalist public benefactor and Hittitol ...
, ''Indoevropjskij jazyk i indoevropejcy: Rekonstrukcija i istoriko-tipologieskij analiz prajazyka i protokultury''. Tiflis: Tiflis University Press 1984. xcvi + 1328 p.
** English translation: ''Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A reconstruction and historical analysis of a proto-language and a proto-culture''. 2 vols. Trans. J. Nichols. Berlin–New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1: 1994, 2: 1995
* with T. V. Gamkrelidze, “The ancient Near East and the Indo-European question: Temporal and territorial characteristics of Proto-Indo-European based on linguistic and historico-cultural data”, ''Journal of Indo-European Studies'' vol. 13, no. 1–2 (1985): 3–48.
* with T. V. Gamkrelidze, “The migrations of tribes speaking Indo-European dialects from their original homeland in the Near East to their historical habitations in Eurasia”, ''Journal of Indo-European Studies'' vol. 13, no. 1–2 (1985): 9–91.
* Vyacheslav V. Ivanov and Thomas Gamkrelidze, “The Early History of Indo-European Languages”, ''Scientific American'' vol. 262, no. 3 (March, 1990): 110-116.
* ''The archives of the Russian Orthodox Church of Alaska, Aleutian and Kuril Islands (1794—1912): An attempt at a multisemiotic society''. Washington, 1996.
* ''The Russian orthodox church of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands and its relation to native American traditions — an attempt at a multicultural society, 1794—1912''. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress; U.S. G.P.O., 1997.
* (as editor) with Ilia Verkholantseva, eds., ''Speculum Slaviae Orientalis : Muscovy, Ruthenia and Lithuania in the late Middle Ages''. Moscow: Novoe izdatel'stvo, 2005.
* (as editor), ''Issledovaniia po tipologii slavianskikh, baltiĭskikh i balkanskikh iazykov: preimushchestvenno v svete iazykovykh kontaktov'' Studies in the typology of Slavic, Baltic and Balkan languages: with primary reference to language contact St. Petersburg: Aleteĭia, 2013.
* with V. N. Toporov, ''Mifologiia: statʹi dlia mifologicheskikh ėntsiklopediĭ''. Moscow: IASK, Iazyki slavianskikh kulʹtur, 2014.
* ''Cultural-historical theory and semiotics''. In A. Yasnitsky, R. Van der Veer & M. Ferrari (Eds.)
The Cambridge handbook of cultural-historical psychology
(488-516). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
References
External links
Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov, Professor Emeritus. ''In memoriam''
Biography
* Velmezova, Ekaterina; Kull, Kalevi
Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952, Tartu) is a biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia.
He graduated from the University of Tartu in 1975. His earlier work dealt with ethology and field ecology. He has studied the mechanisms ...
2011
Interview with Vyacheslav V. Ivanov about semiotics, the languages of the brain and history of ideas
Sign Systems Studies
''Sign Systems Studies'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal on semiotics edited at the Department of Semiotics of the University of Tartu and published by the University of Tartu Press. It is the oldest periodical in the field. It was initially ...
39(2/4): 290–313.
See also
* Culturology Culturology or the science of culture is a branch of social sciences concerned with the scientific understanding, description, analysis, and prediction of cultures as a whole. While ethnology and anthropology studied different cultural practices, su ...
* Alexander Dobrokhotov
Alexander Dobrokhotov (russian: Алекса́ндр Льво́вич Доброхо́тов; born 8 September 1950) is a Russian philosopher, historian of philosophy, historian of culture, and university professor. He specialises in the histo ...
* Aron Gurevich
Aron Yakovlevich Gurevich (also spelled Aaron Gurevich russian: Аро́н Я́ковлевич Гуре́вич; May 12, 1924 – August 5, 2006) was a Russian medievalist historian, working on the European culture of the Middle Ages.
Gurevich's ...
* Mikhail Gasparov
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ivanov, Vyacheslav
1929 births
2017 deaths
Moscow State University alumni
Linguists from the Soviet Union
20th-century linguists
Russian philologists
Linguists from Russia
Writers from Moscow
Russian semioticians
Indo-Europeanists
Linguists of Indo-European languages
20th-century Russian historians
Russian orientalists
Hittitologists
Researchers of Slavic religion
Moscow State University faculty
Russian State University for the Humanities faculty
University of California faculty
Stanford University faculty
Yale University faculty
Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Fellows of the British Academy
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Lenin Prize winners
Recipients of the USSR State Prize