Yury Nikolaevich Tynyanov ( rus, Ю́рий Никола́евич Тыня́нов, p=ˈjʉrʲɪj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ tɨˈnʲænəf; October 18, 1894 – December 20, 1943) was a
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, ...
writer,
literary critic
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
, translator, scholar and screenwriter.
He was an authority on
Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
and an important member of the
Russian Formalist school.
Biography
Yury Tynyanov was born in
Rezhitsa,
Vitebsk Governorate
Vitebsk Governorate (russian: Витебская губерния, ) was an administrative unit ( guberniya) of the Russian Empire, with the seat of governorship in Vitebsk. It was established in 1802 by splitting the Byelorussia Governorate and ...
,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
(present-day Rēzekne,
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
).
He was married to Leah Abelevna Zilber, elder sister of
Veniamin Kaverin
Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin (russian: link=no, Вениами́н Алекса́ндрович Каве́рин; Вениами́н А́белевич Зи́льбер (Veniamin Abelevich Zilber); , Pskov – May 2, 1989, Moscow) was a Sov ...
, a well-known Russian author. While attending the
Petrograd University
Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...
, Tynyanov frequented the Pushkin seminar held by a venerable literary academic,
Semyon Vengerov
Semyon Afanasievich Vengerov (Russian: Семён Афанасьевич Венгеров; 17 April Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._5_April.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/> O._S._5_April">Old_Style_and_Ne ...
. His first works made their appearance in print in 1921.
Tynyanov died of
multiple sclerosis
Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...
in Moscow in 1943, aged 49.
Major works
In 1928, together with the
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
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,[structuralism
In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader ...]
(but see
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure (; ; 26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is widel ...
), which could be summarised in the following manner (from ref.
Rusform
at mural.uv.es):
:#Literary science had to have a firm theoretical basis and an accurate terminology.
:#The structural laws of a specific field of literature had to be established before it was related to other fields.
:#The evolution of literature must be studied as a system. All evidence, whether literary or non-literary must be analysed functionally.
:#The distinction between synchrony and diachrony was useful for the study of literature as for language, uncovering systems at each separate stage of development. But the history of systems is also a system; each synchronic system has its own past and future as part of its structure. Therefore the distinction should not be preserved beyond its usefulness.
:#A synchronic system is not a mere agglomerate of contemporaneous phenomena catalogued. 'Systems' mean hierarchical organisation.
:#The distinction between langue and parole
''Langue'' and ''parole'' is a theoretical linguistic dichotomy distinguished by Ferdinand de Saussure in his '' Course in General Linguistics''.
The French term ''langue'' ('n individuallanguage') encompasses the abstract, systematic rules and ...
, taken from linguistics, deserves to be developed for literature in order to reveal the principles underlying the relationship between the individual utterance and a prevailing complex of norms.
:#The analysis of the structural laws of literature should lead to the setting up of a limited number of structural types and evolutionary laws governing those types.
:#The discovery of the 'immanent laws' of a genre allows one to describe an evolutionary step, but not to explain why this step has been taken by literature and not another. Here the literary must be related to the relevant non-literary facts to find further laws, a 'system of systems'. But still the immanent laws of the individual work had to be enunciated first.
Tynyanov also wrote historical novels in which he applied his theories. His other works included popular biographies of Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
and Wilhelm Küchelbecker
Wilhelm Ludwig von Küchelbecker ( rus, Вильге́льм Ка́рлович Кюхельбе́кер, p=kʲʉxʲɪlʲˈbʲekʲɪr, tr. ; in St. Petersburg – in Tobolsk) was a Russian Romantic poet and Decembrist revolutionary of Ger ...
and notable translations of Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...
and other authors.
Selected bibliography
In English
Works by Yury Tynyanov
*''Formalist theory'', translated by L.M. O'Toole and Ann Shukman (1977)
*''Death of the Vazir-Mukhtar'', translated by Susan Causey (edited by Vera Tsareva-Brauner), Look Multimedia (2018)
*''The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar'', translated by Anna Kurkina Rush and Christopher Rush, Columbia University Press, 2021 (The Russian Library)
*'' Lieutenant Kijé / Young Vitushishnikov: Two Novellas (Eridanos Library, No. 20)'', translated by Mirra Ginsburg (1990)
*''Lieutenant Kizhe'', translated by Nicolas Pasternak Slater, Look Multimedia (2021)
*"Permanent Evolution: Selected Essays on Literature, Theory and Film" translated and edited by Ainsley Morse & Philip Redko (2019, Academic Studies Press)
Works edited by Yury Tynyanov
*''Russian Prose'', edited by Boris Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum and Yury Tynyanov, translated by Ray Parrot (1985)
In Russian
Novels:
*Кюхля, 1925
*Смерть Вазир-Мухтара, 1928
*Пушкин, 1936
Novellas and stories:
*Подпоручик Киже, 1927
*Восковая персона, 1930
*Малолетный Витушишников, 1933
*Гражданин Очер
On Pushkin and his era:
*Архаисты и Пушкин, 1926
*Пушкин, 1929
*Пушкин и Тютчев, 1926
*О "Путешествии в Арзрум", 1936
*Безыменная любовь, 1939
*Пушкин и Кюхельбекер, 1934
*Французские отношения Кюхельбекера, 1939
:# Путешествие Кюхельбекера по Западной Европе в 1820 – 1821 гг.
:# Декабрист и Бальзак.
*Сюжет "Горя от ума", 1943
Notes
External links
A brief article on Tynyanov's historical novels
a Russian site with links to several online texts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tynyanov, Yury
1894 births
1943 deaths
People from Rēzekne
People from Rezhitsky Uyezd
Latvian Jews
Russian formalism
Russian male novelists
Soviet short story writers
Soviet novelists
20th-century Russian short story writers
Saint Petersburg State University alumni
Deaths from multiple sclerosis
Neurological disease deaths in the Soviet Union
Burials at Vagankovo Cemetery
Russian male short story writers
20th-century novelists
20th-century Russian male writers
Belarusfilm films