“Not sure that Russia in the coming years we will see a man of this magnitude”. As Vyacheslav Ivanov changed Russian and world science
7 Oct died Vyacheslav Ivanov linguist, anthropologist, semiotician, author of translations from dozens of languages, one of the creators of machine translation, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of arts and Sciences, a fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Sciences of Latvia. He was 88 years old.
In the last years of his life he combined his work at UCLA, where he was a Professor in the Department of Slavic languages, work at MSU and RSUH. As Vyacheslav Ivanov changed Russian and world science, at the request of “Medusa” recalls academician, a specialist in the field of classical Philology and comparative linguistics Nicholas Kazan.
Nikolay Kazanskiy
Doctor of philological Sciences, academician
Care Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich — loss for all who knew him personally and those who only read his writings. Of course, it is a loss for world science. His works are included in the shortest lists of recommended works in the field of comparative historical linguistics. The world recognition was received the book, co-authored with academician Tamaz Gamkrelidze “Indo-European language and Indo-Europeans”, translated into English by Johanna Nichols. It was the pioneering work embodying new approaches to the reconstruction of the whole system of proto-Indo-European language, and glottal theory, which they formulated in one year with the American Paul Hopper. This theory is now included in the Western books.
Made by Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich in the field of Indo-European linguistics, as in the field of semiotics, largely determined the level of world science.
From the point of view of Russian science, the merits of Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich hard even as a full list. Start, perhaps, with the moment when publicly expressing their indignation at what was happening around the novel “Doctor Zhivago” Pasternak, Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich lost his job at MSU and was invited to engage in mathematical linguistics. After that, he worked at the Institute for Slavic and Balkan studies, where he wrote many books — a grammar of the Hittite language, Anatolian languages, a comparison with the Baltic and Slavic. It is here, along with Vladimir Nikolayevich Toporov they wrote the book on Slavic mythology, and formulated the so-called “basic myth” reflected in many Indo-European traditions is the myth of the struggle of the God of Thunder with the Serpent. These studies were continued in America Versus Watkinson and Joshua Catcom. In the same years appeared his book of translations from the languages of Ancient Anatolia “the Moon fell from the sky”. Many of the verse translations were read and accepted Anna Akhmatova.
We are obliged to Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich dozens of articles in the encyclopedia “Myths of Nations of the world”. He is actively acquainted colleagues with new materials — he has prepared a collection of translations from a great introductory article on Tocharian languages, the texts which were brought to Russia and published the first Russian Consul in Kashgar Nikolai Fedorovich Petrovsky.