Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman(1922 - 1993) - one of the creators of the structural-semiotic method of studying literature, founder of the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. Without him, Russian literary criticism would definitely be different.
The researcher had enough strength and talent to cover various topics and directions: from ancient texts to Lotman’s contemporary works, from the history of literature to the semiotics of cinema, from everyday life to poetry. Umberto Eco himself considered him his teacher.
During his lifetime, Yuri Mikhailovich was a member of several academies of sciences in different countries, created a series of programs “Conversations about Russian Culture” and published many books, the most remarkable quotes from which we have selected for you.
|
History is not a menu where you can choose dishes to suit your taste. |
|
Art is one of the means of communication. It undoubtedly creates a connection between the transmitter and the receiver (the fact that in certain cases both of them can be combined in one person does not change the matter, just as a person talking to himself unites the speaker and the listener). “About art: The structure of artistic text; Semiotics of cinema and problems of film aesthetics; Articles, notes, speeches 1962-1993.” |
|
The fact is that the creativity of even a bad singer is personal in nature, the creativity of even a good engineer seems to dissolve in the general anonymous progress of technology. "Culture and Explosion" |
|
Mental and physical grace are connected and exclude the possibility of inaccurate or ugly movements and gestures. The aristocratic simplicity of the movements of people of “good society” both in life and in literature is opposed by the stiffness or excessive swagger (the result of the struggle with one’s own shyness) of the commoner’s gestures. “Conversations about Russian culture. Life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII - early XIX centuries)" |
|
Only in art can we simultaneously be horrified by the villainy of an event and enjoy the skill of the actor. “Cinema Semiotics and Problems of Film Aesthetics” |
|
The task of science is correct positioning question. But it is impossible to determine which formulation of the question is correct and which is not without studying the methods of moving from ignorance to knowledge, without determining whether a given question can, in principle, lead to an answer. |
|
Poetry belongs to those areas of art whose essence is not completely clear to science. “About poets and poetry. Analysis of poetic text. Articles. Research. Notes" |
|
In its search for a new language, art cannot be exhausted, just as the reality it cognizes cannot be exhausted. "Culture and Explosion" |
|
Belief in the mysterious meaning of dreams is based on belief in the meaning of the message itself. We can say that sleep is the father of semiotic processes. "Culture and Explosion" |
|
In fact, the entire history of cinema as an art is a chain of discoveries aimed at expelling automatism from all links subject to artistic study. Cinema defeated moving photography by making it active agent knowledge of reality. “Cinema Semiotics and Problems of Film Aesthetics” |
|
In a literary text, words act (along with their general linguistic meaning) as pronouns - signs to denote content that has not yet been clarified. This content is constructed from their connections. “The structure of a literary text. Analysis of poetic text" |
|
The manor house is visible from afar; distant views also opened from its windows and balcony. The houses of provincial landowners were built by serf architects and nameless teams of carpenters. They deeply grasped one of the main features of ancient Russian architecture - the ability to construct a structure so that it fits harmoniously into the landscape. This made such buildings, along with church buildings and bell towers, the organizing points of that Russian landscape to which Pushkin and Gogol were accustomed in their travels. "Roman A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin". Comment" |
|
Freedom is not only the absence of external prohibitions. The absence of external prohibitions must be compensated by internal cultural prohibitions. “I can lie, but I won’t lie,” “I can insult another..., but I won’t.” “Conversations about Russian culture. Life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII - early XIX centuries)" |
|
The purpose of art is not just to display this or that object, but to make it a bearer of meaning. “Cinema Semiotics and Problems of Film Aesthetics” |
|
The closer we know a person, the more dissimilarities we find in photographs. “Cinema Semiotics and Problems of Film Aesthetics” |
|
Youth early XIX centuries, she got used to life in bivouacs, to campaigns and battles. Death became familiar and was associated not with old age and illness, but with youth and courage. Wounds caused not regret, but envy. |
|
The cult of Friendship was inseparable from the literature of pre-Romanticism: Schiller and Karamzin, Rousseau and Batyushkov created a real “mythology” of friendship. “Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Biography of the writer" |
|
An appearance of understanding is created where there is no real understanding. “Cinema Semiotics and Problems of Film Aesthetics” |
|
Each text has its own world, a rough but adequate copy of which is its dictionary. “The structure of a literary text. Analysis of poetic text" |
Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman
Lotman Yuri Mikhailovich (1922/1993) - Soviet scientist, literary critic, historian, cultural critic, academician. One of Lotman's most important achievements. was the development of the science of semiotics, to which he devoted several fundamental works. His works (“Structure of a Literary Text”, “Cinema Semiotics and Problems of Film Aesthetics”, “Culture and Explosion”) made a significant contribution to the understanding of culture and the processes occurring in it and are recognized as classics.
Guryeva T.N. New literary dictionary / T.N. Guryev. – Rostov n/d, Phoenix, 2009, p. 160-161.
Lotman, Yuri Mikhailovich (1922-1993) - Russian culturologist, semiotician, philologist. Since 1939 - student at the Faculty of Philology of Leningrad University; since 1940 - in the Soviet army, participant in the war. In 1950-1954 worked at the Tartu Teachers' Institute, from 1954 - at the University of Tartu (in 1960-1977 - head of the department of Russian literature). Since 1951 - candidate, since 1961 - doctor of philological sciences. Corresponding member of the British, academician of the Norwegian, Swedish, Estonian (1990) academies. He was vice-president of the World Association of Semiotics. Laureate of the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Organizer of the series “Proceedings on Sign Systems” in the “Scientific Notes of the University of Tartu”. Lotman's main works: “The Structure of a Literary Text” (1970), “Analysis of a Poetic Text” (1972), “Culture and the Explosion” (1992).
Philosophical Dictionary / author's comp. S. Ya. Podoprigora, A. S. Podoprigora. - Ed. 2nd, erased - Rostov n/a: Phoenix, 2013, p. 204.
Lotman Yuri Mikhailovich (02/28/1922, Petrograd - 10/28/1993, Tartu). Father is a lawyer. In 1939 he entered the philological department of Leningrad University. After the first year he was drafted into the army. He spent the war as a signalman in an artillery regiment. He returned to study only at the end of 1946. First scientific discovery committed while still a student: he found an unknown document related to the beginning of the Decembrist movement. He graduated from the philological department of Leningrad University in 1950, but due to the struggle with cosmopolitans, he was denied graduate school; he found a vacancy only at the Teachers' Institute in Tartu. In 1952 he became a candidate of science. In 1961, he defended his doctoral dissertation at Leningrad State University, “Ways of development of Russian literature of the pre-Decembrist period.” But even after this, the authorities continued to treat Lotman very warily. Why? Mikhail Gasparov seems to have found the answer. Already in 1996, Gasparov wrote about Lotman: “In the history of Russian literature, he worked on quite reliable authors: Radishchev, the Decembrists, Pushkin. And Radishchev really was a revolutionary for him, and the Decembrists were heroes, and Pushkin was a universal genius, and even Karamzin turned out to be very sympathetic to the French Revolution. Only in this case they turned out to be much more complex and deeper than in ordinary portraits, which were signed even by good scientists. Meanwhile, for official Soviet literary criticism, if Radishchev was good, then Karamzin had to be bad. But Lotman didn’t do that, and that was annoying.” In the early 1960s, Lotman tried to apply structural methods to the study of literature. As a theorist, he published “Lectures on Structural Poetics” in 1962 and the monograph “The Structure of a Literary Text” in 1970. Back in the mid-1960s, Lotman became the leader of semilotics in the USSR. He came up with the idea of holding annual summer schools in Tartu on secondary modeling systems and the publication of “Proceedings on Sign Systems”. Remembering the scientific conferences he organized, V.A. Uspensky noted: “Lotman is the tuner, conductor and first violin... of the orchestra. He monitors the height of the intellectual bar and at the same time observes the democratic ritual. He shakes hands with all the ladies as they unload from the bus. He makes sure that after breakfast, lunch and dinner all the dishes are cleared from the table. He calls all participants, including students, only by their first and patronymic names.” Lotman's observations about writing were very interesting. He hated references by writers to any life or censorship circumstances. As the scientist wrote in 1986, “circumstances can break and destroy big man, but they cannot become the defining logic of his life.”
Vyacheslav OGRYZKO
Lotman Yuri Mikhailovich (1922-1993) - Russian culturologist, semiotician, philologist. Since 1939 - student at the Faculty of Philology of Leningrad University; from 1940 - in the Soviet army, participant in the war. In 1950-1954 he worked at the Tartu Teachers' Institute, from 1954 - at the University of Tartu (in 1960-1977 - head of the department of Russian literature). Since 1951 - candidate, since 1961 - doctor of philological sciences. Corresponding member of the British, academician of the Norwegian, Swedish, Estonian (1990) academies. He was vice-president of the World Association of Semiotics. Laureate of the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Organizer of the series “Proceedings on Sign Systems” in the “Training Notes of the University of Tartu”, head of regular “summer schools” (on secondary modeling systems). One of the participants in the “Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics” (head of the Tartu school). Main works: “Lectures on structural poetics” (1964) “The structure of a literary text” (1970); "Analysis of Poetic Text" (1972); "Articles on the typology of culture" (Issue 1-2, 1970-1973); "Cinema Semiotics and Problems of Film Aesthetics" (1973); "The Creation of Karamzin" (1987); "Culture and Explosion" (1992), etc.
Since the early 1960s, L. has been developing a structural-semiotic approach to the study of works of art (based on the traditions of the Russian “formal school,” especially Yu.N. Tynyanov, and taking into account the experience of the development of semiotic structuralism). The starting point of any semiotic system of literature is not a single sign (word), but a relationship of at least two signs, which makes it possible to take a different look at the fundamental foundations of semiosis. The object of analysis is not a single model, but a semiotic space (“semiosphere”), within which communication processes are realized and new information is generated. The semiosphere is built as a concentric system, in the center of which are the most obvious and consistent structures that present the world as ordered and endowed with a higher meaning. The core structure (“myth-forming mechanism”) represents a semiotic system with realized structures of all levels. The movement towards the periphery increases the degree of uncertainty and disintegration inherent in the world external to the semiosphere, and emphasizes the importance of one of the main concepts - borders. The border of the semiosphere is understood by L. as the sum of bilingual translator-filters, which also designate the type of social roles and ensure the semiotization of what comes from the outside and its transformation into a message. The situation in which the space of reality is not covered by any one language separately, but only by their totality, is not a disadvantage, but a condition for the existence of language and culture, because dictates the need for another - a person, a language, a culture. The border also has another function - a place of accelerated semiotic processes, which then rush into nuclear structures in order to displace them.
The introduction of opposing and mutually alternative structural principles gives dynamism to the semiotic mechanism of culture. Uncertainty modeling is associated with a typological description different cultures and a set of acceptable recodings, with the theoretical problem of translatability-untranslatability. Alternative codes embedded in culture transform the semiotic space into a dialogical one: all levels of the semiosphere, as if nested within each other, are simultaneously participants in the dialogue (part of the semiosphere) and the space of dialogue (the whole semiosphere). The semiotics of culture is not limited to the representation of culture as a sign system; the very attitude to the sign and signification constitutes one of the main typological characteristics of culture. Any reality involved in the sphere of culture begins to function as a sign, and if it already had a sign (or quasi-sign) character, then it becomes a sign of a sign (a secondary modeling system). In social terms, culture is understood as the sum of non-hereditary information or super-individual intelligence that makes up for the shortcomings of individual consciousness. L. compares functionally and structurally similar “intellectual objects” - the natural consciousness of man as a synthesis of the activities of two hemispheres and culture as the idea of a bi- and polypolar structure and draws a conclusion about the isomorphism of the processes of generating language, culture and text.
The main function of culture is the structural organization of the world - the creation of a social sphere around a person, which makes social life possible. For normal functioning, culture, as a multifactorial semiotic mechanism, must understand itself as holistic and orderly. The requirement of integrity (the presence of a single design principle) is realized in autodescriptive formations of the metacultural level, which can be represented as a set of texts or grammars (“culture of texts” and “culture of grammars”). The concept of a text is given not as a metaphysical “reality” separate from history, but as a definite, historically given subject-object relationship. From the understanding of the text as a manifestation of language, L. comes to the concept of a text that generates its own language. Thus, the program for the study of culture, according to L., includes the distinction between subtextual (general linguistic) meanings, textual meanings and functions of the text in the cultural system. Culture is a complexly structured text, breaking up into a hierarchy of “texts within a text” and forming their complex interweavings. (See also Autocommunication.)
D.M. Bulynko, S.A. Radionova
The latest philosophical dictionary. Comp. Gritsanov A.A. Minsk, 1998.
Lotman Yuri Mikhailovich (February 28, 1922, Petrograd - October 28, 1993, Tartu) - specialist in the field of literary theory and aesthetics, history of Russian literature and culture, semiotics and cultural studies; Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor. In 1939 he entered the philological department Faculty of Leningradsky State University. Since 1940 - in the Soviet Army. Member of the Great Patriotic War. From 1950 to 1954 he worked at the Tartu Teachers' Institute, and from 1954 - at the University of Tartu, in 1960-1977 - head. Department of Russian Literature. From the beginning 60s develops a structural-semiotic approach to the study of cultural works, creates the “Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”. Lotman’s works on semiotic analysis of various cultural texts are united by the idea of “secondary modeling systems”, i.e. the text is interpreted as a unity of a model of objective and subjective reality, and also as a sign system secondary to the signs of natural language - the “primary modeling system”. The “Tartu school” of semiotics, headed by him, continued the traditions of the Russian “formal school”, especially Yu. Tynyanov, taking into account the experience of the development of semiotic structuralism in various countries, but was not limited to the study of the formal structure of works of art, paying primary attention to the semantics of sign structures (Structure of artistic text, 1970 ; Analysis of poetic text, 1972). A semiotic object, according to Lotman, can be adequately comprehended not as a separate sign, but as a text that exists in culture - a text that is “a complex device that stores diverse codes, capable of transforming received messages and generating new ones, like an information generator that has the features of an intellectual personality" (Selected articles, vol. 1, Tallinn, 1992, p. 132). Based on this, Lotman considers culture itself in its semiotic aspect, in the diversity of its communicative connections (“Articles on the typology of culture,” vols. I–III. Tartu, 1970–73). Introduces the concept of “semiosphere” (1984), which characterizes the boundaries of semiotic space, its structural heterogeneity and internal diversity, forming a structural hierarchy, the components of which are in a dialogical relationship. Lotman's theoretical views take into account the development of modern scientific knowledge, especially information theory, cybernetics, the theory of systems and structures, the doctrine of functional asymmetry of the brain, the ideas of synergetics (Culture and Explosion. M., 1992), and at the same time they are based on the richest material in the world culture, primarily Russia.
L.N. Stolovich
New philosophical encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Guseinov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Mysl, 2010, vol. II, E – M, p. 454-455.
Lotman Yuri Mikhailovich (02/28/1922, Petrograd - 10/28/1993, Tartu) - specialist in the field of literary theory and aesthetics, history of Russian literature and culture, semiotics and cultural studies. Doctor of Philological Sciences, Prof., Corresponding Member. British Academy, academician of the Norwegian, Swedish, Estonian academies. He was vice-president of the World Association of Semiotics, laureate of the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Graduated from the Philological Faculty of Leningrad University (1950) (I was at the front throughout the Great Patriotic War.) Since 1954, he worked at Tartu University, where in 1960-1977. Head of the Department of Russian Literature. Lotman's historical and scientific works are devoted to the history of Russian literature of the 18th - mid-19th centuries. In the field of his attention are Radishchev, Karamzin, A.F. Merzlyakov, the Decembrists, Pushkin, Gogol, M.Yu. Lermontov and other figures of Russian culture. Since the early 60s, Lotman has been developing a structural-semiotic approach to the study of artistic works, organizing the publication “Proceedings on Sign Systems: (Semiotics)”, heading “summer schools”, conferences, seminars on semiotic research in various areas of culture. As a result of this, the internationally famous “Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics” emerged. In the 1st issue. “Works on Sign Systems” (1964) Lotman’s “Lectures on Structural Poetics” were published.
The works of Lotman and his like-minded people and followers in the field of semiotic analysis of cultural texts are united by the idea of “secondary modeling systems”, i.e. the text is interpreted as a unity of a model of objective and subjective reality, and also as a sign system secondary to the signs of natural languages - “primary modeling system”. The “Tartu school” of semiotics, headed by Lotman, continues the traditions of the Russian “formal school”, especially Yu. N. Tynyanov; Taking into account the experience of the development of semiotic structuralism in various countries, it is not limited to the study of the formal structure of works of art, paying primary attention to the semantics of sign structures (“Structure of an artistic text”, 1970; “Analysis of a poetic text”, 1972). Lotman comes to the understanding that a semiotic object can be adequately comprehended not just as a separate sign, but as a text that exists in culture and is a “complex device that stores diverse codes, capable of transforming received messages and generating new ones, like an information generator with the characteristics intellectual personality" (Selected articles. T. 1.S. 132). Based on this, L. considers culture itself in its semiotic aspect, in the diversity of its communicative connections (Articles on the typology of culture. I, II. Targu, 1970, 1973). By analogy with the concepts of V. And Vernadsky “biosphere” and “noosphere”, Lotman introduces the concept of “semnosphere” (1984), characterized by the boundaries of semiotic space, its structural heterogeneity and internal diversity, forming a hierarchy, the components of which are in a dialogical relationship. JI's views. take into account the development of modern scientific knowledge, especially information theory, cybernetics, the theory of systems and structures, the doctrine of functional asymmetry of the brain, the ideas of synergetics (“Culture and Explosion”, 1992), and at the same time they are based on the richest material of world culture, primarily Russian, which appears in its typological meaning. Lotman did not declare his philosophical views. In the pre-semiotic period of his activity, philosophy interested him only as a subject historical study. He masterfully identified the philosophical equivalent of writers' creativity. His theoretical and methodological views underwent a certain evolution. In the 60s, supporters of the “Tartu school” leaned towards positivism, believing that semiotics was their philosophy.
Subsequently, Lotman began searching for a philosophy that would correspond to his semiotic cultural studies. He turns to Leibniz's monadology, believing that the semiosphere consists of many “semiotic monads” as intellectual units, carriers of Reason. According to him, “a person not only thinks, but is also in the midst of a thinking space, just as a speaker of speech is always immersed in a certain linguistic space” (Selected articles. Vol. 3. P. 372). The existence of the external world is recognized, but it is also an “active participant in semiotic exchange.” God for Lotman is a cultural phenomenon. While respectful of religion, he himself was an agnostic. Lotman was sensitive to the ideas of various thinkers - Leibniz, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud. He first published some of Florensky’s works in 1967 and 1971 in Semiotics, and was sympathetic to the concept of dialogue by M. M. Bakhtin. However, Lotman’s own philosophical views cannot be reduced to any one well-known system, be it Platonism or Kantianism, Hegelianism or Marxism. They can be defined as a type of “systemic pluralism”, which involves the combination of heterogeneous ideological components in a certain system. He accepted that side of Marxism that he had learned from Hegel’s dialectics, the principle of historicism and taking into account the social factor in the development of culture. The Institute of Russian and Soviet Culture in Germany (Lotman-lnstitut Ш russische und sowjetische Kultur. Ruhr-Universitat Bochum) is named after Lotman.
L. N. Stolovich
Russian philosophy. Encyclopedia. Ed. second, modified and expanded. Under the general editorship of M.A. Olive. Comp. P.P. Apryshko, A.P. Polyakov. – M., 2014, p. 348-349.
Works: Radishchev and Mably // XVIII century. M.; L., 1958; Rousseau and Russian culture of the 18th - early 19th centuries // Rousseau J. J. Treatises. M., 1969; The Creation of Karamzin. M.. 1987; Culture and explosion. M., 1992; Favorite articles: In 3 volumes. T. 1: Articles on semiotics and typology of culture. Tallinn. 1992; T. 2: Articles on the history of Russian literature of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. Tallinn, 1992; T. 3: Articles on the history of Russian literature. Theory and semiotics of other arts. Mechanisms of culture. Notes. List of works by Yu. M. Lotman. Tallinn, 1993; Inside the thinking worlds: Man - Text - Semnosphere - History. M., 1996.
Literature: Yu. M. Lotman and the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. M.. 1994; Egorov B.F. Life and work of Yu. M. Lotman. M., 1999; Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman (Ser. “Philosophy of Russia in the second half of the 20th century”). M., 2009.
Read further:
Philosophers, lovers of wisdom (biographical index).
Essays:
Radishchev and Mably. – In collection: XVIII century, collection. 3. M.–L., 1958;
Rousseau and Russian culture of the 18th – early 19th centuries. – In the book: Rousseau J.-J. Treatises. M., 1969;
The structure of a literary text. M., 1970;
Art history and “exact” methods in modern foreign research. – In the book: Semiotics and art geometry. M., 1972;
Semiotics of cinema and problems of film aesthetics. Tallinn, 1973;
Culture and explosion. M., 1992;
Favorite articles in 3 volumes, volume 1: Articles on semiotics and typology of culture. Tallinn, 1992; vol. 2: Articles on the history of Russian literature of the 18th – first half of the 19th centuries. Tallinn, 1992; vol. 3: Articles on the history of Russian literature. Theory and semiotics of other arts. Mechanisms of culture. Small notes [List of works by Yu.M. Lotman]. Tallinn, 1993.
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin: Biography of the writer. - L., 1981;
The Creation of Karamzin. - M., 1987;
At the school of poetic word. - M., 1989;
About Russian literature. - St. Petersburg, 1997;
Karamzin. - M., 1998.
Literature:
Gasparov M. Lotman and Marxism // New Literary Review. - 1996. - No. 19.
Zubkov N. // Encyclopedia for children. - T. 9. Russian literature. - Part 2. XX century. - M., 2000.
Yu. M. Lotman and the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. M.. 1994;
Egorov B.F. Life and work of Yu. M. Lotman. M., 1999;
Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman (Ser. “Philosophy of Russia in the second half of the 20th century”). M., 2009.
Lotman Yuri Mikhailovich
Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman is one of the founders of the Moscow and Tartu semiotic schools. Thanks to the structural-semiotic method he developed for the study of culture and literature, his research and scientific works, we began to better understand Karamzin, Pushkin and the cultural traditions of the 18th-19th centuries.
Culturologist and literary critic Yu.M. Lotman was born in Leningrad on February 28, 1922. From 1930 to 1939 he studied in the city of Petrishul. After graduating from school, he passed the exams and entered the Leningrad University, Faculty of Philology. In October 1940 he was drafted into the army, where he served in the signal troops and went through the entire war. He was awarded orders (of the Patriotic War and the Red Star) and medals (“For Courage” and “For Military Merit”). In April 1943 he joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and was demobilized in 1946.
After retiring from the armed forces, Yu. Lotman continued his studies in his chosen specialty and graduated from the university in 1950. After defending his diploma at the university, he worked at the University of Tartu from 1954 until the end of his life. In 1954-1959 teacher, and from 1960 to 1977 - head of the department. In 1961, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation on the literature of the pre-December (18-19 centuries) period, and in 1963 Lotman was awarded the title of professor. Estonia was chosen as a place to live and work due to the greater tolerance of dissent in the republic's academic circles.
In 1951, Yu.M. Lotman married student Zara Mints (later a professor and literary critic specializing in the study of Russian symbolism and the work of A. A. Blok). Lotman always loved to remember the episode that happened at their first meeting. Zara Mints, knowing that her teacher draws small portraits beautifully and quickly, turned to him with a request to make a sketch with a photo of Mayakovsky for scientific conference. In response, Lotman muttered irritably that he was busy and did not paint for free. Zara burst into tears and shouted out in anger: “You mustachioed bastard!”
In marriage, the Lotman couple had three sons: Mikhail Yuryevich (born in 1952), professor of literary studies and semiotics at Tallinn University, member of the Estonian Parliament from 2003-2007, and since 2011 chairman of the Tartu City Assembly; Grigory Yuryevich (born in 1953), artist; Alexey Yuryevich (born 1960), biologist, member of the Estonian Parliament from 2007-2011.
His parents (Mikhail and Alexandra) Yu.M. Lotman had three more children - the scientist's sisters. The eldest, Inna Mikhailovna Obraztsova (1915-1999), was a composer, the middle, Lidia Mikhailovna Lotman (1917-2011), a literary critic, and the youngest, Victoria Mikhailovna Lotman (1919-2003), a doctor.
The main direction of Y. Lotman’s work was the study of national culture and literature. He was one of the pioneers in creating a new method for studying these subjects - structural-semiotic. Lotman was always distinguished by his open-mindedness, which could not please the ruling elite. So, in 1970, for a completely far-fetched reason (the case of N. Gorbanevskaya), a search was carried out in his apartment. At the same time, he was prohibited from traveling outside the USSR.
At that time, semiotics was no longer called “the corrupt girl of capitalism,” but it was criticized not without a fair amount of malice. Science amateurs often provoked this attitude. Yu.M. Lotman was not one of them, but the very life of a world-famous scientist outside of big cities, in a small town, was considered at that time a dangerous rarity. Therefore, the scientist was “kept an eye on,” and the search itself in his apartment, which was initially futile, was viewed more as a preventive measure. An echo of these “concerns” of the state was the refusal to elect Lotman to the Russian Academy of Sciences after the collapse of the USSR as a “foreigner.” And this despite the fact that by this time Yu.M. Lotman was a member of four foreign academies of sciences: British (since 1977), Norwegian (since 1987), Royal Swedish (since 1989) and Estonian (since 1989).
Professor Lotman worked hard, to the detriment of his own health. He always said that, unlike the natural sciences, the humanities, based on private judgments, are the only way to achieve something. Even after surviving a stroke and having virtually no control over right hand, he continued scientific activity, dictating his thoughts to the secretaries.
Yu.M. Lotman did not limit himself to literary research alone. In the 80s, he created a television series about Russian culture. He also wrote such works as: “On Art”, “Education of the Soul”, “Inside Thinking Worlds”, known not only to specialists. During perestroika he took part in the work of the Estonian People's Front.
Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman died on October 28, 1993 and was buried in the cemetery in Tartu. In October 2007, a monument to him was erected in front of the Tartu University Library.
Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman born February 28, 1922 in Petrograd. In 1939, he entered the philological faculty of Leningrad University - his choice of profession was largely influenced by the circle of friends of his older sister. His teachers at the university were famous professors and academicians - G.A. Gukovsky, M.K. Azadovsky, A.S. Orlov, I.I. Tolstoy, and his first course work student Lotman wrote to V.Ya. Proppa. In October 1940, Yuri Lotman was drafted into the army, and after the start of World War II, the artillery regiment in which he served was transferred to the front. He fought through all four war years, ending the war in Berlin.
Having been demobilized at the end of 1946, Yuri Lotman returned to study at the university and already in his student years conducted active and fruitful research work. In 1950, he graduated from the university with honors, but because of his nationality he could not enroll in graduate school - the country was fighting with all its might against “cosmopolitans.” Therefore, Yuri Lotman got a job as a teacher at the department of Russian language and literature at the Tartu Teachers' Institute, and later he headed this department. In 1952, he defended his PhD thesis on the creative relationship between Radishchev and Karamzin, after which he published a number of works about these writers. In 1954, Lotman was invited to the position of associate professor at the University of Tartu, where he lectured. His entire subsequent life was connected with the University of Tartu - after defending his doctoral dissertation “Ways of development of Russian literature of the pre-December period,” he became a professor, headed the department of Russian literature for many years, and wrote almost all of his scientific works.
A significant part of Lotman’s scientific heritage is devoted to the study of the work of A.S. Pushkin, and the pinnacles of his research were the books “A.S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin.” Commentary” and “Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Biography of the Writer.” The scientist’s sphere of interests also included semiotics and structuralism; Lotman’s work in this area received worldwide recognition, and his name is among the creators of literary structuralism. His earliest publications addressing these issues date back to the first half of the 1960s, and among the most famous and significant studies are “Cinema Semiotics and Problems of Film Aesthetics”, “Analysis of Poetic Text”, “Structure of Literary Text”.
Despite a serious illness and loss of vision, Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman continued to engage in science until last days his life, and in 1992 the scientist’s last book, “Culture and Explosion,” was published, in which he, in his own way, developed I. Prigogine’s ideas about the special patterns of random processes. Yuri Lotman died in Tartu on October 28, 1993.
Information from the site http://www.alleng.ru
Yu.M. Lotman
Main works
Monographs:
1. Andrei Sergeevich Kaisarov and the literary and social struggle of his time // Academic journal. Tart.state university. Tartu, 1958. Vol. 63. (also see “Karamzin”, St. Petersburg, 1997. P.637-804.)
2. Lectures on structural poetics // Academic journal. Tart.state university. Tartu, 1964. Issue 160. / Works on sign systems. T.1 (also see "Yu.M. Lotman and the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school", M., 1994. P.17-263.)
3. The structure of a literary text M., 1970 (also see “On Art”, St. Petersburg, 1998. P. 14-281.)
4. Articles on the typology of culture 1: Materials for the course on the theory of literature Tartu, 1970.
5. Analysis of poetic text L., 1972.
6. Semiotics of cinema and problems of film aesthetics Talinn, 1973 (also see “On Art”, 1998. pp. 288-373.). [The text is available on the Internet in the Moshkov library]
7. Yuri Lotman, Yuri Tsivyan Dialogue with the screen Tallinn, 1994.
8. Selected articles in three volumes Tallinn, Alexandra Publishing House, 1993.
9. Culture and explosion M., 1992. (also see "Semiosphere", St. Petersburg, 2000.)
10. Inside thinking worlds. Man-text-semiosphere-history M., 1996. (also see "Semiosphere")
11. Novel in verse by Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” Tartu, 1975.
12. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin: biography of the writer L., 1982.
13. A.S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”: Commentary L., 1983.
14. At the school of poetic word: Pushkin. Lermontov. Gogol M., 1988.
15. The Creation of Karamzin M., 1987 (also see "Karamzin", 1997. P.10-311.)
16. Conversations about Russian culture: life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII - early XIX centuries) St. Petersburg, 1996.
17. Universe of the Mind: a semiotic theory of culture L. 1990. (See “Inside the thinking worlds”)
Articles:
1. On the problem of values in secondary modeling systems // Academic Zap. Tart. State University, 1965. Issue. 181. / Proceedings on sign systems, vol. 2, pp. 22-37.
2. On the problem of the typology of culture // Academic Zap. Tart. State University, 1967. Issue. 198. / Proceedings on sign systems, vol. 3., pp. 30-38.
3. On the problem of text typology // Abstracts. report at the second Summer School on secondary modeling systems Tartu, 1966. P.83-91.
4. Abstracts to the problem “Art in a series of modeling systems” // Academic journal of Tart. State University, 1967. Vol. 198. / Proceedings on sign systems, vol. 3., pp. 130-145.
5. Literary criticism should be a science // Issue. lit., 1967. No. 1. pp. 90-100. (also see "On Russian Literature", St. Petersburg, 1997. P.756-765.)
6. On the semiotic mechanism of culture (Collaborated with B.A. Uspensky) // Academic Zap. Tart. State University, 1971. Vol. 284. / Proceedings on sign systems, vol. 5, pp. 144-166. (also see "Selected Articles", vol. 3, 1993, pp. 326-344.
7. Myth-name-culture (Collaborated with B.A. Uspensky) // Academic journal of Tartary State University, 1973. Issue 308. / Proceedings on sign systems, vol. 6., pp. 282-303. (also see "Selected Articles", vol. 1, 1993, pp. 58-75.
8. Semiotics of culture and the concept of text // Proceedings on sign systems, vol. 12., pp. 3-7 (also see “Selected articles”, Tallinn, 1993. vol. 1. pp. 129-132.
9. About the semiosphere // Proceedings on sign systems, Tartu, 1984. No. 17. P.5-23. (also see "Selected Articles", Tallinn, 1993. vol. 1. pp. 11-24.)
10. On the dynamics of culture // Proceedings on sign systems, Tartu, 1992. No. 25. P.5-22. (also see "Semiosphere", St. Petersburg, 2000.)
11. Lotman Yu.M. The problem of the sign in art (abstract of the report). // Lotman Yu.M. About art. St. Petersburg, 1998.
12. Lotman Yu.M. Phenomenon of Culture, TZS No. 10, 1978.
13. Lotman Yu.M. Culture as collective intelligence and problems of artificial intelligence. // Lotman Yu.M. Semiosphere of St. Petersburg. 2000.
14. Lotman Yu.M. The place of cinema in the mechanism of culture. TZS No. 8 1977.
15. Lotman Yu.M. Winter notes about summer schools. // Y.M. Lotman and Tartu-Moscow semiotic school M., 1994.
16. Lotman Yu.M. A.M.Pyatigorsky, Theses. Kääriku, May 10-12, 1968. Tartu, 1968.
17. Lotman Yu.M. On the metalanguage of typological descriptions of culture TZS No. 4 Tartu, 1969.
18. Lotman Yu.M. On the construction of a typology of culture. // Abstracts of reports at the second summer school on secondary modeling systems, August 16-26, 1966, Tartu, 1966. P.82-83.
19. Lotman Yu.M., Uspensky B.A. On the semiotic mechanism of culture. Proceedings on sign systems No. 5, 1971.
20. Lotman Yu.M. The problem of “teaching culture” as its typological characteristic. // TZS No. 5, Tartu, 1971.
21. Lotman Yu.M. The problem of the similarity between art and life in the light of the structural approach. // Lotman Yu.M. About art. St. Petersburg, 1998, pp. 378-386.
22. Lotman Yu.M. Poetry of the 1790-1810s. // Lotman Yu.M. About poets and poetry St. Petersburg, 1996.
23. Lotman Yu.M. Dynamic model of a semiotic system. // Lotman Yu.M. Semiosphere, St. Petersburg, 2000.
Yura spent his childhood in St. Petersburg, and in its special place - on Nevsky Prospekt, 18.
In the 19th century, this house housed the confectionery shop of Wolf and Bérenger. Here Pushkin met with his second and went to a tragic duel. And this is not just a coincidence. For Lotman, this is a kind of sign of fate.
Yuri Mikhailovich studied at the former “Petershula”, a school on Nevsky Prospekt, where many subjects were taught in German at that time. German he knew brilliantly, which turned out to be extremely important in his future work.
By the way, even at school the nickname stuck to him Jurmich, and that’s what his friends then called him, and subsequently his students. ()
"Non-memoir":
“...I began a somewhat vague relationship with Zara Grigorievna. We met when I was in my 4th year. At this time I regularly earned money by painting large portraits of leaders in squares. What came out was only vaguely reminiscent of the samples from which I copied (especially at the beginning).
...One day, after a lecture, Zara Grigorievna and Vika Kamenskaya came up to me, and Zara Grigorievna suggested that for the upcoming scientific conference dedicated to Mayakovsky, I should decorate the hall, drawing, in particular, his portrait. I saved all my time for scientific pursuits, which I indulged in with the passion of an alcoholic reaching for a bottle. Participating in such events was not at all part of my plans. I stutter heavily (while working as a telephone artilleryman, I developed proper breathing and hardly stuttered, but when I found myself in civilian life after demobilization), I suddenly discovered that when talking with girls or strangers I stutter as badly as I’ve ever stuttered before; At a circle meeting, I once had to interrupt my report and leave the stage), I explained to Zara Grigorievna that I paint only for money. Her Komsomol enthusiasm was dumbfounded by such cynicism, and she walked away from me with tears in her eyes, loudly saying: “You mustachioed bastard!” This was our first explanation.
(Drawing by Yu.M., the hare is Zara’s pet nickname)
...Later, our relationship improved, and on the eve of her state exam, I was invited as a consultant who was supposed to “pump up” Zara, Vika and Lyuda Lakaeva with information on the 18th and 19th centuries overnight (they were fans of D. E. Maksimov, studied Blok and nothing but Blok were considered worthy of knowing, but they knew Blok perfectly).
...I got married. Zara Grigorievna moved to Tartu (at the same time I had to overcome her desperate resistance: she did not want to leave her school and was going, as I sarcastically told her, “to build socialism in one separate class”).
The formalization of our relationship was completely in the spirit of Zara Grigorievna’s Komsomol maximalism. We went to the registry office to “register our relationship.” Neither I nor Zara Grigorievna expected that we would have to take off our coats there. But I was still wearing a “lecture” suit (in family parlance it was called “smoke and darkness” - its left sleeve was dripping with stearin, because in the evenings the lights were turned off and I had to work by candlelight). Zara Grigorievna had no festive dresses at all (philistinism!). And there was something “performing duties”, altered from the dress of Aunt Manya - a woman twice as tall and plump as Zara Grigorievna.
We came to the registry office. “They came” is not the right word: I literally dragged in the desperately resisting Zara Grigorievna, who said that, firstly, she was not going to move to Tartu and leave her Volkhovstroy schoolchildren, and secondly, that family life in general, philistinism (Zara Grigorievna’s friend Lyuda summed up these speeches with a caustic formula: “Personal - back, public - forward!”). Waiting for us at the registry office was an exceptionally nice Estonian, who held this position under all successive regimes and, like most intellectuals of that age and time, spoke Russian very well. First of all, he struck us with a decisive blow, suggesting that we take off our coats. Zara Grigorievna was suddenly attacked by a fit of laughter (not at all hysterical, she really found this “philistine” procedure very funny). The head of the registry office looked at us sadly and said with deep understanding: “Yes, for the first time it’s really funny!”
Sons:
Lotman, Mikhail Yurievich (born 1952), professor of semiotics and literary studies at Tallinn University, member of the Riigikogu (Estonian Parliament) in 2003-2007, chairman of the Tartu city council since 2011;
Lotman, Grigory Yuryevich (born 1953), artist;
Lotman, Alexey Yurievich (born 1960), biologist, member of the Riigikogu (Estonian Parliament) in 2007-2011.
(In the photo: Yu.M. and Zara Mints in Hungary, 1984)
1952. He defended his PhD thesis at Leningrad University on the topic “A.N. Radishchev in the fight against the socio-political views and noble aesthetics of N.M. Karamzin.”
It should be emphasized that Yu. M. became interested in Karamzin’s work while still a student, and even then he saw that the significance of Karamzin’s legacy did not coincide with official assessments: reactionary, idealism, monarchism, and these were the labels assigned to the writer in the pre-war and early post-war periods. years.
The complex of Karamzin’s works by Yu. M. is one of the most significant in his heritage.
Yu. M. was one of the first to “rehabilitate” Karamzin, removing the ugly stigmas from him, the result of a primitive, vulgar sociological approach to our classic.
In parallel with the teachers' institute, Yu. M. began teaching at the University of Tartu, first as an hourly worker, and then in 1954 was invited to the full-time position of associate professor. His entire subsequent life was connected with this educational institution.
"Non-memoir":
“...Our room, littered with books and not at all sparkling with neatness, evoked disgust in her [the owner of the apartment, a homely Estonian].
...we lived a very cheerful life: we worked a lot, wrote a lot and constantly met in a small but very close and very friendly circle. I completely transferred to the university, Zara Grigorievna worked at the teachers’ institute.”
1958 Publication of the first monograph - “Andrei Sergeevich Kaisarov and the literary and social struggle of his time.”
1960 Defense of his doctoral dissertation “Ways of development of Russian literature of the pre-Decembrist period.”
In 1963 Yu.M. received the title of professor; for many years (from 1960 to 1977) he was the head of the department of Russian literature; however, he remained its unofficial leader until his death, although the corresponding vigilant authorities by the 1970s. finally they realized that Lotman, together with the entire department, turned out to be no less dangerous for Soviet ideology than the “bourgeois” Estonian professors, and they tried to disperse the department; in particular, Yu. M. was removed from the head and transferred to the department of Estonian philology, to the department of literary theory. Fortunately, that was the end of the matter; Lotman still taught in the department of Russian language and literature.
Having become the head of the department of Russian literature at the University of Tartu, Yu.M., together with his wife, Z.G. Mints, and B.F. Egorov, attracted talented people and created a brilliant school for the study of Russian classical literature.
Lyubov Kiseleva:
When we talk about Lotman the manager, the problem of organizational gift becomes relevant. I’ll start with an episode that Yuri Mikhailovich loved to talk about and was proud of. R. O. Jacobson, having visited Tartu and Kääriku in the late 1960s, said that Lotman was an excellent organizer. At the same time, Jurmich [sic, with light hand B.F. Egorov, everyone who knew him called Lotman] always added with a sly grin that none of his friends and relatives, much less the university authorities, would agree with this review, but that, they say, Yakobson is the only person who got it right.
Throughout his life, Lotman studied Russian literature of the second half of the 18th – mid-19th centuries. (Radishchev, Karamzin, Decembrist writers, Pushkin, Gogol, etc.).
Lotman introduces into the purely literary sphere an active study of the facts of life and behavior of the corresponding eras, creating literary “portraits” of famous Russian people.