Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman (also Juri, Jüri, Jurij) (Russian: Юрий Михайлович Лотман) (28 February 1922 in Petrograd, Russia - 28 October 1993 in Tartu, Estonia) - a prominent Russian formalist critic, semiotician, culturologist. He was the founder of structural semiotics in culturology and is considered as the first Soviet structuralist by writing his book On the Delimitation of Linguistic and Philological Concepts of Structure (1963). The number of his printed works exceeds 800 titles, and his archive of letters now kept in the scientific library of Tartu university who wrote with a number of Russian intelectuals is immense. February 28 is the 59th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Saint Petersburg  listen (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991... October 28 is the 301st day of the year (302nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 64 days remaining. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... County Tartu County Mayor Laine Jänes Area 38. ... Cultural studies combines sociology, social theory, literary theory, media theory, film/video studies, cultural anthropology and art history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in industrial societies. ... County Tartu County Mayor Laine Jänes Area 38. ...

Yuri Lotman was born into a Jewish intellectual family of lawyer Mikhail Lotman and Sorbonne-educated dentist Aleksandra Lotman. His bigger sister Ina Abraztcova graduated Leningrad Conservatory and became compositor and lecturer of musical theory, his younger sister Victoria Lotman was a prominent cardiolog, and his third sister Lidia Lotman was a Ph D., a specialist in Russian literature of the second half of 19 century, a scientific collaborator in Pushkin's home. The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination... Pushkin may refer to: People Aleksandr Pushkin - a famous Russian poet Apollo Mussin-Pushkin - chemist and plant collector Aleksei Musin-Pushkin - statesman, historian, art collector Other Pushkin, a town in Russia Pushkin Square - square in Moscow Pushkin Museum - fine arts museum in Moscow This is a disambiguation page — a...

He graduated from secondary school in 1939 with excellent marks and was admitted to Leningrad State University without having to pass any exams. There he studied philology, which was a choice he made due Lidia Lotman's university friends (actually he attended lectures in philology while still being in secondary school). His professors at university were the renown lecturers and academicians - Gaukovsky, Azadovsky, Orlov, Tolstoy, and in his first work Lotman wrote about Propp. He was enlisted in 1940 and served during the World War II as a radio operator in the artillery. Demobilized from army in 1946 he returned to his studies in the university and received his diploma in 1950 with excellent remarks. Yuri Lotman published his first research papers on Russian literary and social thought of the 18th and 19th century. 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Categories: Russia-related stubs | Universities and colleges in Russia | Saint Petersburg ... Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp (St Petersburg, April 29, 1895 – Leningrad August 22, 1970) was a Russian structuralist scholar who analysed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements. ... Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1940 calendar). ... Combatants Major Allied powers: United Kingdom Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Major Axis powers: Nazi Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Harry Truman Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Unable to find an academic position in Russia due to anti-Semitism (he was unable to apply for Ph D.), Lotman went to Estonia in 1950 and from 1954 began his work as a lecturer at the Department of Russian language and literature of Tartu University, and later he became a head of it. In Tartu he set up his own school known as the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School. Among the other members of this school was such names as Boris Uspensky, Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov, Vladimir Toporov, Mikhail Gasparov, Pyatigorsky, Revzin, Lesskis, etc. This school is widely known for its journal Sign Systems Studies published formerly in Russian as Trudy po znakovym systemam - currently the oldest semiotics journal worldwide (established in 1964). Lotman studied the theory of culture, Russian literature, history, semiotics and semiology (general theories of signs and sign systems), semiotics of cinema, arts, literature, robotics, etc. In these fields, Lotman has been one of the most widely cited authors. His major study in Russian literature was dedicated to Pushikin, among his most influetial works in semiotics and structuralism are «Semiotics of Cinema», «Analysis of the Poetic Text», «The Structure of the Artistic Text». Lotman coined the term semiosphere. The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The University of Tartu (Estonian: Tartu Ülikool, German: Universität Dorpat) is the national university of Estonia, and the one classical university in Estonia, located in the city of Tartu. ... County Tartu County Mayor Laine Jänes Area 38. ... Boris Andreyevich Uspensky is a Russian philologist and mythographer. ... Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov is a prominent Soviet/Russian philologist and Indo-Europeanist probably best known for his glottalic theory of Indo-European consonantism and for placing the Indo-European urheimat in the area of the Lake Urmia. ... Vladimir Nikolayevich Toporov (5 July 1928 - 5 December 2005) was a leading Russian philologist who presided over the Moscow-Tartu school of semiotics after Yuri Lotmans death. ... Sign Systems Studies is internationally the oldest semiotics periodical. ... Semiotics, or semiology, is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped in sign systems. ... Semiotics (also spelled Semeiotics) is the study of signs and sign systems. ... Semiosphere is the sphere of semiosis in which the sign processes operate in the set of all interconnected Umwelts. ...

Mihhail Lotman, Yuri Lotman's son is a well-known publicist, academic, and an independent right-wing politician (member of Riigikogu for Res Publica). In politics, right-wing, the political right, or simply the right, are terms which refer, with no particular precision, to the segment of the political spectrum in opposition to left-wing politics. ... Riigikogu is the name of the national parliament of Estonia. ... Res Publica Party (Estonian: Erakond Res Publica) is a conservative political party in Estonia. ...

Bibliography

• 1976. Analysis of the Poetic Text. (Transl. by D. Barton Johnson.) Ann Arbor (Mich.): Ardis
• 1976. Semiotics of Cinema. (Transl. by Mark Suino.) (Michigan Slavic Contributions.) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, in Russian - Семиотика кино и проблемы киноэстетики
• 1977. The Structure of the Artistic Text. Translated from the Russian by Gail Lenhoff and Ronald Vroon. (Michigan Slavic Contributions 7.) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
• 1979. The origin of plot in the light of typology. Poetics Today 1(1–2), 161–184.
• 1990. Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. (Translated by Ann Shukman, introduction by Umberto Eco.) London & New York: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd. xiii+288 p.

See also

• Philosophy in the Soviet Union
• Semiotics
• Literary formalism

Philosophical research in the Soviet Union was officially confined to Marxist-Leninist thinking, which theoretically was the basis of objective and ultimate philosophical truth. ... Semiotics, or semiology, is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped in sign systems. ... Formalism is literary critcism. ...

External links

• Bibliography of English translated works
• Short sketch by the Estonian Foreign Ministry
• Lotmaniana Tartuensia - biography, biblograpgy of works in Russain and Estonian (in Russian and Estonian)
• Link page to works by and on Lotman
• Homepage of the Lotman Institute for Russian and Soviet Culture at the University of Bochum