Roman+Osipovich+Jakobson

 In 1914 Jacobson joined the Slavo-Russian department of History and Philology of Moscow University. His teachers were wonderful scientists - Dmitry Ushakov and Nikolay Durnovo. Great influence on the university youth of that period, as well as on the older generation of linguists, provided the postulates of the scientific school of Philip Fedorovich Fortunatov. Jacobson drew the rigor and accuracy of scientific thinking, which distinguished Fortunatov’s school.  The exceptional talent to create and organize the activities of a wide variety of scientific communities came to Jacobson from university days. Before emigration to Czechoslovakia in 1920 a scientist actively involved in all major scientific organizations of Moscow and St. Petersburg. At first it was a dialectical circle led by Dmitry Ushakov. Then the members of this circle, including the future well-known scientists, Nikolai Yakovlev (1872-1974) and Peter Bogatyrev (1893-1924), became part of the Moscow Linguistic Circle (1915-1924). Its first chairman was Jacobson. The members of this Society was not only linguists but also novice poet - Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelstam, Vladimir Mayakovsky. The main themes of the meetings were the issues of folklore, poetry and metrics.  In 1916, Jacobson, continuing its activities in the Moscow Linguistic Circle, started working in another scientific association - the famous OPOYAZ (Society for the Study of Poetic Language). The basis of the society were Yuri Tynianov, Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky, Boris Eichenbaum. In OPOYAZ was one of the first major works of Jacobson - the book "On Czech verse."  Jakobson was on friendly terms with many remarkable people of the time: artists Kazimir Malevich and Pavel Filonov, poet Velimir Hlebnikov which genius he made out one of the first. Being already in emigration Roman Osipovich was amicable and even conducted a joint seminar with great physicist Nils Bohr.  After departure from Russia, in involuntary subsequent separation from relatives, Jakobson nevertheless didn't lose interest to collective scientific activities. It was the active participant of the Prague linguistic circle (1926 – the beginning of the 50-ies) and many other scientific organizations.  Beginning in 1956 Jacobson repeatedly came to the USSR. Each of his visit became an important event for local linguists. For them, it was one of the few opportunities to establish contacts with scientists from the West. For 60 years, the scientist who spent abroad, first in Europe and later in America, he has done a lot to restore ties between the world's linguistic communities, and domestic science.
 * //__Roman Osipovich Jakobson __//** (1896-1982) is one of the most prominent figures in linguistics of XXth century. He became interested in the language very early: during their studies in high school he collected proverbs, riddles, songs - the wealth of urban folklore that can be heard in the 10-ies of XX century.