An answer given by Roman Jakobson in 1976 to a question by an interviewer is now inscribed as an epitaph, in Russian, on his tombstone in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The question asked for a self-characterization: “You speak and write in so many languages. You have worked, taught and lived in so many countries. Who are you?” Jakobson's answer was laconic: “A Russian philologist. Period.”
In Roman Jakobson, “the man and his work are one” (Gray VII). One of the greatest scholars of the twentieth century, Jakobson was a man of immense intellectual power, audacity of thought, exceptional originality and creative breadth. His work in Slavic philology, poetics, semiotics, and, above all, linguistics, defined the development of contemporary humanities in a way commensurable with Albert
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Citation: Reznik, Vladislava. "Roman Jakobson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 April 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2332, accessed 26 November 2024.]
