Propp, Vladimir Yakovlevich

Vladimir Propp (29.04.1895 of [Saint Petersburg] - 22/08/1970 years)

Propp, Vladimir Yakovlevich (1895-1970), Russian folklorist, one of the founders of the modern theory of text. Born 17 (29) April 1895 in St. Petersburg. In 1914-1918 he studied Russian and Germanic Philology at the University of Petrograd, later taught German at the universities of Leningrad. Since 1932 - Lecturer, since 1938 Professor LSU successively in the departments of Romance and Germanic philology, folklore, and, until 1969, Russian Literature. Propp died in Leningrad on Aug. 22, 1970.

. One of the first publications Propp (after a few articles) was published in 1928 in Leningrad small book "Morphology of Fairy Tales" was greeted with sympathy, but in the next three decades known only to a narrow circle of specialists
. Later Propp continued his research in the walls of the LGU, through books, "The historical roots of the fairy tale" (1946) and Russian heroic epic "(1955, 2 ed. 1958) gained a reputation as eminent folklorist. In 1958 in the U.S. went out the English translation Morphology of the Folktale, followed by the U.S. re-release, and translations into many other languages. Early work Propp became Mitrova scientific bestseller, . in the USSR in 1969, . After more than forty years after first publication and before the death of scientist, . came second Russian edition of the Morphology of the Folktale, . almost immediately became almost as rare book, . as the first (up to reissues 1990).,

. Exceptional response, . triggered by the Morphology of the Folktale in the West, . and the subsequent huge influence were due to the new context, . where was this book in late 1950-1960-ies: widespread structural-semiotic (cm,
. STRUCTURALISM) methods and the emergence of early versions of generative grammar. Propp in the late 1920's suggested that a relatively small set of underlying functions on the face of the infinite variety of narrative structures of fairy tales, as well as the formal apparatus for the generation of these surface structures. After more than three decades, all of this, on the one hand, it was consonant with the ideas of early generative grammar, on the other - has demonstrated the applicability of such methods to the structures of a higher level than the proposal. Wonder, . that the work of Propp became one of the most important reference points for the formation in 1960 the theory of text and narrative analysis, and attracted the attention not only specialists in folklore, . semiotics and literary criticism, . such as K.Levi-Strauss, . A. Greimas (1917-1992) or S. Bremond, . but a wide range of linguists, . a little later, . in 1970, . also specialists in the theory of discourse, . artificial intelligence and cognitive science - D. Rumelharta etc.,
. (cm. DISCOURSE). Links to Propp (sometimes in the controversy with them) have become indispensable in their jobs, and in the 1970's, many native linguists first learned about the scientist, reading foreign publications.

. The world famous "Morphology of the Folktale" forced to take a different look and the more recent and far from structuralism works Propp, whose musical legacy, including articles, is considered now as a single entity and published to reflect this.