Boris Uspensky

Рец. на: Ю. М. Лотман – Б.А. Успенский: Переписка 1964 – 1993. Составление, подготовка текста и комментарии О.Я. Кельберт и М.В. Трунина. Под общей редакцией Б.А. Успенского. Таллинн: Издательство ТЛУ, 2016 (Biblioteca LOTМANIANA). Опубл. по-эстонски: Keel ja kirjandus. 2017, #2.

The introductory article offers a general frame for the special issue of Sign Systems Studies, discussing the emergence of semiotics of history as a new discipline or approach in the humanities. It presents an overview on the attempts of joining the history and semiotics in the Western world since the early 1980s, with a special focus on the United States, and examines the contribution of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics to the semiotic study of history, paying the main attention to the work of Juri Lotman and Boris Uspenskij. Finally, a survey of the articles that make up the special issue dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Boris Uspenskij is presented.

This article compares the approaches to the semiotics of history of two central figures of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics – Juri Lotman and Boris Uspenskij. It is argued that Lotman’s approach to the semiotics of history is closely connected with the development of his theory of the semiosphere (despite Lotman’s unfailing interest in history, his theoretical interpretation of the historical process was, in fact, secondary to his reflection on the semiosphere), that is, with the shift in his research from studies of literary-historical cases to typology. Meanwhile, Uspenskij, a linguist who started out as a scholar of structural language typology, moved in the opposite direction, becoming increasingly engaged in the examination of individual historical cases. Lotman’s correspondence with Uspenskij serves as proof that semi-formal communication on scientific issues between the representatives of the Tartu-Moscow School was often what inspired new fundamental ideas and further development of theoretical concepts.

The introduction to my reworked PhD dissertation published as a book: "Inherent Myth. Wales in Niall Griffiths's Fiction", KUL University Press (Wydawnictwo KUL) 2012. It is a reading of Niall Griffiths's work based on the theoretical framework offered by the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School (Yuri Lotman, Boris Uspensky et al.), focusing on the representations of Wales in 'Grits', 'Sheepshagger', 'Kelly+Victor', 'Stump' and 'Wreckage'

The aim of this article is to retrace the evolution of Enrico Pea’s intellectual appearence between 1914 and 1958, using Lotman and Uspenskij concept of Izgoj, «degraded»,
meaning a subject both outside and inside the social system of relevance. Through this perspective it will be possibile to identify the way by which the intellectual society mediate the literary and educational anomaly of the self-taught Enrico Pea, fixing it such as «scrittura d’eccezione»: eccentric, unclassifiable, object of obvious assimilation, unsolved difference. Sources of this setting will be traced — using Bourdieu’s field theory — in the aim to convert this cultural strangeness in symbolic capital useful to the literary field’s self-description wherein he’s received, especially Florence avant-guarde and the hermeticism of 1930s. The argument will find support in correspondence and author’s and literary critics’ explanations, in the additional attempt to draw, through the Pea’s case, the italianl iterary field’s autonomization and strenghtening during the considered period, as well as the development of the language fit to describe it
Keywords: Enrico Pea, izgoj, literary field, cultural system, symbolic capital, Pierre Bourdieu, Jurij Lotman, Boris Uspenskij

To modern readers, the Gospel of Truth is a composition charged with intrigue and perplexity. This anonymous second-century work seems like a philosophical account of a world different from any known earlier. The complexity and enigmatic theology of the work have left many researchers bewildered and undecided concerning the identity of the work’s author and his religious background.In order to clarify this apparent perplexity and uncover the author’s identity and intention, this study undertakes a particular type of literary investigation that was first introduced to the field of literary criticism by Russian formalist and structuralist, Boris Uspensky (1937-).