Nikolai Jakowlewitsch Marr

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Nikolai Marr (1905)
Nikolai Marr

Nicholas Marr ( Georgian ნიკოლოზ იაკობის ძე მარი , Nikolos Iakobis dse Mari , Russian Николай Яковлевич Марр , Nikolaj Jakovlevic Marr born December 25, 1864. jul. / 6. January  1865 greg. In Kutaisi , Georgia , † 20th December 1934 in Leningrad ) was a Georgian - Russian linguist and orientalist .

Marr's theories enjoyed official claims in the Soviet Union until 1950 , because he had linked them to Marxism and thus gained the support of the rulers.

life and career

He was born the son of the immigrant Scottish horticultural teacher James Murray ("Marr") and his Georgian wife Agathia Magularia. His mother tongue was Georgian, but several languages ​​were spoken in the family, but no Russian. He graduated from the classical high school in Kutaisi with distinction and a certificate of special language skills. In 1884 he enrolled at the Faculty of Oriental Languages ​​at the State University of Saint Petersburg , where he studied Georgian , Armenian , Semitic and Caucasian languages . After differences with Alexander von Zagareli , he qualified as a professor in Saint Petersburg in 1891 for Armenian, not Georgian. In 1901 he became a professor, in 1911 dean of the Oriental Faculty, and in 1912 a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences . He lived in Saint Petersburg (Leningrad) until his death.

Under his direction, the first thorough archaeological excavations took place in the Armenian Bagratid capital Ani (today Turkey ) in 1892 and 1893 and from 1904 to 1917 . From 1911 to 1912 he dug in Toprakkale with Joseph Orbeli . He is considered the creator of modern Georgian philology, published standard works on Old Armenian and Old Georgian, worried about the first critical editions of Old Georgian texts, but also researched living Caucasian languages ​​(Georgian, Mingrelian, Lasian, Swan, Abkhaz).

Marr was instrumental in developing the Japhetite theory , according to which the Caucasian, Semitic-Hamitic and Basque languages ​​have a common basis. In 1924 he declared that all the world's languages ​​were derived from a proto- language that had four common exclamations: sal , ber , yon and rosh . Although languages ​​went through different stages of development, it was possible for linguistic paleontology to recognize elements of the original exclamations in each language.

In order to gain support for his speculative theory, Marr worked out a Marxist foundation. He called it the "New Doctrine of Language". According to his hypothesis, all modern languages ​​tended to flow into a single language - that of communist society. The theory was accepted by the party and government of the Soviet Union. In 1921 Marr became head of the Japhetite Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, in 1926 head of the Russian National Library and in 1930 vice-president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences . In 1930 he was accepted into the Communist Party as the only pre-revolutionary member of the then Tsarist Academy of Sciences - rarely and unusually even without a trial period . In 1933 he was awarded the Order of Lenin , but was unable to accept it in person due to a stroke. He died on the night of December 19-20, 1934 and was buried on December 22nd, accompanied by 70,000 people, in the cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery .

Stalin's turn in 1950

In June 1950, Stalin had opposed Marr's linguistic theory in letters to the editor, including in Pravda , despite his years of support for Marr. According to the linguist, language was part of the superstructure of society, i.e. it was dependent on the respective material (and social) basis. According to the Kiel historian Georg von Rauch , one could foresee a new, supranational language of socialism that would prevail after the global victory of communism.

In these so-called letters on linguistics (“linguistic letters ”), Stalin judged, among other things, that language was something independent from the base and superstructure , that it was not a class matter, but belonged to the whole people. If several languages ​​come together, there will be no confusion into a new one, but one language will prevail. Russian has always been the winner. Through the linguistic letters, so von Rauch, the communist ideology was driven further in the direction of the Russian national "Soviet patriotism".

According to Stalin, the language was not to be counted as a base (the means of production) because it did not produce any material goods, and not as a superstructure because the Russian language would have remained the same before and after the revolution. Regarding the dispute between Stalin and Marr (who had changed his formula “language is a superstructure to the base” after pressure to the formula “language is a means of production”) Amadeo Bordiga remarked in 1953:

“But the means of production do not produce any material goods either! Man produces them by using the means of production. Tools are the means that people use to produce. When a child picks up the spade for the first time, at the wrong end, the father calls out to him: 'Take it by the handle!' This call - which is now part of what the child has learned - is used, like the spade, in production. Stalin's spiritual inference shows that it is he who is wrong. If language, he says, would produce material goods, the talkers would be the richest people on earth! But isn't it exactly like that? The worker works with his hands, the engineer with his tongue. Which of the two is better paid? [...] In all epochs the language is a means of production, but the individual different languages ​​are part of the superstructure ... "

Works

  • Н. Я. Марр, И. А. Орбели, Археологическая экспедиция 1916 года в Ван. Петроград 1922.
  • The Japhetite Caucasus and the third ethnic element in the formation process of the Mediterranean culture . Kohlhammer, Berlin / Stuttgart / Leipzig 1923
  • Rith chowrobs iapheturi enathmecniereba? Petrogradskij Institut živych vostočnych jazykov, Petrograd, 1923
  • Basksko-kavkazskie leksičeskie paralleli . Mecniereba, Tbilisi 1987
  • O jazyke i istorii abchazov . Izdat. Akad. Nauk SSSR, Moskva [u. a.] 1938
  • Ani: rêve d'Arménie . Anagrams Éd., Paris 2001, ISBN 2-914571-00-3
  • Jafetidologija . Kučkovo Pole, Moskva 2002, ISBN 5-86090-049-X

See also

literature

  • Gerhard Deeters : Linguistics in the Soviet Union . In: Bolko von Richthofen (ed.), Bolshevik Science and "Cultural Policy" (Writings of Albertus University 14) Königsberg - Berlin 1938; Pp. 236-251;
  • Josif V. Stalin: Concerning marxism in linguistics . Soviet News, London 1950;
  • Lawrence L. Thomas: The linguistic theories of N. Yes. Marr . University of California Press, Berkeley, California [et al. a.] 1957;
  • Tasso Borbé: Critique of the Marxist Theory of Language N. Yes. Marr's . Scriptor Verl., Kronberg / Ts. 1974, ISBN 3-589-20021-9
  • René L'Hermitte: Marr, marrisme, marristes: Science et perversion idéologique; une page de l'histoire de la linguistique soviétique . Institut d'Etudes Slaves, Paris 1987, ISBN 2-7204-0227-3
  • Niko Marisa da Ek'vt'ime T'aqaisvilis mimocera . Sak'art'velos Mec'nierebat'a Akademia, Mec'niereba, Tbilisi 1991;
  • Ferenc Havas: A marrizmus-szindróma: Sztálinizmus és nyelvtudomány . Tinta Könyvkiadó, Budapest 2002, ISBN 963-9372-53-6
  • Olga D. Golubeva: N. Yes. Marr . Rossijskaja Nacional'naja Biblioteka, Saint Petersburg 2002, ISBN 5-8192-0134-5
  • Vladimir M. Alpatov: Istorija odnogo mifa: Marr i marrizm . Editorial URSS, Moskva 2004, ISBN 5-354-00405-5
  • Ekaterina Pravilova: Contested Ruins: Nationalism, Emotions, and Archeology at Armenian Ani, 1892-1918 . In: Ab Imperio: Studies of New Imperial History and Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Space 1 (2016) 69-101.

Web links

Commons : Nikolai Jakowlewitsch Marr  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tuğba Tanyeri-Erdemir, Agency, innovation, change, continuity: considering the agency of Rusa II in the production of the imperial art and architecture of Urartu in the 7th Century BC. In: Peterson, DL / Popova, LM / Smith AT (eds.), Beyond the Steppe and the sown. Proceedings of the 2002 University of Chicago Conference on Eurasian Archeology. Colloquia Pontica 13 (Leiden Brill 2006), 266-267.
  2. ^ Georg von Rauch: History of Bolshevik Russia , 2nd, revised edition, Frankfurt / Hamburg 1963 (Wiesbaden 1955), p. 402.
  3. ↑ Georg von Rauch: History of Bolshevik Russia , 2nd, revised edition, Frankfurt / Hamburg 1963 (Wiesbaden 1955), p. 403.
  4. ↑ Amadeo Bordiga: "I fattori di razza e nazione nella teoria marxista", Iskra Edizioni, Milano, 1976, pp. 42/43
personal data
SURNAME Marr, Nikolai Jakowlewitsch
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Georgian-Russian linguist
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Kutaisi , Georgia
DATE OF DEATH December 20, 1934
Place of death Leningrad