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(2011) Studies in East European Thought 63 (1).
Semantic palaeontology and the passage from myth to science and poetry
the work of Izrail' Frank-Kamenetskij (1880–1937)
Craig Brandist
pp. 43-61
The life and career of the Soviet scholar of myth and religion Izrail′ Grigor′evič Frank-Kamenetskij is discussed, tracing his development from a scholar working exclusively on semitology to a theorist of myth and literature. The scholar's relationship to German philosophy and Biblical scholarship is outlined, along with his relationship to Soviet scholarship of the 1920s and 1930s. The development of the scholar's work is related to his encounter with N. Ja. Marr in the early 1920s, and the way in which Marr's doctrine underwent considerable revisions when subjected to German philosophy and applied to narrative material is detailed. Finally the way in which attention increasingly turned to the genesis of literary plots and poetic metaphor is discussed, along with both the influence such work exerted and the enduring value of such work today.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s11212-010-9132-9
Full citation:
Brandist, C. (2011). Semantic palaeontology and the passage from myth to science and poetry: the work of Izrail' Frank-Kamenetskij (1880–1937). Studies in East European Thought 63 (1), pp. 43-61.
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