Lotman Yuri - extraordinary and bright

Lotman Yuri Mikhailovich is a huge world of thought that we, descendants, have to study. And although television has done a great deal to make its multifacetedness and complexity accessible to people, so that many could come into contact with the depth of the material and the simplicity of its transmission, Yuri Mikhailovich still remains a mystery.

Information about childhood and adolescence

In the family of Mikhail Lvovich Lotman, a mathematician and lawyer, who already had three daughters, did not appear a son. And then, in the famished year 1922 in Petrograd, the long-awaited successor, Lotman Yuri, was finally born. The house where he was born is very difficult. It was from him that Pushkin went to a duel with which he was brought mortally wounded.

For thousands of years in Jewish families, children have been taught respect for their studies and books. Therefore, seven-year-old Lotman Yuri was sent to study in the best school in Leningrad, which now has its original name "Petrishula". In this educational institution people who made a huge contribution to Russian culture studied, for example: P.P. Vyazemsky, K. Rossi, N. Benois, M. Mussorgsky, Decembrist M. Fonvizin, Admiral P. Chichagov and many others.

Only in this school Lotman Yuri could receive a profound versatile education and excellent command of foreign languages, especially German, which Yuri Mikhailovich possessed in perfection. For the time being, Lotman Yuri has been comprehending science for nine years and is preparing to enter Leningrad University. He chose the philological faculty and wrote his course under the scientific guidance of the outstanding philologist-folklorist V. Ya. Propp, who had world recognition and stood at the origins of the development of the theory of the text. The interests of the student included studying Russian literature of the early 19th century, so he needed to know French.

War

In 1939-1940 there was a military conflict with Finland. And from the second course Lotman Yuri was sent to the Red Army. As an absolutely necessary subject, he took with him a dictionary of the French language and carefully studied it all the years of the war. Already from the beginning of the Patriotic War, he serves as a signalman in the artillery troops, that is, on the front line, without hiding behind anyone's backs. First he is a sergeant, then the commander of the liaison office.

In 1944 he was awarded two medals - "For Courage" and "For Military Merit". After a concussion in 1945, Yuri Mikhailovich awarded the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War II degree. So his fighting differences were noted. Yuri Lotman ended the war in Berlin.

Demobilization and commencement of work

From 1946 to 1950, he continues his studies, and then receives the position of a senior lecturer in Tartu, at the Pedagogical Institute. For him, as a Jew, other ways were closed. In small Tartu, he will remain for life. A year later, Yuri marries a girl who is close to him in spirit, who studies Russian symbolism and the work of A. Blok. Two years later, in 1952, Lotman Yuri Mikhailovich defended his Ph.D. thesis. The theme was chosen about the struggle of Radishchev with the aesthetics of the nobility at Karamzin. Two years later, work begins at the University of Tartu, which in the 20th century, thanks to the work of Lotman, will not only become famous throughout the world, but will also occupy a central place in world philology. And all this only because there the great scientist lectured there and created the school of semiotics. In 1961, Yuri Mikhailovich defended his doctoral dissertation on Russian literature before the Decembrist uprising, since 1963 he is a professor, head of the department of Russian literature.

People of the era of the late 18th - early 19th centuries were for him live interlocutors. He talked with Pushkin, checked his assessments of life and culture and his conclusions. In 1981 he published his biography of Pushkin. Insanely interesting is the book "Conversations on Russian Culture", published in 1993, just at the time when TV began a series of his lectures on this topic. This book can be opened from any page and read by booze. The memory and knowledge of Lotman are extraordinary. Students at the lectures listened to his lectures, not knowing what to do - to listen or write down. Undoubtedly, he was an idol.

Attitude to culture

Memory, Lotman thought, is the highest achievement of both man and humanity in general. It is she who is the guardian of culture as the most positive result of the activity of the human spirit. Culture as a memory is a way to understand the activity of a scientist. The last book, published during his lifetime, is called "Culture and Explosion". It examines the cultural processes in the historical aspect, which led the country to what we have today. So Yuriy Lotman reflected, whose biography, despite the vicissitudes of wars, is a thinker's biography.

Family life

With his wife, Yuri Mikhailovich lived for thirty-nine years, surviving it for three years. So they looked, being already married with experience. The couple are buried next door. They have three sons. The elder went in their footsteps, engaged in literary criticism and semiotics, the second - the artist, the third - the biologist.

In 1993 Lotman Yuri Mikhailovich passed away. His biography continues in the lectures, the books that the descendants are reading now and ponder with him those thoughts that disturbed and disturbed him.