Yury Nikolaevich Tynyanov (p=ˈjʉrʲɪj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ tɨˈnʲænəf; October 18, 1894 – December 20, 1943) was a Soviet Union writer, literary critic, translator, scholar and screenwriter.
Born in a Jewish community in the Russian Empire in modern-day Latvia, he moved to Saint Petersburg where he completed his education. During the 1920s in the Soviet Union, he published numerous novels, works, and movie scripts, as well as working as a translator. However, his health declined during the 1930s and he died in 1943 from multiple sclerosis.
Early life and education
Yury Nikolaevich Tynyanov was born on 18 October 1894 in Rezhitsa, Vitebsk Governorate,
Russian Empire - modern day Latvia. Tynyanov was born in a Jewish community, but would go on to have little connections with his Jewish heritage.
His father, Nikolai Arkadyevich Tynyanov, was a doctor while his mother, Sofya Borisovna Tynyanova (née Epshtein), was a co-owner of a tannery.
At age nine in 1904, Tynyanov attended the Pskov Provincial Gymnasium after he passed the entrance exams. With his brother, Tynyanov lived primarily in Pskov when he was attending the school, returning to Rezhitsa during the holidays via train to see his mother and sister, Lydia. He graduated in 1912 with a silver medal. Tynyanov then entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Saint Petersburg University.
In 1916, he married Leah Abelevna Zilber, the elder sister of his friend and well-known Russian author Veniamin Kaverin.
Russian Civil War
When the February Revolution began in 1917, Tynyanov was in Petrograd with his wife and daughter, Inna Yuryevna Tynyanov. Leah and Inna went back to Pskov, while Tynyanov remained in Petrograd to continue his studies. In summer 1918, he went to
Yaroslavl to visit his parents who been living in the city since 1915. The Yaroslavl Uprising and subsequent bombing by the
Bolsheviks, destroyed parts of Yaroslavl, including Tynayanov's library where he collected books since his time in Pskov and his diploma work on Küchelbecker. To see his wife and daughter, he crossed into lands occupied by
German Empire.
During the Civil War, he worked in several jobs. Along with his university studies, he began teaching literature at a school. He also lectured at the House of Arts and the House of Writers. He also served as a French language translator and head of the Information Department of the Petrograd Bureau of the Commintern. In 1919, he graduated from university and found employment at the Department of Russian Literature.
Career
In 1921, Tynyanov became a professor at the Petrograd Institute of Art History at the age of 27. During this time, he also began teaching 18th- to 20th-century Russian poetry and was a member of the Society for the Study of Poetic Language. In 1921, he published his first book titled
Dostoevsky and Gogol, where he compared the works of Dostoevsky and
Nikolai Gogol. In 1925, Tynyanov released his first novel called
Kukhlya. In 1927, he published another piece of historical fiction titled
The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar.
Archaists and Innovators was released in 1929.
Aside from writing novels, Tynyanov wrote the scripts for the movies The Overcoat (1926), Asya (1928) and The Club of the Big Deed (1927) in collaboration with Y.G. Oksman.
Later life and death
During the 1930s, Tynyanov slowly developed symptoms of multiple sclerosis. In 1932, he began to write his monograph
Pushkin. However, multiple sclerosis began to take its toll. He then required a cane to walk. By 1940, Tynyanov had lost his ability to walk. Nevertheless, he continued writing on Pushkin and finished the work's third part in 1943. Tynyanov died on 20 December 1943 in Moscow, aged 49.
Legacy
On 28 May 1981, a museum dedicated to Tynyanov opened in his hometown in Rezekne Secondary School No.6. The museum was supported by Tynyanov's friend Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin, his sister Lydia and his daughter Inna. The museum continues to operate in Latvia.
Major works
In 1928, together with
Roman Jakobson, Tynyanov wrote a famous manifesto titled
Problems in the Study of Language and Literature. It was published in the same year in the journal
Novy LEF, which was associated with the
Retrieved 2 June 2025.
The short article could be summarised in the following manner:
- #Literary and linguistic science has to have a precise theoretical basis and accurate terminology. Jakobson and Tynyanov criticize their contemporary scholars for haphazardly combining new methodologies with outdated ones, especially the application of psychological literary analysis. However, analysis should not be neglected in favor of narrow formalistic approaches purely relying on classification and Nomenclature.
- #The history of literature involves a complex of specific structural laws that need to be elucidated to enable comparison between literary history and other historical "series."
- #The evolution of literature must be studied systematically and intrinsically. Extraliterary sources may only be used when considered functionally.
- #Saussure's distinction between synchrony and diachrony made synchronic analysis a useful tool for linguistics and literary history prior to the publication of the manifesto, as it showed the systemicity of language and literature at each individual moment of their existence. However, Jakobson and Tynyanov argue that recent developments have made pure synchronism impossible. The past and future aspects of any system are inseparable structural elements of itself. Evolution is thus systemic.
- #Examining a synchronic literary system does not merely entail amassing disconnected bits of information about chronologically co-existing phenomena. Instead, phenomena within a given epoch have to be hierarchically related to each other.
- # Saussure's distinction between langue and parole, as well as the analysis of their mutual relationship, should be extended from linguistics to literary studies.
- #Analyzing the structural laws of literature and language, including their evolution, yields a limited typology of structural types.
- #Although intrinsic analysis should be the focus, the immanent laws of literary and linguistic evolution can only be fully illuminated by correlating literary/linguistic history to other historical series. This "system of systems,"
Retrieved 2 June 2025.
Tynyanov also wrote historical novels in which he applied his theories. His other notable works included popular biographies of Alexander Pushkin and Wilhelm Küchelbecker as well as translations of Heinrich Heine and other authors.
Selected bibliography
In English
Works by Yury Tynyanov
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Formalist theory, translated by L.M. O'Toole and Ann Shukman (1977)
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Death of the Vazir-Mukhtar, translated by Susan Causey (edited by Vera Tsareva-Brauner), Look Multimedia (2018)
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The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar, translated by Anna Kurkina Rush and Christopher Rush, Columbia University Press, 2021 (The Russian Library)
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Lieutenant Kijé / Young Vitushishnikov: Two Novellas (Eridanos Library, No. 20), translated by Mirra Ginsburg (1990)
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Lieutenant Kizhe, translated by Nicolas Pasternak Slater, Look Multimedia (2021)
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"Permanent Evolution: Selected Essays on Literature, Theory and Film" translated and edited by Ainsley Morse & Philip Redko (2019, Academic Studies Press)
Works edited by Yury Tynyanov
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Russian Prose, edited by Boris Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum and Yury Tynyanov, translated by Ray Parrot (1985)
In Russian
Novels:
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Кюхля, 1925
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Смерть Вазир-Мухтара, 1928
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Пушкин, 1936
Novellas and stories:
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Подпоручик Киже, 1927
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Восковая персона, 1930
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Малолетный Витушишников, 1933
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Гражданин Очер
On Pushkin and his era:
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Архаисты и Пушкин, 1926
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Пушкин, 1929
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Пушкин и Тютчев, 1926
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О "Путешествии в Арзрум", 1936
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Безыменная любовь, 1939
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Пушкин и Кюхельбекер, 1934
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Французские отношения Кюхельбекера, 1939
- # Путешествие Кюхельбекера по Западной Европе в 1820 – 1821 гг.
- # Декабрист и Бальзак.
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Сюжет "Горя от ума", 1943
Notes
External links
