Mikhail Gasparov


Mikhail Leonovich Gasparov was a Russian philologist and translator, renowned for his studies in classical philology and the history of versification, and a member of the informal Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1957 and worked at the Gorky Institute of World Literature, the Russian State University for the Humanities, and the Russian Language Institute in Moscow. In 1992 Gasparov was elected a full member of the Russian Academy of Science.
In 1995 Mikhail Gasparov was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation.
In 1997 he shared the Little Booker Prize with Aleksandr Goldstein for their publications analysing Russian literature from a historical-philosophical point of view.
In 1999 Gasparov was awarded the Andrei Bely Prize for his essay collection Notes and excerpts.
Gasparov was also a poet. He published translations of classical and modern European poetry, yet only one of his own poems was published during his lifetime.
Gasparov was a member of the editorial board of Literary Monuments book series, journals Journal of Ancient History, Literary Research, Elementa, and Rossica Romana.
Mikhail Gasparov published about 300 articles, translations and other works, including the monographs Fable in Antiquity, Modern Russian Versification, Overview of the History of Russian Versification, Overview of the History of European Versification.
During his last years Gasparov was actively engaged in publishing the collected works of the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam.
Commemorating Mikhail Gasparov, the Russian State University for the Humanities organises annual conferences dedicated to the main fields of Gasparov's academic research -- classical philology and Russian literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Publications