Bohuslav Havránek (January 30, 1893,

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

– March 2, 1978, Prague) was a Czech

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined ...

, Bohemist, Slavist,

literary historian The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment (concept), enlightenment, or Education, instruction to the reader/listener/observer, as well as the devel ...

and professor who was a prominent member of the Prague Linguistic Circle.

Life and career

He was born in to the family of a teacher. After his graduation, he worked as a secondary school teacher, before completing his studies in 1928, with his work 'The Genera Verbi in the Slavic languages' ('Genera verbi v slovanských jazycích' in Czech). From 1917 to 1929 he worked as a high school professor at grammar schools in Prague (Truhlářská and Dušní ul.). He also worked in at the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts. In 1926, Havránek helped found the Prague Linguistic Circle and was soon, alongside

Vilém Mathesius Vilém Mathesius (, 3 August 1882 – 12 April 1945) was a Czech linguist, literary historian and co-founder of the Prague Linguistic Circle. He is considered one of the founders of structural functionalism in linguistics. Mathesius was the edi ...

, one of Czech linguistics' most important representatives and in the following years he was a co-creator of its linguistic theory and methodology. In 1935, he founded the linguistic journal 'Slovo a slovesnost'. In 1930 he became a professor at

Masaryk University Masaryk University (MU) ( cs, Masarykova univerzita; la, Universitas Masarykiana Brunensis) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno as the se ...

Brno Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...

, and taught there until the closing of Czech universities by the German occupation of 1939. During his time in Brno, he became close to the representatives of the Left Front. In the 1930s, he became chairman of the Society for Relations with the Soviet Union in Brno and remained so until its dissolution in 1939. Together with other left-leaning intellectuals, he signed the ''We Will Remain,'' Manifesto in 1938 to mobilize Czech society against Nazi aggression. In 1945, at the suggestion of the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...

, he became a member of the Revolutionary Central National Committee in Brno as a non-partisan. He later joined the Communist Party, where he held a number of positions, including as a member of the National Front's action committees. In 1948 he signed a manifesto supporting the February coup and the Communist seizure of power. Beginning in 1945, he was professor at the

Charles University in Prague ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , under ...

, later becoming head of the Department for the Czech Language, then Phonetics, then General Linguistics, and finally Dean of the Faculty of Arts. From 1953 to 1961 he was also rector of the Academy of Russian Language and Literature. In 1952, he became academician and first director of the Institute for Czech Language, and of the

Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences The Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (Czech: ''Československá akademie věd'', Slovak: ''Česko-slovenská akadémia vied'') was established in 1953 to be the scientific center for Czechoslovakia. It was succeeded by the Czech Academy of Scienc ...

, remaining so until 1965. Havránek was a leading proponent of European structuralism, but also worked in sociolinguistics and linguistic history. His contribution to the theory of the

standard language A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect, and standard) is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that include ...

s is today recognized as especially important.

External links

—Bohuslav Havránek on the German National Library Website (in German)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Havranek, Bohuslav Linguists from the Czech Republic 1978 deaths 1893 births Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin 20th-century linguists