Henrik Birnbaum (December 13, 1925 – April 30, 2002) was an American linguist,

Slavist Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic peoples, Slavic areas, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Sla ...

and historian.

Education and work

Birnbaum was born in Breslau, today's

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

. He received his PhD in Slavic Philology in 1954. He worked as a

docent The title of docent is conferred by some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks at or below the full professor rank, similar to a British readership, a French " ''maître de conf ...

at the

University of Stockholm Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, soci ...

in 1958-1961, as an Associate Professor of Slavic languages and literature at the

University of California at Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

(UCLA), and as a tenured professor at the same university in 1964-1994. He was a guest professor at many American and European universities. From 1992 he led the Department of Medieval Studies at

Central European University Central European University (CEU) is a private research university accredited in Austria, Hungary, and the United States, with campuses in Vienna and Budapest. The university is known for its highly intensive programs in the social sciences and ...

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

. He authored more than 300 scientific publications in the fields of

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

dialectology Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their assoc ...

, comparative grammar of

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ear ...

, history and culture of the

Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...

, 18 of which are books and monographs. Since 1992 he was a regular member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

, since 1981 a corresponding member of the

Swedish Academy The Swedish Academy ( sv, Svenska Akademien), founded in 1786 by King Gustav III of Sweden, Gustav III, is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, Royal Academies of Sweden. Its 18 members, who are elected for life, comprise the highest Swedish lang ...

, since 1986 a corresponding member of the

Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Croatica, hr, Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, abbrev. HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia. HAZU was founded under patronage of the Croatian bishop Jo ...

, and since 1988 a corresponding member of the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of ...

Works

* ''Untersuchungen zu den Zukunftsumschreibungen mit dem Infinitiv im Altkirchenslavischen. Ein Beitrag zur historischen Verbalsyntax des Slavischen'', Stockholm, 1958. * ''Slaverna och deras grannfolk. En kort orientering'' he Slavs and Their Neighbors. A Short Orientation Uppsala, 1961. * ''Studies on Predication in Russian I'', Santa Monica, CA, 1964. * ''Studies on Predication in Russian II'', Santa Monica, CA, 1965. * ''Problems of Typological and Genetic Linguistics Viewed in a Generative Framework'', The Hague, 1970. * ''On Medieval and Renaissance Slavic Writing. Selected Essays'', The Hague, 1974. * ''Common Slavic: Progress and Problems in its Reconstruction, Cambridge'', MA, 1975, 21979. * ''Doktor Faustus und Doktor Schiwago. Versuch ueber zwei Zeitromane aus Exilsicht'', Lisse, 1976. * ''Linguistic Reconstruction: Its Potentials and Limitations in a New Perspective'', Washington, D.C., 1977. * ''Lord Novgorod the Great: Essays in the History and Culture of a Medieval City-State. Part One: The Historical Background'', Columbus, OH, 1981. * ''Essays in Early Slavic Civilization / Studien zur Fruehkultur der Slaven'', Munich, 1981. * ''Recent Advances in the Reconstruction of Common Slavic'' (1971-1982) ointly with P.T. Merrill Columbus, OH, 1984. * ''Lord Novgorod the Great: Sociopolitical Experiment and Cultural Achievement'', Los Angeles, 1985. * ''Praslavianskii iazyk. Dostizhenia i problemy v ego rekonstruktsii'', Moscow, 1987. * ''Novgorod and Dubrovnik: Two Slavic City Republics and Their Civilization'', Zagreb, 1989. * ''Aspects of the Slavic Middle Ages and Slavic Renaissance Culture'', New York, 1992. * ''Novgorod in Focus'', Columbus, OH, 1996.

References

External links

Birnbaum's UCLA webpage, in memoriam
* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Birnbaum, Henrik Slavists Linguists from the United States Writers from Wrocław University of California, Los Angeles faculty Central European University faculty Stockholm University faculty 1925 births 2002 deaths Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences Polish emigrants to the United States 20th-century linguists