Vladimir Nikolayevich Toporov (russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Топоро́в; 5 July 1928 in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

5 December 2005 in Moscow) was a leading

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

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 as th ...

associated with the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. His wife was Tatyana Elizarenkova. Toporov authored more than 1500 works, including ''Akhmatova and Dante'' (1972), ''Towards the Reconstruction of the Indo-European Rite'' (1982), ''Aeneas: a Man of Destiny'' (1993), ''Myth. Rite. Symbol. Image'' (1995), ''Holiness and Saints in the Russian Spiritual Culture'' (1998), and ''Petersburg Text of Russian Literature'' (2003). He translated the Dhammapada into Russian and supervised the ongoing edition of the most complete vocabulary of the

Prussian language Old Prussian was a Western Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages, which was once spoken by the Old Prussians, the Baltic peoples of the Prussian region. The language is called Old Prussian to avoid con ...

to date (5 volumes). Among Toporov's many honours were the

USSR State Prize The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, Gosudarstvennaya premiya SSSR) was the Soviet Union's state honor. It was established on 9 September 1966. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, t ...

(1990), which he turned down to voice his protest against the repressive January Events of the Soviet administration in Lithuania; the first ever

Solzhenitsyn Prize The Solzhenitsyn Prize is a non-governmental Russian literary award established by the Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1997. The $25,000 prize is awarded for "works in which troubles of the Russian life are shown with rare moral purity an ...

(1998), and the

Andrei Bely Prize The Andrei Bely Prize ( Russian: Премия Андрея Белого; ''Premiya Andreya Belovo'') is the oldest independent literary prize awarded in Russia. It was established in 1978 by the staff of ''Hours'', the largest samizdat literar ...

for 2004. He was a member of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across ...

and many other scholarly societies.

External links

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Obituary by the Russian Ministry of Culture
{{DEFAULTSORT:Toporov, Vladimir Balticists Toporov Toporov Toporov Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Toporov Toporov Toporov Moscow State University alumni Russian scholars of Buddhism Researchers of Slavic religion Solzhenitsyn Prize winners Paleolinguists 20th-century philologists