Alexander M. Schenker (December 20, 1924 – August 21, 2019) was a Polish-American

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

, professor of Slavic linguistics at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, and the recipient of the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Slavic Studies for his contributions to the field of

Polish studies Polish studies, Polish philology or Polonistics (, or ''polonistyka'') is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates the Polish language and Polish literature in both historic and present-day forms. The history of Polish ...

, as well for the general contributions to the development of the field of Slavic studies in the United States.

Biography

Schenker was born Aleksander Szenker to a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

family in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

in 1924, the son of Oskar Szenker and Gizela née Szamińska. He was enrolled at the university in

Dushanbe Dushanbe is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Tajikistan. , Dushanbe had a population of 1,564,700, with this population being largely Tajiks, Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, and from 1929 to 1961 as St ...

(then ''Stalinabad'') in

Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Later he studied at the Sorbonne, receiving his Ph.D. from

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

in 1953, where he eventually settled as a professor of

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

Work

in the 1950s he participated in the creation of one of America's leading programs of Slavic languages and literatures, culminating in what was to become a classic textbook for teaching Polish in English: ''Beginning Polish'' (1966). His other notable works include: * Polish Declension (1964), monograph * Polish Conjugation (1954), article * Gender Categories in Polish (1955), article * Some Remarks on Polish Quantifiers (1971), article * The Slavic Literary Languages: Formation and Development, coedited with Edward Stankiewicz (1980), * The Dawn of Slavic: An Introduction to Slavic Philology (1996), his greatest book, receiving MLA'ss Scaglione Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures. * The Bronze Horseman: Falconet's Monument to Peter the Great (2003)

References

Alexander M. Schenker, winner of the 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies

External links

The Dawn of Slavic
- The first chapter of ''The Dawn of Slavic: An Introduction to Slavic Philology'', in PDF {{DEFAULTSORT:Schenker, Alexander M. Slavists Writers from Kraków Polish emigrants to the United States University of Paris alumni Yale University alumni Yale University faculty American people of Polish-Jewish descent 1924 births 2019 deaths Polish expatriates in the Soviet Union Polish expatriates in France