A triptych on Roman Jakobson

Abstract

Some parts of the intellectual background of Roman Jakobson’s structuralist thinking and of his interest in Byzantium are considered. It is shown that the dialectical method of Jakobson was  influenced by the ideas of P. A. Florensky. Jakobson’s understanding of symbols in art was formed under the impact of G. A. Ostrogorsky’s theory about the philosophical origins of the Byzantine Iconoclasm and Iconophile thought. According to Ostrogorsky, Iconophiles believed that icons demonstrate both a resemblance to the Prototype and a difference from him. It is claimed that such an approach stimulated the dialectic understanding of art developed by Jakobson, on the one hand, and the structuralist method in general, on the other. However, despite the fact that the work “What is Poetry?” by Jakobson has often been under consideration, no scholar has ever properly studied the parallels between Jakobson’s and Florensky’s views on antinomies. The author discusses a possible influence of N. S. Trubets­koy’s Byzantinism on Jakobson’s understanding of Byzantium and an impact of Jakobson’s and Husserl’s ideas on B. A. Uspensky’s conception of the Russian grammar. Finallly, Jacobson’s note on the medieval Slavic monument showing how the trinity of God can be seen in words and speech is analyzed, and some unknown to the Russian scientist Byzantine parallels to such an interpretation are indicated.