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RESEARCH PRODUCT

On the reception of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s linguistic ideas in the Soviet Union from the late 1920s to the early 1950s

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The present article discusses the Soviet reception of Humboldt’s linguistic ideas, focusing on different interpretations of his ideas during the period between the latter half of the 1920s and the early 1950s. While Humboldt’s idea of the inner form of language was an important ingredient in Shpet’s phenomenology, the attitude towards Humboldt changed radically in the late 1920s and early 1930s when the ‘bolshevization’ of the sciences had reached linguistics. The idea that language, nation, and culture are closely interconnected was at odds with the ‘Marxist’ idea of class-language, according to which linguistic diversity derives from the socio-economic characteristics of societies. In the post-war context, Humboldt was seen as a key source of Anglo-American linguistics and linguistic relativism. The ways in which Humboldt was read and criticized in the Soviet Union reflect the upheavals that took place in the political and ideological climate of Soviet science.