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The Recent Conflict in Soviet Linguistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Herbert Rubenstein
Herbert Rubenstein*
Affiliation:
Michigan State College
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Abstract

[The following objective report on certain aspects of linguistic study in the Soviet Union is printed here for the information of American scholars. The author has carefully refrained from injecting his personal views into what he intended as a purely factual account; but it may be proper to remark, by way of editorial comment and summary, that although the recent repudiation of Marr by Soviet linguists is undeniably a step in the right direction, so long as that repudiation remains a matter of dogma, promulgated by official edict, it is not yet a step from darkness into the light.—The Editor]

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 27 , Issue 3: July-September , September 1951 , pp. 281 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © 1951 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 This paper was originally presented to the Michigan Linguistic Society in East Lansing, 2 December 1950.

2 This summary is derived from Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and historical materialism (New York, 1940).

3 J. Stalin, Pravda, 20 June 1950; translated in the Current digest of the Soviet press 21.3. (This work will hereafter be abbreviated CD; all references are to Vol. 2.)

4 According to I. I. Meščaninov in Pravda, 16 May 1950 (CD 19.7), Marr declared that his works prior to 1926 should be revised or, preferably, not read. [On Marr and the Japhetic theory see also Yakov Malkiel, Lg. 20.157 fn. 2; W. K. Matthews, The Slavonic review 27.172–92 (1948–9).]

5 N. Ja. Marr, Vstupitel'naja reč' k kursu obščego ucenija ob jazyke [Introductory lecture to a course in general linguistics] (1927), Izbrannyje rabot y [Selected works, here after abbreviated IR], Vol. 2.16.

6 Marr, Počemu tak trudno stat' lingvistom-teoretikom [Why it is so difficult to become a theoretical linguist] (1928) 2.405.

7 Marr, Jazyk [Language] (1927), IR 2.135.

8 Meščaninov, Pravda, 16 May 1950 (CD 19.5); V. V. Vinogradov, Pravda, 6 June 1950 (CD 24.16); S. Nikiforov, Pravda, 13 June 1950 (CD 25.17).

9 Meščaninov, op.cit. (CD 9).

l0 Marr, Obščij kurs učenija ob jazyke [General course in linguistics] (1927), IR 2.96 ff.

11 Marr, Gottentoty—sredizemnomorcy [Hottentots—Mediterraneans] (1927), IR 4.115–6.

12 The l in Himmel represents a special German development from n; cf. Goth, himins, and Mod. Ger. Orgel < OHG organa. The I in zemlja, on the other hand, is the so-called epenthetic l which arose in Proto-Slavic in the sequence labial plus j and is preserved in East and South Slavic.

13 Marr, Počemu tak trudno stat' lingvistom-teoretikom (1928), IR 2.415.

14 Marr, Jazyk i myšlenie [Language and thought] (1931), IR 3.116.

15 K. Marx and F. Engels, The German ideology, Marxist-Leninist library 17.19 (London, 1942).

16 Marr explained that he was not speaking of classes in this Marxist sense. See his K bakinskoj diskusii o jafetidologii i marksizme [Contributions to the Baku discussion on Japhetidology and Marxism] 39 (Baku, 1932).

17 Described by A. G. Spirkin, Voprosy filosofii, No. 3 (1949).

18 There were of course other considerations which led to this controversy, e.g. the impossibility of getting a hearing for any views contrary to those of Marr. See G. Sanieev, Pravda, 23 May 1950 (CD 21.9).

19 Meščaninov, Pravda, 16 May 1950 (CD 19.9).

20 F. Filin, Pravda, 30 May 1950 (CD 22.6).

21 Stalin, Pravda, 20 Juno 1950 (CD 2.17).

22 Stalin's argument proves at most that the ‘structure of the language’ (as distinct from the language itself) is not part of the superstructure. It is worth asking whether the structure of the language = the language. The answer is No if structural analysis is unable to deal with the problem of the distribution of lexical morphemes in terms of other such morphemes; for it is precisely in this distribution that the culture is most clearly reflected.

23 Stalin, Sočinenija [Works] 2.296.

24 Stalin, Pravda, 20 June 1950 (CD 21.7 and 8).

25 Stalin, Pravda, 4 July 1950 (CD 28.3).

26 A number of linguists, especially those primarily interested in the Indo-European languages, never accepted the Japhetic theory—e.g. Seliščev, Bubrix, Vinogradov, Ušakov, Reformatskij, and Freiman.