Two University professors have been invited to attend academic conferences in the Soviet Union during the next two months, it was learned yesterday.
One, Roman Jakobson, Cross Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature and a Russian emigre, would be making his first visit to his native land in 37 years, if he attends the meeting of the interim committee of the International Conference for Slavic Philology. With his alternate, Professor W. Lednicki of the University of California, Jakobson was elected to the planning body at a Belgrade meeting last September.
The other Faculty member, Garrett Birkhoff '32, Professor of Pure and Applied Mathematics, received a cable earlier this week inviting him to the Third Mathematical Congress of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences as the "guest" of the Academy. He is awaiting a covering letter with further information before deciding whether or not to accept.
Jakobson, too, is still uncertain about the details of the late May meeting of slavicists. With his U.S. passport--recently validated for travel in the Soviet Union--Jakobson is free to attend, even though he left Russia in 1920 as a known opponent of the Soviet regime.
"The conference," he said, "will be purely scholarly, without any political implications." The interim committee, elected on the basis of nationality from among the 200 Belgrade participants, will plan the agenda for a second philology conference, to be held in 1958. Under Russian chairman, Victor Vinogradov, it is "only natural," Jakobson said, that the committee meet in Moscow.
Read more in News
COMMITTING THE INSANERecommended Articles
-
Jakobson Will Arrive Today Inside RussiaRoman Jakobson, Cross Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, quietly left the country on Monday morning for Moscow, where he
-
Slavic Prof. Taranovsky DiesKiril Taranovsky, professor emeritus of Slavic languages and a renowned scholar of Slavic languages and Russian poetry, died of cardiac
-
Jakobson in RussiaRoman Jakobson, Samuel Hazzard Cross Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, lectured yesterday on Russian literature at his alma mater--Moscow
-
Jakobson Denies Czech Charges Of Attempts to 'Incite' ScientistsSeveral Czech newspapers carried articles Saturday accusing Roman Jakobson, Samuel Hazard Cross Professor of Semitic Languages and Literatures, of trying
-
Roman Jakobson To Be Honored As Father of Modern LinguisticsInternationally renowned scholars in linguisties and literary fields will gather at MIT on Friday for a symposium and memorial service
-
Buck Announces 2 ProfessorshipsTwo appointments have been made to the University faculty, Provost Buck announced last night. The new professors are Homer Jakobson,