Editing Nikolai Trubetzkoy

{{Short description|Russian linguist and historian}}
{{Family name hatnote|Sergeyevich|Trubetzkoy|lang=Eastern Slavic}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix   = Prince
| name               = Nikolai Trubetzkoy
| image              = Nikolai Trubetzkoy.jpg
| native_name        = {{nobold|Николай Трубецкой}}
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|df=y|1890|4|16}}
| birth_place        = [[Moscow]], [[Russian Empire]]<br>(Today Russia)
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|df=y|1938|6|25|1890|4|16}}
| death_place        = [[Vienna]], [[Austria under National Socialism|State of Austria]], [[Nazi Germany]]<br>(Today Austria)
}}
{{Eurasianism}}
Prince '''Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy'''<ref>Also [[Romanization of Russian|transliterated]] as ''Troubetskoy'' or ''Trubetskoy''.</ref> ({{langx|ru|link=no|Николай Сергеевич Трубецкой}} {{IPA|ru|trʊbʲɪtsˈkoj|}}; 16 April 1890 – 25 June 1938) was a Russian [[linguistics|linguist]] and [[historian]] whose teachings formed a nucleus of the [[Prague School]] of [[structural linguistics]]. He is widely considered to be the founder of [[morphophonology]]. He was also associated with the Russian [[Eurasianists]].

==Life and career==
Trubetzkoy was born into privilege. His father, [[Sergei Nikolaevich Trubetskoy]], came from a [[Lithuanian nobility|Lithuanian]] [[Gediminids|Gediminid]] [[Trubetskoy family|princely family]]. In 1908, he enrolled at the [[Moscow University]]. While spending some time at the [[University of Leipzig]], Trubetzkoy was taught by [[August Leskien]], a pioneer of research into [[sound change|sound laws]].<ref>[[Roman Jakobson]], ''Selected Writings'', Vol. VII, Walter de Gruyter, 1985, p. 266.</ref>

After he graduated from the Moscow University (1913), Trubetzkoy delivered lectures there until the [[Russian Revolution]], when he moved first to the [[Southern Federal University|University of Rostov-on-Don]], then to the [[Sofia University|University of Sofia]] (1920–1922) and finally took the chair of Professor of Slavic Philology at the [[University of Vienna]] (1922-1938). Trubetzkoy was involved with the [[Eurasianism|Eurasianist]] movement and became one of their leading theorists and political leaders. After the emergence of "left Eurasianism" in Paris, where some of the movement's leaders became pro-Soviet, Trubetzkoy, who was a staunch [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]], heavily criticised them and eventually broke with the Eurasianist movement.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Николай Смирнов. Левое евразийство и постколониальная теория |url=https://syg.ma/@geograf-smirnoff/lievoie-ievraziistvo-i-postkolonialnaia-tieoriia |access-date=2022-05-11 |website=syg.ma |language=ru}}</ref>

He died from a heart attack attributed to [[Nazi]] persecution after he had published an article that was highly critical of [[Hitler]]'s theories.

Trubetzkoy's chief contributions to linguistics lie in the domain of [[phonology]], particularly in the analyses of the phonological systems of individual languages and in the search for general and universal phonological laws. His magnum opus, ''Grundzüge der Phonologie'' ''(Principles of Phonology)''<ref name=grundzuge>{{cite book | last = Trubetzkoy | first = Nikolai | title = Principles of phonology | publisher = University of California Press | location = Berkeley | year = 1969 | isbn = 0520015355 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/principlesofphon00trub}}</ref> was issued posthumously in which he defined the [[phoneme]] as the smallest distinctive unit within the structure of a given language. It was crucial in establishing phonology as a discipline separate from [[phonetics]].

Trubetzkoy also wrote as a [[literary criticism|literary critic]]. In ''Writings on Literature'', a brief collection of translated articles, he analyzed [[Russian literature]] beginning with the [[Old Russian]] epic ''[[The Tale of Igor's Campaign]]'' and proceeding to [[Russian literature#Golden Age|19th-century Russian poetry]] and [[Dostoevsky]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Writings on Literature |last=Trubetzkoy |first=Nikolai |publisher=[[University of Minnesota Press]] |date=1990 |ISBN=0816617937}}</ref>

It is sometimes hard to distinguish Trubetzkoy's views from those of his friend [[Roman Jakobson]], who should be credited with spreading the Prague School views on phonology after Trubetzkoy's death.

==As structuralist==

In his biography of the mathematical collective [[Nicolas Bourbaki]], [[Amir Aczel]] described Trubetzkoy as a pioneer in [[structuralism]], an interdisciplinary outgrowth of structural linguistics that would be applied in mathematics by the Bourbaki group, as in the notion of a [[mathematical structure]], and in anthropology by [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]], who sought to describe rules governing human behavior.  According to Aczel, Trubetzkoy's focus in ''Principles of Phonology'' was the study of [[phoneme]]s and their opposing aspects to describe rules of language, the goal of describing general underlying rules being the common goal of structuralism.<ref name="Aczel">{{cite book |last=Aczel |first=Amir D. |title=The Artist and the Mathematician: the Story of Nicolas Bourbaki, the Genius Mathematician Who Never Existed |year=2006 |publisher=Thunder's Mouth Press |isbn=9781560259312 |pages=129–159}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Sprachbund]], a linguistic term coined by Trubetzkoy

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
* [[Stephen R. Anderson|Anderson, Stephen R.]] (1985). ''Phonology in the Twentieth Century. Theories of Rules and Theories of Representations''. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. pp. 83–116.
* [http://www.isfp.co.uk/russian_thinkers/nikolay_trubetskoy.html Intellectual Biography of Nikolai Trubetzkoy] at the Gallery of Russian Thinkers (International Society for Philosophers)

==External links==
* [http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/TNS/index.html Works by Nikolai Trubetzkoy]
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trubetzkoy, Nikolai Sergeyevich}}
[[Category:1890 births]]
[[Category:1938 deaths]]
[[Category:Writers from Moscow]]
[[Category:People from Moskovsky Uyezd]]
[[Category:Trubetskoy family|Nikolai Trubetzkoy]]
[[Category:Nobility from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Expatriates from the Russian Empire in Germany]]
[[Category:Linguists from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Phonologists from Russia]]
[[Category:Eurasianists]]
[[Category:Soviet emigrants to Bulgaria]]
[[Category:Bulgarian emigrants to Austria]]
[[Category:Moscow State University alumni]]
[[Category:Imperial Moscow University alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Sofia University]]
[[Category:People of the Prague linguistic circle]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian linguists]]
[[Category:Russian scientists]]
[[Category:Caucasologists]]
[[Category:Graduates of the 5th Moscow Gymnasium]]