George V. Bobrinskoy

George Vladimir Bobrinskoy[note 1] was a Russian-born American sanskritist. He was professor emeritus in the departments of linguistics, Slavic languages and South Asian literature and civilization at the University of Chicago.

George V. Bobrinskoy
Born
Count Grigori Wladimirovich Bobrinsky

1902
Tula, Russia
Died1974 (aged 71–72)
Hyde Park, Chicago

Early life

George V. Bobrinskoy was born in Tula, Russia as Count Georgiy Vladimirovich Bobrinskiy. He was a "left-hand" descendant of the Russian empress Catherine the Great.[2] After the Russian Revolution he fled his country and thereafter immigrated to the United States in 1923.[3]

Then at Yale University he was a graduate student of Franklin Edgerton.[4] Bobrinskoy left Yale University in 1927 to join the “Department of Comparative Philology, General Linguistics, and Indo-Iranian Philology” at University of Chicago as the “Instructor in Sanskrit”. In the academic year 1929-30, he was promoted to Assistant Professor of Sanskrit of the department.[5]

During the Second World War, the University of Chicago was selected as a Center for Russian language and area instruction under the Army Specialized Training Program. After the death of Samuel Northrup Harper the chairman of the Russian department in January 1943, Bobrinskoy his associate was asked to head the Russian-language program.[6]

After the war he was chairman of the department of linguistics from 1951 to 1966 and dean of students in the humanities division from 1954 to 1967.[3]

Personal life

Bobrinskoy was married to the civic leader Theodora P. Bobrinskoy[7] with a son George V. Bobrinskoy Jr.[8] and a daughter Theodora Bobrinskoy Shepherd. At University of Chicago he was also the tennis champion of the Quadrangle Club until beaten by Ignace Jay Gelb.[9]

References
Notes
  1. (1902 – 1974),[1] (23 Jan 1901 – 17 Nov 1985) according to the genealogist Paul Theroff
Citations
  1. Robert A. Hall Jr. (1 January 1990). A Life for Language: A biographical memoir of Leonard Bloomfield. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 58. ISBN 978-90-272-7807-4.
  2. Albert Parry (1967). America learns Russian: a history of the teaching of the Russian language in the United States. Syracuse University Press. p. 108.
  3. "George V. Bobrinskoy, U. Of C. Dean". Article, November 19, 1985. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 1, 2013.
  4. E. F. K. Koerner (1 January 1991). First Person Singular II: Autobiographies by North American Scholars in the Language Sciences. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 93. ISBN 978-90-272-4548-9.
  5. Silverstein, Michael. "The history of organization of a University of Chicago unit dealing with linguistics" (PDF). Article, 2006. University of Chicago. Retrieved November 1, 2013.
  6. "History, The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures". Article. University of Chicago. Retrieved November 6, 2013.
  7. "Theodora P. Bobrinskoy". Article, July 04, 1986. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 1, 2013.
  8. "George V. Bobrinskoy Jr., Lawyer, 57". The New York Times. p. 20. Retrieved November 1, 2013.
  9. Paul Cobley (2011). Semiotics Continues to Astonish: Thomas A. Sebeok and the Doctrine of Signs. Walter de Gruyter. p. 458. ISBN 978-3-11-025319-1.
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