Academician Gasparov Mikhail Leonovich, a famous literary critic, poet, philologist, historian of ancient literature, made a significant contribution to the theory of Russian and European versification. His scientific work became a real era in Russian literary criticism. Translations of the ancient literature of M. L. Gasparov today are among the best in domestic practice.
Childhood
Gasparov Mikhail Leonovich was born on April 13, 1935 in Moscow in an intelligent family. His mother, Elena Alexandrovna Nurenberg, nee Budilova, worked as an editor in the magazine “Atheist”, later she defended her doctoral dissertation in psychology and worked at the Institute of Psychology of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. She was married to mining engineer Leo Arsenievich Gasparov, a native of Nagorno-Karabakh. When Michael was very young, they divorced. But the boy’s real father was his mother’s colleague in the magazine “Atheist,” who later worked in the magazine “At the wheel” and in the publishing house of the USSR Academy of Sciences. However, Mikhail Leonovich never particularly spoke about his father and all his life he said that his mother raised him, which was true. He met his father only as an adult.
Education
During the war, Mikhail went to Moscow school number 12, which he graduated in 1952. Gasparov’s humanitarian orientation was already clearly manifested at school. Therefore, his choice of the classical department of the philological faculty after school was not surprising. In 1957, he successfully graduated from Moscow State University. After the university, Gasparov Mikhail Leonovich decided to continue to do science and entered graduate school.
Scientific career
Gasparov's research interests are in ancient literature. Mikhail Leonovich perfectly knew the ancient and modern Greek languages, Latin, also knew French, German, Italian. His Ph.D. thesis (1963) was dedicated to an ancient fable. Many literature and lectures were devoted to ancient literature . Since 1957, for 33 years he was an employee of the sector of ancient literature of the Institute of World Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In the 1970s, Gasparov's second love appeared - versification. From 1971 to 1981, he participated in the Moscow-Tartu Semiotic School, which developed the works of Russian formalists, was interested in mathematical and applied linguistics, poetics. Gasparov’s doctoral dissertation, “Modern Russian Verse: Metric and Rhythm,” became a link in his own theory of versification. In 1990, Gasparov Mikhail Leonovich became the main research associate in the sector of stylistics and the Russian language at the Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1990, he is a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and since 1992, an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1992, he also worked at the Russian State Humanitarian University, at the Institute of Higher Humanitarian Studies. In 2002, he headed the Department of Structural Linguistics and Structural Poetics at the Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in this position he remained until the end of his days.
Books and works of M. Gasparov
Over the course of his life, the philologist has published many works. Gasparov Mikhail Leonovich, whose books today are classic both in the field of ancient literature, and in stylistics, literary criticism, became the author of several hundred articles and several monographs. His collected works in four volumes cover his best works on versification. All his works can be combined into several large groups: studies on ancient literature, works on medieval literature and modern literature, articles and books on Russian literature, and studies on versification.
A separate part of the scientist’s work is made up of popular science books about ancient culture: “Capitoline Wolf”, “Entertaining Greece”. Gasparov was also the editor-in-chief of the Mandelstam Encyclopedia, a member of the editorial boards of such famous series as Literary Monuments, Library of Ancient Literature, Proceedings on Sign Systems, Literary Studies, Herald of Ancient History, and several foreign periodicals .
Translation Activities
Gasparov became very famous for his translations of ancient texts. His productivity and virtuosity as a translator was simply amazing. The Gasparovsky translation from the ancient Greek Ovid, Aristotle, Aesop is still unsurpassed not only in accuracy, but also in stylistic grace. In his translations, the Russian reader was also able to read the ancient poetry of Cicero, Horace, Diogenes of Laertes.
Teaching
Academician Gasparov taught for many years at the Department of History and Theory of World Culture, created with his active participation, at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University. At the Literary Institute . Gorky, he taught courses on versification and Russian poetry. A large number of students gathered these lectures, as the lecturer Gasparov was inspirational and vibrant. Later, some of these lectures were included in the book On Poems.
Collected works
Gasparov’s articles on versification and Russian poetry were collected in the four-volume edition of Selected Works. The first volume - “On Poets” - is devoted to ancient poetry as a source of traditions of classical literature. The second volume - “On Poems” - is built on the basis of lectures at the university and is devoted to the analysis of the works of Russian poets: Tsvetaeva, Pushkin, Fet, Khlebnikov, Mayakovsky, Russian avant-garde artists, Brodsky. The analysis of texts from Gasparov is an example of a subtle and original study with the broadest conclusions. The third volume - “On the verse” - is devoted to the theory of versification, stylistics and poetics. Volume Four - “Linguistics of the verse” - is devoted to the interpretation and analysis of the works of Russian poets.
Awards
Gasparov Mikhail Leonovich repeatedly received well-deserved awards for his work. He is a laureate of the State Prize (1995), winner of the Porthole awards, Malaya Bookerovskaya, and A. Bely Prize . In 2004, he received an academic award to them. A. S. Pushkin for the publication "Selected Works" in 3 volumes.
Personal life
Gasparov M. L. for almost fifty years was married to the literary editor Alevtina Mikhailovna Zotova. The couple had a daughter, Elena, now a candidate of psychological sciences, worked at the Research Institute for Preschool Education of the USSR Agro-Industrial Complex, and raised two Gasparov’s grandchildren.
last years of life
Since the late 1990s, Academician Mikhail Gasparov has discovered a new field of activity for himself, he is fond of experimental translations of the poetry of the Middle Ages and the New Age. In his presentation appear in Russian poem by L. Ariosto "Frantic Roland", poems by G. Game. And the book "Experimental translations" has become a real event in the literary world.
On November 7, 2005, Gasparov died; he was buried with honors at the Miussky cemetery in Moscow.
After the death of Mikhail Leonovich, the general public became aware of yet another facet of his talent. His wife, Alevtina Mikhailovna, published several small selections of his own poems. Gasparov himself did not consider himself a poet, saying that this was only his reaction to the verses of great creators.