Henrik Birnbaum

Henrik Birnbaum (December 13, 1925 – April 30, 2002) was an American linguist, Slavist and historian.

Education and work

Birnbaum was born in Breslau, today's Wrocław, Poland. He received his PhD in Slavic Philology in 1954. He worked as a docent at the University of Stockholm in 1958-1961, as an Associate Professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and as a tenured professor at the same university in 1964-1994. He was a guest professor at many American and European universities. From 1992 he led the Department of Medieval Studies at Central European University in Budapest.

He authored more than 300 scientific publications in the fields of phonology, dialectology, comparative grammar of Slavic languages, history and culture of the Slavs, 18 of which are books and monographs. Since 1992 he was a regular member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, since 1981 a corresponding member of the Swedish Academy, since 1986 a corresponding member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, and since 1988 a corresponding member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Works

• Untersuchungen zu den Zukunftsumschreibungen mit dem Infinitiv im Altkirchenslavischen. Ein Beitrag zur historischen Verbalsyntax des Slavischen, Stockholm, 1958.
• Slaverna och deras grannfolk. En kort orientering [The Slavs and Their Neighbors. A Short Orientation], Uppsala, 1961.
• Studies on Predication in Russian I, Santa Monica, CA, 1964.
• Studies on Predication in Russian II, Santa Monica, CA, 1965.
• Problems of Typological and Genetic Linguistics Viewed in a Generative Framework, The Hague, 1970.
• On Medieval and Renaissance Slavic Writing. Selected Essays, The Hague, 1974.
• Common Slavic: Progress and Problems in its Reconstruction, Cambridge, MA, 1975, 21979.
• Doktor Faustus und Doktor Schiwago. Versuch ueber zwei Zeitromane aus Exilsicht, Lisse, 1976.
• Linguistic Reconstruction: Its Potentials and Limitations in a New Perspective, Washington, D.C., 1977.
• Lord Novgorod the Great: Essays in the History and Culture of a Medieval City-State. Part One: The Historical Background, Columbus, OH, 1981.
• Essays in Early Slavic Civilization / Studien zur Fruehkultur der Slaven, Munich, 1981.
• Recent Advances in the Reconstruction of Common Slavic (1971-1982) [jointly with P.T. Merrill], Columbus, OH, 1984.
• Lord Novgorod the Great: Sociopolitical Experiment and Cultural Achievement, Los Angeles, 1985.
• Praslavianskii iazyk. Dostizhenia i problemy v ego rekonstruktsii, Moscow, 1987.
• Novgorod and Dubrovnik: Two Slavic City Republics and Their Civilization, Zagreb, 1989.
• Aspects of the Slavic Middle Ages and Slavic Renaissance Culture, New York, 1992.
• Novgorod in Focus, Columbus, OH, 1996.

External links

• Birnbaum's UCLA webpage, in memoriam
• Ladić, Zoran (2003), "Henrik Birnbaum. In memoriam" (PDF), Papers and Proceedings of the Department of Historical Research of the Institute of Historical and Social Research of Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (in Croatian), 21: 369–372
• Greenberg, Marc L. (2002), Henrik Birnbaum–Remembering a Great Teacher (PDF)
• Andersen, Henning (2002), "Henrik Birnbaum in memoriam" (PDF), Scando-Slavica, 48 (1): 147–148
• Flier, Michael S. (2002), "Obituary: Prof. Henrik Birnbaum", The Slavic and East European Journal, 46 (4), American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages: 765–767, JSTOR 3219912