6/26/2023 0 Comments Russian linguistKnorozov himself, in an interview conducted a year before his death, denied the Berlin legend. Knorozov is said to have taken this book back with him to Moscow at the end of the war, where its examination would form the basis for his later pioneering research into the Maya script.Īlthough many details of Knorozov's life during the war remained unclear, his student Galina Ershova could not find any evidence that he traveled outside of Moscow Oblast in 1943–1945. Somehow he managed to retrieve from the fire a book, which remarkably enough turned out to be a rare edition containing reproductions of the three Maya codices which were then known as the Dresden, Madrid and Paris codices. Supposedly, when stationed in Berlin, Knorozov came across the National Library while it was ablaze. The legend has been much reproduced, particularly following the 1992 publication of Michael D. There, Knorozov is supposed to have by chance retrieved a book which would spark his later interest in and association with deciphering the Maya script. Īccording to a popular legend, Knorozov and his unit supported the push of the Red Army vanguard into Berlin. In 1944, he was unexpectedly recalled for a military service, but his father, who was a colonel in the Soviet Army, arranged for him a place of a telephone operator in an artillery unit stationed near Moscow. There he resumed his Egyptology studies, at the Moscow State University. In 1943, Knorozov survived an outbreak of typhus, and in September of that year managed to escape with his family to Moscow. Knorozov managed to avoid that by moving from village to village, where he earned his living as a school teacher. Due to his poor health, Knorozov was unfit for regular military service in the Soviet Army however, he and his family spent most of 1941–1943 years on the German-occupied territories, where he could be forced to join the German army support units. Knorozov's study plans were soon interrupted by the outbreak of World War II hostilities along the Eastern Front in mid-1941. Inner courtyard of the Preußische Staatsbibliothek (2005) Military service and the "Berlin Affair" In 1940 at the age of 17, Knorozov left Kharkiv for Moscow where he commenced undergraduate studies in the newly created Department of Ethnology at Moscow State University's department of History. His scores were excellent for all subjects, except for Ukrainian language. However, it became clear that he was academically bright with an inquisitive temperament he was an accomplished violinist, wrote romantic poetry and could draw with accuracy and attention to detail. Aged 5, he sustained a heavy injury to his head that nearly left him blind. Īt school, the young Yuri was a difficult and somewhat eccentric student, who made indifferent progress in a number of subjects and was almost expelled for poor and willful behavior. His parents were Russian intellectuals, and his paternal grandmother Maria Sakhavyan had been a stage actress of national repute in Armenia. Knorozov was born in the village of Yuzhny near Kharkiv, at that time the capital of the newly formed Ukrainian SSR. today known as southern Mexico and Central America. Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov (alternatively Knorosov Russian: Ю́рий Валенти́нович Кноро́зов 19 November 1922 – 31 March 1999) was a Soviet and Russian linguist, epigrapher and ethnographer, he became the founder of the Soviet school of Mayan studies, and his identification of the existence of syllabic signs proved an essential step forward in the eventual decipherment of the Mayan script, the writing system used by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology
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