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Yuri Knorozov
Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov (Russian: Юрий Валентинович Кнорозов; 19 November 1922 – 30 March 1999) was a Soviet and Russian linguist, epigraphist, and ethnologist. He is best known for the key role he played in the decipherment of the Maya script, the writing system of the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.
Knorozov was born in Kharkov on 19 November 1922. His parents were Russian intellectuals who had moved from Saint Petersburg to Kharkov in 1911 for work purposes. His father had built a house for the family in the village of Yuzhny (later known as Pivdenne), but his mother decided it would be better to give birth in Kharkov, where there were doctors and hospitals. His paternal grandmother, Zabel (1858–1926), was a stage actress of national repute in Armenia.
Growing up in Yuzhny, Knorozov developed a close affinity with cats, which was to last his whole life. At school, he 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. Aged five, he sustained a heavy injury to his head that nearly left him blind. 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. His scores were excellent for all subjects, except for Ukrainian language and literature.
In 1940, at the age of 17, Knorozov left Kharkov for Moscow where he commenced undergraduate studies in the newly created Department of Ethnology at Moscow State University's department of History. He initially specialised in Egyptology.
Knorozov's study plans were soon interrupted by the outbreak of World War II hostilities along the Eastern Front in mid-1941. 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 managed to avoid that by moving from village to village, where he earned his living as a school teacher. In 1943, Knorozov survived an outbreak of typhus, and in September of that year managed to escape with his family to Moscow. There he resumed his Egyptology studies, at the Moscow State University. 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 job as a telephone operator in an artillery unit stationed near Moscow.
According to a popular legend, Knorozov and his unit supported the push of the Red Army vanguard into Berlin. 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. The legend has been much reproduced, particularly following the 1992 publication of Michael D. Coe's Breaking the Maya Code. Supposedly, when stationed in Berlin, Knorozov came across the National Library while it was ablaze. 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. 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.
Although many details of Knorozov's life during the war remained unclear, his student Galina Yershova could not find any evidence that he traveled outside of Moscow Oblast in 1943–1945. Knorozov himself, in an interview conducted a year before his death, denied the Berlin legend. As he explained to the Mayanist epigrapher Harri Kettunen:
"Unfortunately it was a misunderstanding: I told about it [finding books in a library in Berlin] to my colleague Michael Coe, but he didn't get it right. There wasn't any fire in the library. And the books that were in the library, were in boxes to be sent somewhere else. The Germans had packed them, and since they didn't have time to move them anywhere, the boxes were taken to Moscow."
Yuri Knorozov
Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov (Russian: Юрий Валентинович Кнорозов; 19 November 1922 – 30 March 1999) was a Soviet and Russian linguist, epigraphist, and ethnologist. He is best known for the key role he played in the decipherment of the Maya script, the writing system of the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.
Knorozov was born in Kharkov on 19 November 1922. His parents were Russian intellectuals who had moved from Saint Petersburg to Kharkov in 1911 for work purposes. His father had built a house for the family in the village of Yuzhny (later known as Pivdenne), but his mother decided it would be better to give birth in Kharkov, where there were doctors and hospitals. His paternal grandmother, Zabel (1858–1926), was a stage actress of national repute in Armenia.
Growing up in Yuzhny, Knorozov developed a close affinity with cats, which was to last his whole life. At school, he 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. Aged five, he sustained a heavy injury to his head that nearly left him blind. 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. His scores were excellent for all subjects, except for Ukrainian language and literature.
In 1940, at the age of 17, Knorozov left Kharkov for Moscow where he commenced undergraduate studies in the newly created Department of Ethnology at Moscow State University's department of History. He initially specialised in Egyptology.
Knorozov's study plans were soon interrupted by the outbreak of World War II hostilities along the Eastern Front in mid-1941. 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 managed to avoid that by moving from village to village, where he earned his living as a school teacher. In 1943, Knorozov survived an outbreak of typhus, and in September of that year managed to escape with his family to Moscow. There he resumed his Egyptology studies, at the Moscow State University. 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 job as a telephone operator in an artillery unit stationed near Moscow.
According to a popular legend, Knorozov and his unit supported the push of the Red Army vanguard into Berlin. 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. The legend has been much reproduced, particularly following the 1992 publication of Michael D. Coe's Breaking the Maya Code. Supposedly, when stationed in Berlin, Knorozov came across the National Library while it was ablaze. 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. 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.
Although many details of Knorozov's life during the war remained unclear, his student Galina Yershova could not find any evidence that he traveled outside of Moscow Oblast in 1943–1945. Knorozov himself, in an interview conducted a year before his death, denied the Berlin legend. As he explained to the Mayanist epigrapher Harri Kettunen:
"Unfortunately it was a misunderstanding: I told about it [finding books in a library in Berlin] to my colleague Michael Coe, but he didn't get it right. There wasn't any fire in the library. And the books that were in the library, were in boxes to be sent somewhere else. The Germans had packed them, and since they didn't have time to move them anywhere, the boxes were taken to Moscow."