Background
MARR, Nikolay was born on December 25, 1864 in Kutaisi. Son of an agronomist (Scottish father, Georgian mother).
MARR, Nikolay was born on December 25, 1864 in Kutaisi. Son of an agronomist (Scottish father, Georgian mother).
1888 graduate Faculty of Oriental Languages, Saint St. Petersburg University.
From 1900 professor, Saint St. Petersburg University. 1919-1934 president, Academy of the History of Material Culture. Simultaneously director, Japhctidological Institute, Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Academy of Sciences.
Specialized in Arm and Geo philology and Kartvelian languages of the Caucasus, as well as the history, archeology and ethnography of the Caucasian peoples. Excavated the ancient capital of Arm — Ani — and the Urart monuments near Lake Van. Also excavated Garni and Varnak.
In philology concentrated on the most ancient period in the history of Geo and Arm literature Founded the series: Teksty i razyskaniya po Armyano-gruzinskoy filologii (Text and Research on ArmenianGeorgian Philology) (13 volume, 1900-1913). Published earliest specimens of Arm and Geo lit with Russian translations and extensive commentaries.
Founded the Japhetic theory in linguistics in an attempt to prove the Caucasian languages kinship with Semitic group. Around 1924, as a result of further work on his “Japhetic theory”, proposed a new version of this theory termed the “new language theory”. This theory was based on the unity of the glottogonic process in the development of all the world’s languages and their stage development.
On the basis of this he considered that all the languages of the world derived from the so-called four elements (sal, ber, yon, rosh) and rejected the theory that there existed language groups which derived from different original material. In consequence, this theory, which took no account of the modem findings of comparative linguistics and philology, proved to be an utterly arbitrary doctrine and was completely refuted by the available specific data. Yet it was imposed on Soviet linguistics as a Marxist, and hence the only acceptable, theory.
Criticism or deviation from it was regarded as deviation from Marxism in linguistics. Its basic tenets were also applied to the history of material culture (archeology and ethnography) and even to literature In the latter case, ethnic differences were confused with class differences, and it was also maintained that the succession of archeological cultures in a given territory always reflects the stages of the local (autochthonous) development, and not the migration of peoples, et cetera
1950, upon the initiative of Stalin himself, who had just published his work “Marksizm i voprosy yazykoznaniya” (Marxism and Problems of Linguistics), Marr’s “new theory of language” was denounced and rejected as anti-Marxist and “anti-scientific”. Marr thus suffered the fate of other scientists, degenerating from “Marxist authority” to an “anti-Marxist”. He was rehabilitated in the early 1960’s, but his “Japhetic theory” was not revived.
Communist Party member from 1930.