The memory of Lucien Tesnière, European linguist

Abstract

As is well known, there are two types of scholars, those who leave an eternal imprint upon their respective fields of research, and those who do not leave such an imprint. This is true of linguistics as well. And it seems that fate drew at least two linguists of the former kind into connection with the University of Ljubljana, namely Lucien Tesniere and the somewhat younger Roman Jakobson. Roman Jakobson was offered a post at the University of Ljubljana at the time when his then home country, Czechoslovakia, was threatened by German occupation. Had Roman Jakobson followed the call to come to Ljubljana, he would have had toflee again in a year or so, when Slovenia was occupied by Germans, Italians and Hungarians. Wisely, Roman Jakobson decided to accept a post in Sweden, from where he continued to the US. There I had the honour of meeting him at Harvard University, and was the object of his special attention, precisely because I was a Slovene, as he himself explained to me.