Background

Boris Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum was born on September 22, 1886 in Krasny, Krasninsky District, Smolensk oblast, Russian Federation. He was the grandson of Jewish mathematician and poet Jacob Eichenbaum.

Education

After finishing elementary school in 1905, Boris Mikhailovich went to Petersburg and enrolled in the Kirov Military Medical Academy, soon thereafter in 1906, he enrolled in the biological faculty of the Free High School of P. F. Lesgaft.

In parallel he studied music (violin, piano, voice). In 1907 Boris Mikhailovich left this school and enrolled in the Musical school of E. P. Raprof and the historical-philological faculty of Saint Petersburg State University.

In 1909, Boris Mikhailovich abandoned professional aspirations in music, choosing in favor of philology. In this same year after two years of study in the Slavic-Russian department, he transferred to the Romance-Germanic department; however, in 1911, he returned to the Slavic-Russian department. In 1912, Boris Mikhailovich finished his university studies.

Career

From 1913 to 1914, Boris Mikhailovich published in a number of periodicals, and conducted reviews of foreign literature in the newspaper «Russkaya molva». In 1914, he began his pedagogical activities, and became a teacher in the school of Y. G. Gurevich.

A key moment in the biography of Boris Mikhailovich was his involvement with other members of the Society for the Study of Poetic Language (OPOJAZ), which was formed in 1916. In 1918, he joined OPOJAZ and participated in their research until the middle of the 1920s. Boris Mikhailovich provided definition and interpretation for the group, with essays such as Theory of the "Formal Method" he helped outline their approach to literature.

From 1947 to 1949, Boris Mikhailovich was victimized by the campaign against "rootless cosmopolitanism," along with Viktor Zhirmunsky, Grigorii Gukovskii, and Mark Azadovsky, but was able to continue his science.

Boris Mikhailovich died at the age of 73 in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, in 1959.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Russian Prose

    (English and Russian Edition)

    1985
  • Tolstoi in the Seventies 1982
  • Tolstoi in the Sixties 1981
  • Lermontov: An Essay in Literary Historical Evaluation
  • The young Tolstoi 1972

Membership

• Society for the Study of Poetic Language (OPOJAZ)

  1918 - 1920

Connections

Grandfather:

Jacob Eichenbaum

Jacob Eichenbaum (October 12, 1796, Krasnopolie - December 27, 1861, Kiev), born Jacob Gelber, was a Galician-Jewish maskil, educator, poet and mathematician.