Iurii Mikailovich Lotman was a specialist in the theory of literature and aesthetics, the history of Russian literature, semiotics, and study of culture. He was born in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). In 1939 he commenced his studies in the philology department of Leningrad University. In the fall of 1940 he joined the army and fought in World War II from 1941 to 1945. In 1946 he continued his studies at the university, finishing them in 1950. Because of the anti-Semitic campaign in the Soviet Union, Lotman was not able to work in Leningrad and moved to Estonia. From 1950 to 1954 he taught at the Tartu Pedagogical Institute. In 1952 he defended his dissertation in philology on the ideas of A. N. Radishchev and N. M. Karamzin. In 1954 he was named docent of Tartu University, and from 1960 to 1977 he was the head of the Department of Russian Literature there. In 1961 he...