Table of Contents

Mathesius's problem; the linguist is a futurist - Roman Jakobson's formative years; "the other circumstances" - Moscow, St Petersburg and the revolution; Vilem Mathesius - in search of a new linguistics; intermezzo - Jakobson and Mathesius in the early 1920s; a republic of scholars - elements of cross-cultural integration in interwar Prague; the magic of a common language; un'organizzazione combattiva; the rhetoric of modernity - more on ideals of scholarship and ideals of society; Russian images of the whole - Trubetzkoy, Sprachbund and Eurasia; the linguist remains a futurist - Roman Jakobson and the Czech avant-garde.