Viktor Žirmunskij on Evolution, Diffusion and Social Stratification in Literary Studies and Linguistics

Zhirmunskii has generally been received either as a literary scholar or as a linguist, but the inner connection between the two aspects of his work has seldom been highlighted. This article examines the two sides of Zhirmunskiiʼs work in the context of his involvement in Soviet institutions of the 1920s and considers the way in which the work needs to be understood in relation to the collective project of which they were part. The article is supplemented by the publication of Zhirmunskiiʼs theses from a lecture about argot, and the transcription of a discussion that followed his lecture on national language and social dialects.