Steblin-Kamenskii, Mikhail Ivanovich

Born Aug. 29 (Sept. 11), 1903, in St. Petersburg. Soviet philologist; specialist in Scandinavian philology. Doctor of philological sciences (1948).

Steblin-Kamenskii graduated from Leningrad State University in 1939. He became a professor there in 1950 and established the university’s subdepartment of Scandinavian philology in 1958.

Steblin-Kamenskii’s chief works on linguistics deal with the diachronic phonology and historical and theoretical grammar of the Scandinavian languages, as well as with general linguistics. They include Old Icelandic (1955), Norwegian Grammar (1957), Essays on the Diachronic Phonology of the Scandinavian Languages (1966), and Controversial Topics in Linguistics (1974).

Steblin-Kamenskii’s studies on ancient Icelandic literature, including Icelandic Literature (1947) and The World of the Saga (1971), reveal the essence of the medieval consciousness. Steblin-Kamenskii also edited the ancient Icelandic works the Poetic Edda (1963), and the Prose Edda (1970) and the ancient sagas published in two volumes of Icelandic Sagas (1956 and 1973). He holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Stockholm (1969) and Reykjavik (1971).