In Memoriam: Professor Emeritus Ladislav Matejka

[Jean McKee]

Ladislav Matějka, emeritus professor of Slavic languages and literatures,
passed away at the end of September at the age of 93.



Professor Matějka was born and educated in the former Czechoslovakia, his
schooling interrupted by the Nazi occupation.  He received his doctorate in
Slavic literature from Charles University in Prague in 1948, by which time
he had already become the culture editor for the liberal Prague daily
newspaper *Lidové noviny (The People's News*).  A neo-Stalinist political
coup in February 1948 put him in jeopardy and soon led to his exile. After
teaching for several years at the University of Lund in Sweden, he went on
to earn a second Ph.D. degree from Harvard University in Slavic linguistics
in 1961, where his thesis was directed by Roman Jakobson.  He joined the
faculty at Michigan in 1959 as an assistant professor of Slavic literature
and linguistics and rose quickly to the rank of professor in 1965.



In 1962 he helped found Michigan Slavic Publications and became its general
editor.  With little funding, but with an enormous investment of time and
energy, he built this Slavic department press into a prominent publisher of
scholarly works in Slavic languages, literatures and cultures.  It soon
became the leading source of works of Russian Formalism (Shklovsky,
Tynianov, Jakobson and Eikhenbaum), Prague School Structuralism
(Mukařovský) and Soviet Semiotics (Lotman, Uspensky), issuing seminal works
both in Russian and in English.  Two decades later, Professor Matějka
founded  the journal *Cross Currents: A Yearbook of Central European Culture
*, which for over a decade published works by leading dissident East
European authors (Havel, Klíma, Hrabal, Kundera, Škvorecký, Vaculík,
Milosz,  Herbert, Michnik, Zagajewski, Kiš, Konrád), whose works were often
banned in their home countries. *Cross Currents* was hailed by *The Times
Literary Supplement* as "the leading English language forum for literature
and criticism from central Europe."



Professor Matějka was a scholar with broad interests, author of five books
and scores of articles.  He published in the fields of historical
linguistics, old Russian literature, Old Church Slavonic, history of
Russian and of other Slavic literary languages, Czech and Russian grammar
and syntax, Czech Structuralism and Russian semiotics.  While at Michigan,
he was the recipient of Fulbright, Ford and Guggenheim Fellowships.



Professor Matějka taught Old Church Slavonic, comparative Slavic
linguistics, and an array of courses on literary theory.  He was an
intellectual leader in the field whose inspiration and mentorship helped
launch the careers of many who now teach in universities and colleges all
over the country.  He was much respected and loved by his students for his
dedication, intellectual energy and wit.  He retired from active teaching
in May 1988, but he continued his scholarly work and his publishing
activities.  In 1989 he received an honorary doctorate from the University
of Lund and a year later was elected a corresponding member of the Assembly
of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts.   In the 1990s and 2000s,
Professor Matějka edited and published three volumes of the correspondence
of the famous Czech actors of the interwar *Liberated Theater* in Prague,
Voskovec and Werich, from the years 1945-1980 (Voskovec had emigrated).  In
2007, the second book in the series was named "Book of the Year" in
Prague.  In 2009, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic
awarded Professor Matějka the prestigious Gratias Agit Award for his
"promotion of the good name of the Czech Republic abroad."



*Herbert J. Eagle, Chair, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures*

*
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********************************

Jean Arbaugh McKee
Student Services Coordinator | Assistant to the Chair
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
812 E Washington St | 3040 MLB | Ann Arbor | MI | 48109
voice 734.764.5355 | fax 734.647.2127
www.lsa.umich.edu/slavic //  <http://www.facebook.com/umslavic>

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