Jan Firbas

Who was Jan Firbas?

Jan Firbas, was a Czech linguist and a prominent representative of the Prague School of linguistics. Born in Brno, in the Czech Republic, he studied English, German and philosophy at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University. From 1949 he was a member of the Department of English and American Studies of the faculty until his death in 2000. He became a member of the Prague Linguistics Circle, which was outlawed by the communist government. Persecution from the communist government and the fact that he came from an old Protestant family and refused to renounce his belief significantly delayed his academic career. Despite his international renown, it took him ten years to have his habilitation officially approved and he was only made Professor in 1990. In 1986, he was awarded Honorary Doctorates by the Universities of Leuven and Leeds, and in 2000 by the University of Turku. Even though he was frequently invited to give lecture series at universities across the globe in the 1970s and 80s, he could freely accept the invitations only after the fall of the communist regime in November 1989. Jan Firbas died on the 5 May 2000 in Brno, the city where he had stayed for most of his life.