Abstract
The monograph traces the history of the Prague Linguistic Circle, one of the outstanding world centres of linguistics and philology between 1926 and the World War II whose intellectual heritage has had a profound impact on the subsequent development in the field. The book, based on the documentary evidence of the Prague Linguistic Circle Collection in the Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences as well as other sources, offers a comprehensive analysis of both the academic and everyday existence of the Circle.
Particular attention has been paid to the lectures given in the Circle (the book brings the most complete and detailed list of the Circle's lectures to date), to the Circle's collective projects, to the problem of membership (helping to ascertain e.g. who of the leading linguists of the day were among the Circle's members or close collaborators), and to the Circle's correspondence (both on the institutional and individual basis). The volume is richly supplemented by transcripts of relevant documents and a number of hitherto unpublished letters.