The cultural 'text of behaviour': the Moscow-Tartu school and the religious philosophy of language

This paper is focused on the major contributions of the two main schools of semiotic thought in Russia during the 20th century. It considers cultural mythologies of behaviour as the focal point of the Moscow-Tartu school and then proceeds to the pre-semiotic school of Russian thought, which dealt with the philosophy of the (divine) Name(s). Both traditions are linked by a common preoccupation with the human sign-vehicles-cultural, artistic, literary and religious. Russian semiotics of culture (the author's life & biography considered as a peculiar kind of a sign-text) and Russian religious philosophy of language (philosophy of the Name) are the most unique scholarly offerings to have originated within the Eastern-European tradition of semiotics.