Polívka, Jirí

Polívka, Jiří 

Born Mar. 6, 1858, in Enns, Austria; died Mar. 21, 1933, in Prague. Czech folklorist, linguist, and literary historian.

Polívka became a professor at Charles University in Prague in 1895. He was a corresponding member of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts and became a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1901. He was a proponent of T. Benfey’s migration theory. His Slavic Tales (1932) and other major works on the Slavic folk tale devote a good deal of attention to the artistic form of the tale. Polívka studied the history of the ancient and modern literature of the Slavic peoples and the works of 19th-century Russian authors. His works on Slavic dialectology are of great value.

WORKS

Lidové povídky slovanské, vols. 1–2. Prague, 1929–39.
Slovanské pohádky. Prague, 1932.
Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm, vols. 1–5. Leipzig, 1913–32. (With J. Bolte.)

REFERENCES

Sokolov, Iu. M. “O sotsiologicheskom izuchenii fol’klora: Otvet prof. Iu. Polivke.” Literatura i marksizm, 1928, no. 2.
Sborník prací věnovaných prof. dr. J. Polívkovi. Prague, 1918.

N. I. KRAVTSOV