Lehr-Spławiński, Tadeusz

Lehr-Spławiński, Tadeusz, b 20 September 1891 in Cracow, d 17 February 1965 in Cracow. Polish Slavist. A professor of Lviv University (1922–9) and Cracow University (1929–62), he wrote a number of important works in Slavic and Ukrainian linguistics. Regarding the question of the origin of the Ukrainian language he defended the theory of a common Old Rus’ language (see Common Russian). He studied Ukrainian phonetics and certain problems in morphology from the neogrammarian viewpoint, and his ideas on the formation of Ukrainian dialects partly influenced Ivan Zilynsky. His most important works on the history of Ukrainian are collected in Studia i szkice wybrane z językoznawstwa słowiańskiego (Selected Studies and Essays in Slavic Linguistics, vol 1, 1957).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]