Introduction

Abstract

This special issue of Lexia. Rivista Internazionale di Semiotica is devoted to the internationally renowned scholar, semiotician, literary theorist, and historian of Russian culture, Juri Mihailovic Lotman (1922-1993), on the centenary of his birth. Lotman’s centenary is a unique opportunity to re-think his legacy to the twenty-first century and to contextualize his thought. It is also a chance to deepen and discuss the constellation of his ideas and to track the ramifications that his work has opened up and inspired throughout his life. The present volume is the pinnacle of a long-lasting interest in Lotman’s work and its purpose is to explore and re-think Lotman’s legacy to the twenty-first century. This project started at the end of 2020 as a convergence of interests of all three guest editors in the thought of Ju. Lotman. This has been the driving force and the inspiration behind the completion of the present work. The twenty articles, divided in four sections, that make up this special issue focus, from diverse and heterogeneous perspectives, on the significance of Lotman’s ideas today...