French Semiotics and Russian Philosophy: About Some Historical Documents

The article discusses the relationship between semiotics, history and philosophy. Modern semiotics as the science of signs and the appearance of meaning is significant by interdisciplinary approach and it continues the traditions established in the 20th century by two major European schools: Moscow-Tartu School and Paris School. In this context, the history of semiotics as a discipline acquires a special significance; the genesis of ideas, the analysis of contacts and connections between its representatives from different countries have become extremely important. Analyzing documents from the archives of the Vilnius National Library, we found some contacts of the founder of the Paris School of Semiotics, the French-Lithuanian semiotician Algirdas Julien Greimas with the Russian philosopher Lev Karsavin, and the influence of his ideas on Greimas's final work "On Imperfection" (1987).