Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (Russian: Михаил Михайлович Бахти́н, pronounced [mʲɪxʌˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ bʌxˈtʲin]) (November 17, 1895, Oryol – March 7, 1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic, semiotician[1] and scholar who worked on literary theory, ethics, and the philosophy of language. His writings, which cover a wide variety of subjects, inspired scholars working in a number of different traditions (Marxism, semiotics, structuralism, religious criticism) and in disciplines as diverse as literary criticism, history, philosophy, anthropology and psychology. Although Bakhtin was active in the lively debates on aesthetics and literature that took place in Soviet Russia in the 1920s, his distinctive position did not become well known until he was rediscovered by Russian scholars in the 1960s. The translation of his works into a number of different languages in the 1960s, 70s and 80s made him into one of the most influential figures in the human sciences. ( )