Creoleness and the Soviet Union: An Unmapped Region of Intellectual Exchange

ABSTRACT This article examines an exchange of ideas, concerning creole languages, that connected the Soviet linguist Nikolai Marr, the Austro-German linguist Hugo Schuchardt, and a number of writers and thinkers from the Caribbean. It considers emerging discourse around hybrid national identity, which was developed in the Americas, and had a strong bearing on ideas about creole languages. These ideas were received by Schuchardt and in turn transmitted to Marr, thereby establishing an unexpected avenue of communication from the Americas to the Soviet Union.