Early Life
Knorozov was born in a village near Kharkiv in Ukraine, at that time the capital of the newly formed Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. His parents were Russian intellectuals, and his paternal grandmother had been a stage actress of national repute in Armenia.
At school, the young Yuri was a difficult and somewhat eccentric student, who made indifferent progress in a number of subjects and was almost expelled for poor and willful behaviour. However, it became clear that he was academically bright with an inquisitive temperament; he was an accomplished violinist, wrote romantic poetry and could draw with accuracy and attention to detail.
In 1940 at the age of 17, Knorozov left Kharkov for Moscow where he commenced undergraduate studies in the newly created Department of Ethnology at Moscow State University's faculty of History. He initially specialised in Egyptology.
Read more about this topic: Yuri Knorozov
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I do not know that I meet, in any of my Walks, Objects which move both my Spleen and Laughter so effectually, as those Young Fellows ... who rise early for no other Purpose but to publish their Laziness.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“One reason writers write is out of revenge. Life hurts; certain ideas and experiences hurt; one wants to clarify, to set out illuminations, to replay the old bad scenes and get the Treppenworte said—the words one didn’t have the strength or ripeness to say when those words were necessary for one’s dignity or survival.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)