Juri Lotman (1922-1993), the Russian-Estonian literary scholar and semiotician, was one of the most original and important cultural theorists of the twentieth century, the founder of the well-known Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, and the initiator of the discipline of cultural semiotics. His works translated into English include Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture (1990), Culture and Explosion (2009), The Unpredictable Workings of Culture (2013), and Non-Memoirs (2014).

Marek Tamm is Professor of Cultural History at the School of Humanities in Tallinn University, Estonia. He is the co-editor of Rethinking Historical Time: New Approaches to Presentism (2019) and Debating New Approaches to History (2018), and editor of Afterlife of Events: Perspectives on Mnemohistory (2015).

Brian James Baer is Professor of Russian and Translation Studies at Kent State University, USA. He is the author of Translation and the Making of Modern Russian Literature (2016) and the translator of Juri Lotman's final monograph, The Unpredictable Workings of Culture (2013).

Brings together, for the first time, Juri Lotman's most important articles in the field of cultural theory, memory studies and theory of history

Offers a comprehensive introduction to Lotman's theory of cultural memory

Demonstrates that Lotman was one of the first to identify memory as a major subject of cultural studies and the first to propose a general theory of cultural memory

1. Introduction: Juri Lotman's Semiotic Theory of History and Cultural Memory.- 2.Translator's Preface.- Part I Culture.- 3.The Phenomenon of Culture.- 4.The "Contract" and "Self-surrender" as Archetypal Models of Culture.- 5.- Toward a Theory of Cultural Interaction: The Semiotic Aspect.- 6.Culture as a Subject and its own Object.- 7. On the Dynamics of Culture.- 8. The Role of Art in the Dynamics of Culture.- Part II Memory.- 9. Memory in a Culturological Perspective.- 10. Cultural Memory.- 11. Some Thoughts on Typologies of Culture.- 12. The Symbol in the System of Culture.- Part III History.- 13. Clio at the Crossroads.- 14. A Divine Pronouncement or a Game of Chance? The Law-governed and the Accidental in the Historical Process.- 15. Technological Progress as a Culturological Problem.- 16. The Time of Troubles as a Cultural Mechanism: Toward a Typology of Russian Cultural History.- 17. Afterword: (Re)constructing the Drafts of Past.