Alexander Piatigorsky

Alexander Moiseyevich Piatigorsky (Russian: Алекса́ндр Моисе́евич Пятиго́рский; 30 January 1929 – 25 October 2009) was a Soviet dissident, Russian philosopher, scholar of Indian philosophy and culture, historian, philologist, semiotician, writer. Well-versed in the study of language, he knew Sanskrit, Tamil, Pali, Tibetan, German, Russian, French, Italian and English. In an obituary appearing in the English-language newspaper The Guardian, he was cited as "a man who was widely considered to be one of the more significant thinkers of the age and Russia's greatest philosopher." On Russian television stations he was mourned as "the greatest Russian philosopher."