Roman Jakobson (1896-1982), one of the most significant linguists of the last century, was not a linguist who remained confined within the boundaries of his discipline. He mastered eight languages and was a man of broad horizons, seemingly bringing together disparate elements to explore human language in all its aspects. He navigated such diverse terrains as folklore and relativity theory, painting and neurology, poetry and cybernetics. In his memoirs "My Futuristic Years," Jakobson returns to the historically and artistically dramatic period in Russia between 1910 and 1920. He describes the atmosphere of change in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the hunger for new forms in painting and poetry, and the "fermentation" process from which Russian Futurism emerged, as color and form liberated themselves from the constraints of realism in painting.