Antonín Bartoněk, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Antonín Bartoněk

Czech linguist and professor

Date of Birth: 29-Oct-1926

Place of Birth: Brno, South Moravian Region, Czech Republic

Date of Death: 30-May-2016

Profession: writer, university teacher, classical philologist, mykenologist

Nationality: Czech Republic

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Antonín Bartonek (October 29, 1926 in Brno - May 30, 2016 Brno) was a Czech classical philologist and a specialist in Mycenaean studies.
Bartonek studied classical philology at the Masaryk University in Brno.
Since his graduation in 1952, he worked at this university, first as an assistant, since 1962 as a lecturer, since 1968 as a professor.
Since 1990 he has also taught as a professor at the Palacký University in Olomouc.
At the Universities of Vienna, Heidelberg, Graz, Amsterdam and Cambridge, he took on long-term visiting professorships. Most of Bartonek's published research was dedicated to Mycenaean studies and Greek linguistics.
He was one of the leading experts in the deciphering and development of Linear B texts as well as in the field of ancient Greek dialects.
His major work is the Handbuch des mykenischen Griechisch (Handbook of Mycenaean Greek, 2003). Before the fall of the Iron Curtain he was one of the few scholars of the Eastern Bloc active in this field of research.
Despite obvious difficulties he maintained contacts with leading Western colleagues.
Noteworthy is a postcard he received from John Chadwick: it had passed the border controls, though it was written entirely in the Linear B script. Bartonek was also editor of a cultural guide to the Austrian-Czech border area (including the Waldviertel/the Forest Quarter and Weinviertel/the Wine Quarter).