Roman Osipovich Jakobson was a highly influential 20th century Russian linguist. He helped pioneer structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. Jakobson was a founding member of the Moscow Linguistic Circle, which influenced the development of Russian Formalism in literary criticism. He later moved to Prague and helped form the Prague Linguistic Circle, contributing to the emergence of structuralism. Jakobson made enduring contributions to communication theory through his analysis of language functions.