Tzvetan Todorov is a French-Bulgarian philosopher. He is employed at CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique), which is the biggest public organization in France for scientific research and currently holds the position of honorary director of research. Between 1983 and 1987, he ran the Research centre for Art and Language. He is best known for his translations of Russian formalism (1965), which has contributed in large part to the growth of poetry today. His research on the history of humanism highlights the work of JJ Rousseau, Montesquieu, Montaigne, Benjamin Constant and Jacquesa Cazotte.