Michael Branch

Michael Arthur Branch, CMG (24 March 1940, Shrewsbury, England — 17 June 2019, Langley, Kent, England ) was a British linguist and academic administrator.

Studies Branch studied Hungarian, Swedish and Finnish at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, and completed his Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree, and then spent four years in Helsinki doing research, after which completed his doctorate (PhD, 1967) at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies. He wrote his dissertation on Anders Johan Sjögren, entitled A. J. Sjögren — Studies of the North, which was published in Finland by the Finno-Ugrian Society in 1973. He showed that Sjögren’s work created perspectives into the formation of the Finnish identity and that Sjögren opened up a path that Elias Lönnrot then would follow.

In the 2010s, Branch was suffering from an illness which seriously affected his memory.