Feature ArticleModernism as a cultural phenomenon, and the possibility of its having been succeeded by something else, often called Postmodernity, is rarely discussed in semiotics. The whole issue is usually given over to the so-called postmodernist (or, originally, poststructuralist) theory, which, in spite of its name, has a very tenuous theoretical content. It will be suggested in the following that this phenomenon is better understood from the point of view of semiotics, and that we are already in possession of at least part of the necessary theoretical equipment required. Semiotics, it will be argued, as is has evolved from Russian Formalism, through Prague structuralism, and to the Tartu school, is not only theoretically capable of handling Modernism: it has in fact been, as the French say, its companion de route. It will not part company with Postmodernism, for the simple fact that the latter, in spite of its self-understanding, is only a new phase of Modernism.