Anton Yasnitsky - Revisionist Revolution in Vygotsky Studies: The State of the Art

First published 2016

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2016 Anton Yasnitsky and Ren van der Veer

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Yasnitsky, Anton, 1972

Revisionist revolution in Vygotsky studies / Anton Yasnitsky and Ren van der Veer.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Vygotskii, L. S. (Lev Semenovich), 18961934. 2. PsychologistsSoviet Union.

I. Veer, Ren? van der, 1952 II. Title.

BF109.V95Y37 2015

150.92dc232015003746

ISBN: 978-1-138-88730-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-92969-2 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-71424-0 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by Out of House Publishing

Gott ist tot.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them

Exodus 20:45

Science is rooted in the will to truth. With the will to truth it stands or falls. Lower the standard even slightly and science becomes diseased at the core. Not only science, but man. The will to truth, pure and unadulterated, is among the essential conditions of his existence; if the standard is compromised he easily becomes a kind of tragic caricature of himself.

Max Wertheimer

AHAP Archives of the History of American Psychology at The Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology, the University of Akron, OH

AJA American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, OH

APN Akademiia pedagogicheskikh nauk [Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, Moscow]

APS American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA

ARAN Arkhiv Rossiiskoi akademii nauk [Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow]

ASSR avtonomnaia sovetskaia sotsialisticheskaia respublika [autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic]

GA RF Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [State Archive of Russian Federation], Moscow, Russia

GIZ see Gosizdat

Gosizdat Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo (State Publishing House)

JHMI Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions Archives, Baltimore, MD

MGU Moskovskii gosudarstvennyi universitet [Moscow State University]

Narkompros Narodnyi komissariat prosveshcheniia [Peoples Commissariat of Enlightenment]

RSFSR Rossiiskaia sovetskaia federativnaia sotsialisticheskaia respublika [Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]

SSSR Soiuz sovetskikh sotsialisticheskikh respublik [Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR]

YIVO YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York

Dembo archive: Clark University, Worcester, MA (occasionally used in this study in relation to issues in the biographies of Lewins female students)

LuriaGantt correspondence: W. Horsley Gantt Collection, JHMI

LuriaKallen correspondence: The Horace M. Kallen Collection, AJA and The Papers of Horace Meyer Kallen, YIVO Archives

LuriaKoffka correspondence: Koffka archive, Harrower archive, AHAP

LuriaKhler correspondence: Khler archive, APS; also, several letters have been published in Russian in E. A. Luria, 1994 and in English in Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991

LuriaLewin correspondence: Lewin archive at AHAP; also published in Mtraux, 2002

LuriaWertheimer correspondence: Wertheimer archives in New York Public Library (NYPL) and University of Colorado, Boulder, CO; published in King & Wertheimer, 2005

Vygotskys correspondence with his collaborators and associates in the Soviet Union was published in Russian (Vygotskii, 2004) and in English (Vygotsky, 2007); available also in bilingual GermanEnglish edition (Rckriem, 2009)

Note: the list does not include some of Lurias collaborators of the 192030s and those members of the Kharkov group of researchers as important as any of them might have been who did not work directly with Vygotsky or possibly joined the group after Vygotskys death, such as Mirenova, Anna Nikitichna (190145), Rozenblium, Anatolii Ilich (190038), Asnin, Vladimir Ilich (190456), Zinchenko, Petr Ivanovich (190369), Galperin, Petr Yakovlevich (190288), Yudovich, Faina Yakovlevna (dates of birth and death unknown), and others.

Averbukh, Roza Abramovna (18831940) medical doctor (Bern, Geneva, Kazan); along with Luria, a member of Kazan Psychoanalytical Society in early 1920s; when Luria left Kazan in 1923, followed him to Moscow where they joined Russian Psychoanalytical Society; later joined Vygotskys team, and, in collaboration with Eidinova (see Eidinova, Marina Borisovna ), conducted research on hypoboulic mechanisms (unpublished study, referred to by Luria in 1960); according to Vygotskys notes, participated in the groups research meetings in October 1933 with a presentation on the topic of Environment experiencing ( perezhivanie ) character.

Bassin, Filipp Veniaminovich (190592) medical doctor (Kharkov, 1931), along with Luria , Lebedinskii and others worked at the Clinical Psychology Department of the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy, where, following Vygotskys research on thinking in schizophrenia, he conducted a study on the alteration of word meanings in schizophrenia (unpublished manuscript of 1935); in 1936 moved to Moscow, worked in All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (VIEM); collaborated with Bernstein (see Bernstein, Nikolai Aleksandrovich ).

Bernstein, Nikolai Aleksandrovich (18971982) prominent physiologist and psychotecnic, Vygotskys collaborator at the Institute of Psychology in mid-1920s, with whom Vygotsky co-edited and co-authored a textbook in 1927, and whose work was one of the main inspirations for most of Vygotskys followers research from the end of the 1930s onwards.

Bein, Esfir Solomonovna (190681) neurologist, defectologist, under Vygotskys supervision conducted research on pathology of speech and perception.

Birenbaum, Gita Vasilevna (190352) former Berlin student of Kurt Lewin (see Lewin, Kurt ), returned to Soviet Union around 1930; under the supervision of Vygotsky conducted experimental and theoretical studies in clinical settings in Moscow in early 1930s, after Vygotskys death in collaboration with Zeigarnik (see Zeigarnik, Bluma Vulfovna ) and Samukhin (see Samukhin, Nikolai Vasilevich ) published several papers that creatively integrate Vygotskys and Kurt Lewins theoretical work.

Boskis, Rakhil Markovna (190276) medical doctor (Kiev), in 1931 moved to Moscow; under Vygotskys supervision conducted research on thinking and speech in deaf children at the Defectological Institute in Moscow.