More on L. S. Vygotsky: Forgotten Texts and Undiscovered Contexts

Abstract

has been the subject of many serious works in the Russian and Western literature. In this context special mention must be made of the many years of effort of M. G. Iaroshevskii, in whose latest Russian text 0 1993 by "Voprosy psikhologii" and "Shkola-Press." "Eshche o L. S. Vygotskom: Zabytye texty i nenaidennye kontexty." Voprosy psikhologii, 1993, No. 4, pp. 37-55. 6 Downloaded by [University of Bath] at 21:53 20 June 2016 VYGOTSKY: FORGOTTEN TEXTS. UNDISCOVERED CONTExrs 7 biography, episodes characterizing mainly the early and least understood period of his life. Vygotsky and the Jewish questionIt is customary to mark the beginning of Vygotsky's creative career with his first psychological writing that attracted the attention of his future colleagues, namely, his report to the All-Russian Congress on Psychoneurology in January 1924. In the most recent studies, those more sensitive to cultural context, his [The psychology of art] (see [SO]) and his work on Hamlet (see [37]) are considered the key to the genesis of Vygotsky's views. But, as we know, Vygotsky's first published works were his articles on literary criticism.The period of literary criticism was short and not very productive compared with ten years later. Judging from the [Lists of Vygotsky's works] [7], 1916-1917 saw the appearance of five of his reviews, including reviews on books by Viach. Ivanov, D. Merezhkovskii, and two reviews of Andrei Belyi. Vygotsky's early reviews perplex scholars even today. Because there was no chance of reprinting or even citing them in publications of the Soviet period, for reasons that will become clear in what follows, for Western scholars these works were divorced from any context familiar to them; they are merely listed as evidence that Vygotsky was "well educated" in the literature of the silver age [50]. Nevertheless, it is strange that Vygotsky's early writings have never been analyzed.The most important of Vygotsky's reviews was printed under the title "Literary commentary" in Novyi put ', a Jewish cultural-instructive journal. It is quite long, occupying one and a half printer's folio, and analyzes the just-published [Petersburg] by Andrei Belyi. According to the testimony of S. L. Dobkin, a close friend of Vygotsky's in Gomel, the bture psychologist considered [Petersburg] "the most remarkable novel of contemporary literature" (see [ 13. P. 261). The content of the "Literary commentary," however, goes far beyond literature. One finds in it some quite unexpected reflections that have nothing especially to do with [Petersburg], or that have, at the most, only an indirect bearing on it. It is curious that Vygotsky failed to mention the psychological motifs in [Petersburg], which are especially obvious in this novel: beginning with V. L. Khodasevich [35,5], people writing about [Petersburg] resorted to psychoanalytic interpretations.

L. S. Vygotsky—Victim of an "Optical Illusion"

“…The formal school that thus developed in Russian science taught that the verbal material of speech had to be understood as a structure independent of its content; this produced the idea that the mind was determined by cultural forms that were independent of it. 3 Vygotsky's theory formed and evolved on the groundsoil of Russian culture: it was the latter's offspring, and through its traditions and its needs, it provided a focus for some of the lines of development of world psychology.…”

As vivências: questões de tradução, sentidos e fontes epistemológicas no legado de Vigotski

“…Nessas obras, Vigotski ratifica sua deserção quanto ao simbolismo (consumada em torno de 1917, segundo Etkind, 1994) e de outras contribuições de pendor irracionalista. O marxismo é sua nova referência principal, e as contribuições teórico-metodológicas construídas vêm criar novos sentidos para vários de seus antigos conceitos.…”

Prática educativa, vivência e afetos na constituição de alunos com histórias de sucesso na escola

“…). Nessas obras, Vigotski ratifica sua deserção quanto ao simbolismo (consumada em torno de 1917, segundoEtkind, 1994) e de outras contribuições de pendor irracionalista. O marxismo é sua nova referência principal, e as contribuições teórico-metodológicas construídas vêm criar novos sentidos para vários de seus antigos conceitos.…”