Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky Lev Semyonovich

Years of life: 1896 - 1934

Homeland: Orsha (Russian Empire)

Vygotsky Lev Semenovich was born in 1896. He was an outstanding Russian psychologist, the creator of the concept of the development of higher mental functions. Lev Semenovich was born in the Belarusian town of Orsha, but a year later the Vygodskys moved to Gomel and settled there for a long time. His father, Semyon Lvovich Vygodsky graduated from the Commercial Institute in Kharkov and was a bank employee and insurance agent. Mother, Cecilia Moiseevna, devoted almost her entire life to raising her eight children (Lev was the second child). The family was considered a kind of cultural center of the city. For example, there is information that Vygodsky the father founded a public library in the city. Literature was loved and known in the house; it is no coincidence that so many famous philologists came from the Vygodsky family. In addition to Lev Semenovich, these are his sisters Zinaida and Claudia; cousin David Isaakovich, one of the prominent representatives of “Russian formalism” (somewhere in the early 20s he began to publish, and since both of them were engaged in poetics, it was natural to want to “distinguish themselves” so that they would not be confused, and therefore Lev Semenovich Vygodsky replaced the letter “d” in his last name with “t”). Young Lev Semenovich was interested in literature and philosophy. Benedict Spinoza became his favorite philosopher and remained until the end of his life. Young Vygotsky studied mainly at home. Only two last class He studied at the private Gomel Ratner gymnasium. He showed extraordinary abilities in all subjects. At the gymnasium he studied German, French, Latin languages, at home, in addition, English, Ancient Greek and Hebrew. After graduating from high school, L.S. Vygotsky entered Moscow University, where he studied at the Faculty of Law during the First World War (1914-1917). At the same time, he became interested in literary criticism, and his reviews of books by symbolist writers - rulers of the souls of the then intelligentsia: A. Bely, V. Ivanov, D. Merezhkovsky appeared in several magazines. During these student years, he wrote his first work - the treatise "The Tragedy of William Shakespeare's Danish Hamlet." After the victory of the revolution, Vygotsky returned to Gomel and accepted Active participation in construction new school. The beginning of it falls during this period scientific career as a psychologist, since in 1917 he began to study research work and organized a psychological office at the pedagogical college, where he conducted research. In 1922-1923 he conducted five studies, three of which he later reported at the II All-Russian Congress on Psychoneurology. These were: “Methodology of reflexological research as applied to the study of the psyche,” “How psychology should be taught now,” and “Results of a questionnaire about the mood of students in the graduating classes of Gomel schools in 1923.” During the Gomel period, Vygotsky imagined that the future of psychology lay in the application of reflexological techniques to the causal explanation of the phenomena of consciousness, the advantage of which was their objectivity and natural scientific rigor. The content and style of Vygotsky’s speeches, as well as his personality, literally shocked one of the congress participants, A.R. Luria. The new director of the Moscow Institute of Psychology, N.K. Kornilov, accepted Luria’s proposal to invite Vygotsky to Moscow. Thus, in 1924, the ten-year Moscow stage of Vygotsky’s work began. This decade can be divided into three periods. First period (1924-1927). Having just arrived in Moscow and having passed the exams for the title of 2nd category researcher, Vygotsky gave three reports in six months. In respect of further development Conceived in Gomel of a new psychological concept, he builds a model of behavior, which is based on the concept of speech reaction. The term “reaction” was introduced to distinguish the psychological approach from the physiological one. He introduces into it features that make it possible to correlate the behavior of an organism, regulated by consciousness, with forms of culture - language and art. After moving to Moscow, he was attracted to a special area of ​​practice - working with children suffering from various mental and physical defects. Essentially, his entire first year in Moscow can be called “defectological.” He combines classes at the Institute of Psychology with active work at the People's Commissariat of Education. Showing brilliant organizational skills, he laid the foundations of the defectology service, and later became the scientific director of the special scientific and practical institute that still exists today. The most important direction of Vygotsky’s research in the first years of the Moscow period was the analysis of the situation in world psychology. He writes a preface to Russian translations of the works of the leaders of psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and gestaltism, trying to determine the significance of each of the directions for the development of a new picture of mental regulation. Back in 1920, Vygotsky fell ill with tuberculosis, and since then, outbreaks of the disease more than once plunged him into a “borderline situation” between life and death. One of the most severe outbreaks hit him at the end of 1926. Then, having ended up in the hospital, he began one of his main studies, to which he gave the name “The Meaning of the Psychological Crisis.” The epigraph to the treatise was bible words: “The stone that the builders despised has become the cornerstone.” He called this stone practice and philosophy. The second period of Vygotsky's work (1927-1931) in his Moscow decade was instrumental psychology. He introduces the concept of a sign, which acts as a special psychological tool, the use of which, without changing anything in the substance of nature, serves as a powerful means of transforming the psyche from natural (biological) to cultural (historical). Thus, the didactic “stimulus-response” scheme accepted by both subjective and objective psychology was rejected. It was replaced by a triadic one - “stimulus - stimulus - reaction”, where a special stimulus - a sign - acts as an intermediary between an external object (stimulus) and the response of the body (mental reaction). This sign is a kind of instrument, when operated by an individual, from his primary natural mental processes (memory, attention, associated thinking) a special system of functions of the second sociocultural order, inherent only to man, arises. Vygotsky called them higher mental functions. The most significant achievements of Vygotsky and his group during this period were compiled into a lengthy manuscript, “The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions.” Among the publications that preceded this generalizing manuscript, we note “Instrumental method in pedology” (1928), “The problem of the cultural development of the child” (1928), “Instrumental method in psychology” (1930), “Tool and sign in the development of the child” ( 1931). In all cases, the center was the problem of the development of the child’s psyche, interpreted from the same angle: the creation of new cultural forms from its biopsychic natural “material”. Vygotsky becomes one of the country's main pedologists. "Pedology of School Age" (1928), "Pedology of Adolescence" (1929), "Pedology of Adolescents" (1930-1931) are published. Vygotsky strives to recreate the general picture of the development of the mental world. He moved from the study of signs as determinants of instrumental acts to the study of the evolution of the meanings of these signs, primarily speech ones, in the mental life of a child. The new research program became the main one in his third and last Moscow period (1931-1934). The results of its development were captured in the monograph “Thinking and Speech.” Getting busy global issues about the relationship between teaching and upbringing, Vygotsky gave it an innovative interpretation in the concept he introduced of the “zone of proximal development,” according to which only that learning is effective that “runs ahead” of development. In the last period of his creative work, the leitmotif of Vygotsky’s quests, linking into a common knot the various branches of his work (the history of the doctrine of affects, the study of the age-related dynamics of consciousness, the semantic connotation of words), became the problem of the relationship between motivation and cognitive processes. Vygotsky worked at the limit of human capabilities. From dawn until late, his days were filled with countless lectures, clinical and laboratory work. He made many reports at various meetings and conferences, wrote theses, articles, and introductions to materials collected by his collaborators. When Vygotsky was taken to the hospital, he took his beloved Hamlet with him. In one of the entries about the Shakespearean tragedy, it was noted that Hamlet’s main state is readiness. “I’m ready” - these, according to the nurse, were Vygotsky’s last words. Although his early death did not allow Vygotsky to implement many promising programs, his ideas, which revealed the mechanisms and laws of the cultural development of the individual, the development of his mental functions (attention, speech, thinking, affects), outlined a fundamentally new approach to the fundamental issues of personality formation. Bibliography of works by L.S. Vygotsky has 191 works. Vygotsky's ideas have received wide resonance in all sciences that study humans, including linguistics, psychiatry, ethnography, and sociology. They defined a whole stage in the development of humanitarian knowledge in Russia and to this day retain their heuristic potential.

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Among prominent figures There are many domestic scientists in the field of psychology, whose names are still revered in the world scientific community. And one of the greatest minds of the last century is Lev Semenovich Vygotsky.

Thanks to his works, we are now familiar with the theory of cultural development, the history of the formation and development of higher psychological functions, as well as other author’s hypotheses and basic terms of psychology. What kind of work did Vygotsky glorify him as a famous Russian psychologist, and also what life path passed by the scientist, read this article.

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky is an innovator, an outstanding Russian psychologist, thinker, teacher, critic, literary critic, scientist. He was the researcher who created the prerequisites for combining such two scientific fields as psychology and pedagogy.

Life and work of a domestic scientist

The biography of this famous person begins in 1896 - on November 17, a boy named Lev Vygotsky was born in one of the large families in the city of Orsha. A year later, the Vygotsky family moves to Gomel, where the boy’s father (a former bank employee) opens a library.

The future innovator studied science at home as a child. Lev, like his brothers and sisters, was taught by Solomon Markovich Ashpiz, whose teaching methods differed significantly from traditional ones. Practicing Socratic teachings, which were hardly used in the educational programs of that time, he established himself as a very remarkable personality.

By the time Vygotsky needed to enter higher education, he already knew several foreign languages(including Latin and Esperanto). Having entered the medical faculty of Moscow University, Lev Semenovich soon submitted a request to be transferred to another faculty to study jurisprudence. However, while mastering jurisprudence simultaneously at two faculties of different educational institutions, Vygotsky nevertheless came to the conclusion that the legal profession was not for him, and completely delved into the comprehension of philosophy and history.

The results of his research were not long in coming. Already in 1916, Lev wrote his first creation - an analysis of the drama “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare. The author later presented the work, which took up exactly 200 pages of handwritten text, as a thesis.

Like all subsequent works of the Russian thinker, the innovative two-hundred-page analysis of Shakespeare's Hamlet aroused keen interest among specialists. And it’s not surprising, because in his work Lev Semenovich used a completely unexpected technique that changed the usual understanding of the “tragic story of the Danish prince.”

A little later, as a student, Lev began to actively write and publish literary analyzes of works already domestic writers– Andrey Bely (B.N. Bugaev), M.Yu. Lermontov.

L.S. Vygotsky graduated from universities in 1917 and after the revolution moved with his family to Samara, and then to Kyiv. But after some time they all return to their hometown, where young Vygotsky gets a job as a teacher.

IN summary The life of a thinker upon returning to his homeland can be summarized in a few sentences (although Wikipedia offers a much more detailed version): he works in schools, teaches at technical schools and even gives lectures, tries himself as an editor in a local publication. At the same time, he heads the theater and art education departments.

However, the young teacher’s serious practical work in the teaching and scientific fields began around 1923-1924, when at one of his speeches he first spoke about a new direction in psychology.

Practical activity of a thinker and scientist

By declaring to the public the birth of a new, independent scientific direction, Vygotsky was noticed by other specialists and invited to work in Moscow, at an institute where outstanding minds of that time were already working. The young teacher fit perfectly into their team, becoming the initiator and later the ideological leader at the Institute of Experimental Psychology.

The domestic scientist and psychologist Vygotsky will write his main works and books later, but for now he is actively engaged in practice as a teacher and therapist. Having started to practice, Vygotsky literally immediately became in demand, and a large queue of parents of special children lined up to see him.

What was it about his activities and works that made the name Vygotsky known throughout the world? Developmental psychology and theories that the Russian scientist created paid special attention to the conscious processes of personality formation. At the same time, Lev Semenovich was the first to conduct his research without considering personality development from the point of view of reflexology. In particular, Lev Semenovich was interested in the interaction of factors that predetermine the formation of personality.

The main works of Vygotsky, which reflected in detail the interests of the literary critic, thinker, psychologist and teacher from God, are as follows:

• "Psychology of child development."
• "Concrete psychology of human development."
• "The problem of the cultural development of the child."
• "Thinking and Speech".
• “Pedagogical psychology” Vygotsky L.S.

According to the outstanding thinker, the psyche and the results of its functioning cannot be considered separately. For example, human consciousness is an independent element of personality, and its components are language and culture.

They are the ones who influence the process of formation and development of consciousness itself. Consequently, personality develops not in a vacuum space, but in the context of certain cultural values and within language frameworks that directly impact a person's mental health.

Innovative ideas and concepts of the teacher

Vygotsky deeply studied issues of child psychology. Perhaps because he himself loved children very much. And not only our own. A sincere good-natured person and a teacher from God, he knew how to empathize with the feelings of other people and was condescending towards their shortcomings. Such abilities led the scientist to.

Vygotsky considered the “defects” identified in children to be only physical limitations that the child’s body tries to overcome at the level of instincts. And this idea is clearly demonstrated by the concept of Vygotsky, who believed that the responsibility of psychologists and teachers is to help children with disabilities in the form of support and providing alternative ways to receive necessary information and communication with the outside world and people.

Child psychology is the main area in which Lev Semenovich carried out his activities. He paid special attention to the problems of education and socialization of special children.

The domestic thinker made a great contribution to the organization of children’s education, drawing up a special program that makes it possible to explain the development psychological health through connections between the organism and the environment. And precisely because it was possible to most clearly trace internal mental processes in children, Vygotsky chose child psychology as the key area of ​​his practice.

The scientist observed trends in the development of the psyche, exploring patterns internal processes in normal children and in patients with anomalies (defects). In the course of his work, Lev Semenovich came to the conclusion that the development of a child and his upbringing are interconnected processes. And since the science of pedagogy dealt with the nuances of upbringing and education, the domestic psychologist began research in this area. This is how an ordinary teacher with a law degree became a popular child psychologist.

Vygotsky's ideas were truly innovative. Thanks to his research, the laws of personality development were revealed in the context of specific cultural values, deep mental functions were revealed (the book Vygotsky “Thinking and Speech” is dedicated to this) and the patterns of mental processes in a child within the framework of his relationship with the environment.

The ideas proposed by Vygotsky became a solid foundation for correctional pedagogy and defectology, which makes it possible to provide assistance to children with special needs in practice. Educational psychology currently uses many programs, systems and developmental techniques, which are based on the concepts of the scientist rational organization upbringing and education of children with developmental anomalies.

Bibliography - a treasury of works by an outstanding psychologist

Throughout his life, the domestic thinker and teacher, who later became a psychologist, not only carried out practical activities, but also wrote books. Some of them were published during the scientist’s lifetime, but there are also many works published posthumously. In total, the bibliography of the classic of Russian psychology includes more than 250 works in which Vygotsky presented his ideas, concepts, as well as the results of research in the field of psychology and pedagogy.

The following works of the innovator are considered the most valuable:

Vygotsky L.S. “Educational Psychology” is a book that presents the basic concepts of the scientist, as well as his ideas regarding solving the problems of raising and educating schoolchildren, taking into account their individual abilities and physiological characteristics. While writing this book, Lev Semenovich focused his attention on studying the connection between psychological knowledge and the practical activities of teachers, as well as on research into the personality of schoolchildren.

“Collected works in 6 volumes”: volume 4 – a publication that covers the main issues of child psychology. In this volume, the outstanding thinker Lev Semenovich proposed his famous concept, defining sensitive periods of human development in different stages his life. Thus, the periodization of mental development, according to Vygotsky, is a graph of the child’s development in the form of a gradual transition from the moment of birth from one age level to another through zones of unstable development.

“Psychology of Human Development” is a fundamental publication that combines the works of a domestic scientist in several areas: general, pedagogical and age-related psychology. For the most part, this work was devoted to organizing the activities of psychologists. The ideas and concepts of Vygotsky’s school presented in the book became the main reference point for many contemporaries.

“Fundamentals of Defectology” is a book in which the teacher, historian and psychologist Vygotsky outlined the main provisions of this scientific direction, as well as his famous theory of compensation. Its essence lies in the fact that each anomaly (defect) has a dual role, since, being a physical or mental limitation, it is also a stimulus for the initiation of compensatory activity.

These are just some of the works of the outstanding scientist. But believe me, all his books deserve close attention and represent an invaluable source for many generations of domestic psychologists. Vygotsky, even in the last years of his life, continued to implement his ideas and write books, while simultaneously working on the creation of a specialized department of psychology at the Moscow All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine.

But, alas, the scientist’s plans were not destined to come true due to his hospitalization against the background of exacerbation of tuberculosis and imminent death. So, one might say, suddenly, in 1934, on June 11, the classic of Russian psychology, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, passed away. Author: Elena Suvorova

Psychologist, professor (1928). He graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University (1917) and at the same time from the Faculty of History and Philology of the A. L. Shanyavsky People's University. In 1918-1924. worked in Gomel. Since 1924, in psychological scientific and educational institutions of Moscow (Institute of Psychology of Moscow State University, Academy of Communist Education named after N.K. Krupskaya, Faculty of Education of the 2nd Moscow State University, Experimental Defectology Institute, etc.); He also worked at the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute and the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Institute in Kharkov.

He began his scientific career by studying the psychology of art - he explored the psychological patterns of perception literary works(The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, 1916; The Psychology of Art, 1925, published 1965). He studied the theory of reflexological and psychological research (articles of 1925-1926), as well as problems of the psychology of education ("Pedagogical psychology. Short course", 1926). Gave deep critical analysis world psychology of the 1920-1930s, which played an important role in the development of Soviet psychological science ("The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis", 1927, published 1982; see also Vygotsky's prefaces to the Russian translation of the works of V. Köhler, K. Koffka, K. Buhler, J. Piaget, E. Thorndike, A. Gesell, etc.).

He created a cultural-historical theory of the development of human behavior and psyche, in which, based on the Marxist understanding of the socio-historical nature of human activity and consciousness, he examined the process of ontogenetic development of the psyche. According to this theory, the sources and determinants of human mental development lie in the historically developed culture. “Culture is the product of social life and social activity of a person, and therefore the very formulation of the problem of cultural development of behavior already introduces us directly to the social plan of development” (Collected Works, vol. 3, M., 1983, pp. 145-146). The main provisions of this theory: 1) the basis of a person’s mental development is a qualitative change in the social situation of his life; 2) the universal moments of a person’s mental development are his training and upbringing; 3) the initial form of life activity - its detailed implementation by a person in the external (social) plan; 4) psychological new formations that have arisen in a person are derived from the internalization of the original form of his life activity; 5) a significant role in the process of internalization belongs to various sign systems; 6) important in a person’s life and consciousness are his intellect and emotions, which are in internal unity.

In relation to human mental development, Vygotsky formulated a general genetic law: “Every function in the cultural development of a child appears on the scene twice, on two levels, first social, then psychological, first between people, as an interpsychic category, then within the child, as an intrapsychic category.” ... The transition from outside to inside transforms the process itself, changes its structure and functions. Behind all higher functions and their relationships there are genetically social relationships, real relationships between people” (ibid., p. 145).

Thus, according to Vygotsky, the determinants of mental development are not located inside the child’s body and personality, but outside it - in the situation of the child’s social interaction with other people (primarily with adults). In the course of communication and joint activities, patterns are not simply learned social behavior, but also the basic psychological structures are formed, which subsequently determine the entire course of mental processes. When such structures are formed, we can talk about the presence in a person of the corresponding conscious and voluntary mental functions, consciousness itself.

The content of a person’s consciousness, arising in the process of internalization of his social (external) activity, always has a symbolic form. To realize something means to attribute meaning to an object, to designate it with a sign (for example, a word). Thanks to consciousness, the world appears before a person in a symbolic form, which Vygotsky called a kind of “psychological tool.” “A sign located outside the organism, like a tool, is separated from the personality and serves, in essence, as a social organ or social means” (ibid., p. 146). In addition, a sign is a means of communication between people: “Every sign, if we take its real origin, is a means of communication, and we could say more broadly - a means of connecting certain mental functions of a social nature. Transferred to oneself, it is the same means of connection functions in itself" (ibid., vol. 1, p. 116).

Vygotsky's views were important for the psychology and pedagogy of education and training. Vygotsky substantiated the ideas of activity in the educational process, in which the student is active, the teacher is active, and the social environment is active. At the same time, Vygotsky constantly emphasized the dynamic social environment that connects teacher and student. “Education should be based on the personal activity of the student, and the entire art of the educator should be reduced only to directing and regulating this activity... The teacher is, from a psychological point of view, the organizer of the educational environment, the regulator and controller of its interaction with the student. .. The social environment is the true lever of the educational process, and the entire role of the teacher comes down to controlling this lever" (Pedagogical psychology. Short course, M., 1926, pp. 57-58). The main psychological goal of education and training is the purposeful and deliberate development in children of new forms of behavior and activity, i.e. systematic organization of their development (see ibid., pp. 9, 55, 57). Vygotsky developed the concept of the zone of proximal development. In Vygotsky’s view, “correctly organized education of a child leads to the child’s mental development, brings to life a whole series of development processes that would otherwise be impossible without education. Education is... an internally necessary and universal moment in the process of development of a child’s non-natural , but the historical characteristics of man" (Selected psychological studies, M., 1956, p. 450).

Analyzing the stages of mental development, Vygotsky formulated the problem of age in psychology and proposed a variant of periodization of child development based on the alternation of “stable” and “critical” ages, taking into account the mental neoplasms characteristic of each age. He studied the stages of development of children's thinking - from syncretic through complex, through thinking with pseudo-concepts to the formation of true concepts. Vygotsky highly appreciated the role of play in the mental development of children and especially in the development of their creative imagination. In a polemic with J. Piaget about the nature and function of speech, he methodologically, theoretically and experimentally showed that speech is social both in origin and in function.

Vygotsky introduced major contribution in many branches of psychological science. He created a new direction in defectology, showing the possibility of compensating for mental and sensory defects not through training of elementary, directly affected functions, but through the development of higher mental functions (“Main problems of modern defectology”, 1929). He developed a new doctrine about the localization of mental functions in the cerebral cortex, which marked the beginning of modern neuropsychology (“Psychology and the doctrine of the localization of mental functions”, 1934). He studied the problems of the connection between affect and intellect ("The Teaching of Emotions", 1934, partially published in 1968, fully in 1984), problems of the historical development of behavior and consciousness ("Studies on the History of Behavior", 1930, jointly with A.R. Luria).

Some of Vygotsky’s studies, psychological in essence, were carried out using pedological terminology in the spirit of the times (for example, “Pedology of the Adolescent,” 1929-1931). This led to the mid-30s. sharp criticism of Vygotsky’s ideas, dictated mainly by extra-scientific reasons, since there were no real grounds for such criticism. On long years Vygotsky's theory was excluded from the arsenal of Soviet psychological thought. Since the mid-50s. the assessment of Vygotsky’s scientific creativity is freed from opportunistic bias.

Vygotsky created a large scientific school. Among his students are L. I. Bozhovich, P. Ya Galperin, A. V. Zaporozhets, A. N. Leontiev, A. R. Luria, D. B. Elkonin and others. Vygotsky’s theory causes wide resonance in world psychological science, including in the works of J. Bruner, Koffka, Piaget, S. Toulmin and others.

Literature: Scientific creativity of L. S. Vygotsky and modern psychology, M., 1981; Bubbles A. A., Cultural-historical theory of L. S. Vygotsky and modern psychology, M., 1986; Davydov V.V., Zinchenko V.P., L.S. Vygotsky’s contribution to the development of psychological science, Soviet Pedagogy, 1986, No. 11; Yaroshevsky M. G., L. S. Vygotsky: search for principles of constructing general psychology, Questions of Psychology, 1986, No. 6; Leontiev A. A., L. S. Vygotsky. Book for students, M., 1990; Wertsch J. V., Vygotsky and the social Formation of mind, Camb. (Mass.) - L., 1985; Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives, ed. by J. V. Wertsch, Camb. - , 1985.

Oganesyan Ani

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L.S.VYGOTSKY

(1896 - 1934)

Outstanding Soviet psychologist A.R. Luria, in his scientific autobiography, paying tribute to his mentor and friend, wrote: “It would not be an exaggeration to call L.S. Vygotsky is a genius." The words of B.V. sound in unison. Zeigarnik: “He was man of genius, who created Soviet psychology." Any Russian psychologist will probably agree with these assessments - at least, everyone who did not want to change their qualifications from a psychologist to a mass entertainer or dream interpreter under the pressure of market forces. To this day, the ideas of Vygotsky and his school form the basis scientific worldview thousands of true professionals, new generations of psychologists, not only in Russia, but throughout the world, draw inspiration from his scientific works.

Biography of L.S. Vygotsky is not rich in external events. His life was filled from within. A subtle psychologist, an erudite art critic, a talented teacher, a great connoisseur of literature, a brilliant stylist, an observant defectologist, an inventive experimenter, a thoughtful theorist. All this is true. But above all, Vygotsky was a thinker.

“Lev Semenovich Vygotsky undoubtedly occupies an exceptional place in the history of Soviet psychology. It was he who laid the foundations that became the starting point for its further development and largely determined its current state... There is almost no area of ​​psychological knowledge in which L.S. Vygotsky would not have made an important contribution. Psychology of art, general psychology, child and educational psychology, psychology of abnormal children, patho- and neuropsychology - he brought a new spirit to all these areas,” as the journal “Questions of Psychology” wrote on the 80th anniversary of Vygotsky’s birth. It’s hard to believe that these words refer to a person who devoted a little more than ten years of his life to psychology - and difficult years, burdened by a fatal illness, the difficulties of everyday life, misunderstanding and even bullying.

UNIVERSITIES AND EDUCATION

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, the second of eight children of a bank employee, was born on November 5 (17), 1896 in Orsha, near Minsk. His parents were poor people, but highly educated and spoke several languages. Their example was followed by their son, who perfectly mastered English, French and German.

In 1897, the family moved to Gomel, which Vygotsky always considered his hometown. Here he spent his childhood years, here in 1913 he graduated from high school with honors. Vygotsky decided to continue his education at Moscow University. He was lucky, he fell into the “percentage norm” for people of Jewish origin. Before this category of young people, the choice of faculties was small. The most realistic prospects for a professional career were those of either a doctor or a lawyer.

When choosing a specialty, the young man succumbed to the persuasion of his parents, who thought that a medical education could provide their son with an interesting job and livelihood in the future. But Vygotsky’s studies at the Faculty of Medicine did not captivate him, and less than a month after entering the university, he transferred to the Faculty of Law. After graduating from this faculty, he could enter the bar, and not the civil service. This gave permission to live outside the Pale of Settlement.

Along with the state university, Vygotsky attended classes at educational institution of a special type, created at the expense of the liberal public education activist A.L. Shanyavsky. It was a people's university, without compulsory courses and visits, without tests and exams, where anyone could study. The diploma from Shanyavsky University did not have official recognition. However, the level of teaching there was extremely high. The fact is that after the student unrest of 1911 and the subsequent repressions, more than a hundred outstanding scientists (including Timiryazev, Vernadsky, Sakulin, Chebyshev, Chaplygin, Zelinsky, etc.) left Moscow University in protest against government policies, and many of them found shelter at the Shanyavsky People's University. Psychology and pedagogy at this university were taught by P.P. Blonsky.

At Shanyavsky University, Vygotsky became close to liberal-minded youth, and the famous literary critic Yu. Aikhenvald became his mentor. The very atmosphere of the people's university, communication with its students and teachers meant much more to Vygotsky than classes at the law faculty. And it is not at all by chance that years later, seriously ill, he turned to Aikhenvald with a request for the publication of his works.

FIRST HOBBY

Vygotsky's interest in psychology arose during his student years. The first books from this area that are reliably known to have been read by him are the famous treatise by A.A. Potebny “Thought and Language”, as well as W. James’s book “The Variety of Religious Experience”. S.F. Dobkin also names S. Freud’s “Psychopathology of Everyday Life,” which, according to him, greatly interested Vygotsky. Probably, this keen interest subsequently brought Vygotsky into the ranks of the Russian Psychoanalytic Society, which, however, was an uncharacteristic page of his scientific biography. Judging by his works, Freud's ideas did not have a noticeable influence on him. The same cannot be said about A. Adler’s theory. The concept of compensation, central to Adler's individual psychology, subsequently becomes the cornerstone of Vygotsky's defectological concept.

The passion for psychology that arose during his student years determined Vygotsky’s entire subsequent fate. He himself wrote about it this way: “Even at the university, I took up a special study of psychology... and continued it throughout the years.” And later he confirmed: “I began my scientific studies in psychology at the university. Since then, I have not stopped working in this specialty for a single year.” It is interesting that special psychological education as such practically did not exist at that time, and L.S. Vygotsky, like most of the pioneers of this science, was not a certified psychologist.

In the official certificate of his research work, Vygotsky wrote: “I began to engage in research work in 1917 after graduating from the university. He organized a psychological office at the pedagogical college, where he conducted research.”

These words refer to the Gomel period of his activity. Vygotsky returned to his hometown in 1917 and took up teaching. In Gomel, he wrote two large manuscripts, which were soon brought to Moscow - “Pedagogical Psychology” (published in 1926, a new edition - 1991) and “Psychology of Art”, defended as a dissertation, but published only many years after his death. Before that, she was on the lists and was popular both among the few psychologists and artists at that time.

Both works give reason to evaluate the “early” Vygotsky as a mature independent thinker, highly erudite and looking for new ways to develop scientific psychology in a historical situation when psychology in the West was gripped by a crisis, and in Russia the ideological leadership of the country demanded that the principles of Marxism be introduced into science.

In Russia, in the pre-revolutionary period, a paradoxical situation arose in the scientific study of the psyche. On the one hand, there were psychological centers (the main one was the Psychological Institute at Moscow University), dominated by the outdated psychology of consciousness, which was based on the subjective method. On the other hand, the science of behavior, based on an objective method, was created by the hands of Russian physiologists. Her research programs (the authors of which were V.M. Bekhterev and I.P. Pavlov) made it possible to study the regularity of the mechanism of behavior based on the same principles that all natural sciences follow.

The concept of consciousness was assessed as idealistic. Concept of behavior (based on conditioned reflexes) - as materialistic. With the victory of the revolution, when state-party bodies demanded the destruction of idealism everywhere, these two directions found themselves in an unequal position. Reflexology (in the broad sense) received every possible state support, while supporters of views considered alien to materialism were dealt with through various repressive measures.

MEETING WITH LURIA

In this atmosphere, Vygotsky took a unique position. He accused reflexologists, who were everywhere celebrating their victory, of dualism. His original plan was to combine knowledge about behavior as a system of reflexes with the dependence of this behavior when we're talking about about a person, from consciousness embodied in speech reactions. He used this idea as the basis for his first programmatic report, which he delivered in January 1924 in Petrograd at a congress of behavioral researchers.

The speech of the speaker, an “enlightenment man” from Gomel, attracted the attention of the congress participants with the novelty of his thoughts, the logic of his presentation, and the persuasiveness of his arguments. And with his entire appearance, Vygotsky stood out from the circle of familiar people. The clarity and harmony of the main provisions of the report left no doubt that the provincial was well prepared for a representative meeting and successfully presented the text lying in front of him on the pulpit.

When, after the report, one of the delegates approached Vygotsky, he was surprised to see that there was no text of the lengthy report. There was a blank sheet of paper in front of the speaker. This delegate, who wished to express admiration for Vygotsky’s speech, was by that time already well known, despite his youth, for his experimental work (which Bekhterev himself patronized) and his studies in psychoanalysis (Freud himself corresponded with him), and subsequently the world-famous psychologist A. R. Luria. In his scientific biography, Luria wrote that he divided his life into two periods: small, insignificant - before meeting Vygotsky, and large and significant - after meeting him.

The report made by Vygotsky made such an impression on Luria that he, being the scientific secretary of the Psychological Institute, immediately rushed to convince K.N. Kornilov, who headed the institute, immediately, right now, no one famous person lure from Gomel to Moscow. Vygotsky accepted the offer, moved to Moscow, and was settled directly in the institute basement. He began working in direct collaboration with A.R. Luria and A.N. Leontyev.

"OTHER" INTERESTS

He entered graduate school and was formally a student of Luria and Leontyev, but immediately became, in essence, their leader - the famous “troika” was formed, which later grew into the “eight”.

None of the young people who were part of these unique associations then imagined that fate had confronted them with a remarkable man who, at the age of 27, was already an established scientist. They did not know that at the age of 19 he wrote a wonderful work “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” and a number of other well-known works today (psychological analysis of fables, stories by I.A. Bunin), that before arriving in Moscow he managed to develop a completely new a look at the psychology of art and its role in human life, essentially laying the foundations of a psychological approach to literary creativity. Vygotsky himself did not mention these works of his, and it did not occur to his fellow workers at the Psychological Institute that he might have another wide range of interests - the thoughts he shared with them were so deep that it seemed that they can leave room in a person's mind for nothing else.

TO GO BEYOND

Vygotsky’s thought developed in a direction that was completely new to psychology at that time. He showed for the first time - he did not feel, did not assume, but demonstrated convincingly - that this science is in the deepest crisis. Only in the early eighties, a brilliant essay “The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis” would be published in his collected works. In it, Vygotsky’s views are expressed most fully and accurately. The work was written shortly before his death. He was dying of tuberculosis, doctors gave him three months to live, and in the hospital he wrote feverishly to express his main thoughts.

Their essence is as follows. Psychology actually split into two sciences. One is explanatory, or physiological, it reveals the meaning of phenomena, but leaves all the most complex forms of human behavior outside its boundaries. Another science is descriptive, phenomenological psychology, which, on the contrary, takes the most complex phenomena, but only talks about them, because, according to its supporters, these phenomena are inaccessible to explanation.

Vygotsky saw a way out of the crisis in moving away from these two completely independent disciplines and learning to explain the most complex manifestations of the human psyche. And here a major step was taken in the history of Soviet psychology.

Vygotsky’s thesis was this: in order to understand internal mental processes, one must go beyond the boundaries of the organism and look for explanations in public relations this organism with its environment. He liked to repeat: those who hope to find the source of higher mental processes within the individual fall into the same error as a monkey trying to find its reflection in a mirror behind the glass. Not within the brain or spirit, but in signs, language, tools, social relationships, lies the solution to the mysteries that intrigue psychologists. Therefore, Vygotsky called his psychology either “historical”, since it studies the processes that arose in the social history of man, or “instrumental”, since the units of psychology were, in his opinion, tools, everyday objects, or, finally, “cultural” because these things and phenomena are born and develop in culture - in the organism of culture, in its body, and not in the organic body of the individual. Thoughts of this kind sounded paradoxical at the time; they were met with hostility and absolutely not understood. Not without sarcasm, Luria recalled how Kornilov said: “Well, just think, “historical” psychology, why do we need to study different savages? Or - “instrumental”. Yes, all psychology is instrumental, so I also use a dynamoscope.” The director of the Institute of Psychology did not even understand that we are not talking about the tools that psychologists use, but about the means and tools that the person himself uses to organize his behavior...

INNOVATIVE INSIGHTS

Back in “The Psychology of Art,” Vygotsky introduced the concept of an aesthetic sign as an element of culture. The appeal to sign systems, which are created by the culture of the people and serve as intermediaries between what is denoted by sign systems and the subject (the person who operates with them), changed Vygotsky’s general approach to mental functions. In relation to humans, in contrast to animals, he considers sign systems as a means of cultural development of the psyche. This deeply innovative idea prompted him to include the sign-mediated level of their organization in the circle of human mental functions.

Getting acquainted with Marxism, he transfers the Marxist doctrine of tools of labor to signs. Signs of culture are also tools, but special ones - psychological ones. Tools of labor change the substance of nature. Signs do not change the external material world, but the human psyche. First, these signs are used in communication between people, in external interaction. And then this process from external becomes internal (the transition from outside to inside was called interiorization). Thanks to this, the “development of higher mental functions” occurs (under this name Vygotsky wrote a new treatise in 1931).

Guided by this idea, Vygotsky and his students conducted a large series of studies on the development of the psyche, primarily its functions such as memory, attention, and thinking. These works were included in the golden fund of research into mental development in children.

For a number of years, the main research program of Vygotsky and his students was a detailed experimental study of the relationship between thinking and speech. Here the meaning of the word (its content, the generalization contained in it) came to the fore. How the meaning of a word changes in the history of a people has long been studied by linguistics. Vygotsky and his school, having traced the stages of this change, discovered that such changes occur in the process of development of individual consciousness. The results of this many years of work were summarized in the monograph “Thinking and Speech” (1934), which, unfortunately, he never saw published, but which stands on the bookshelf of thousands of psychologists in many countries of the world.

While working on the monograph, he simultaneously emphasized the importance of studying the motives that drive thought, those impulses and experiences without which it does not arise and develop.

He devoted most of his attention to this topic in a large treatise on emotions, which again remained unpublished for decades.

It should be remembered that Vygotsky directly connected all works concerning mental development with the tasks of raising and educating a child. In this area, he put forward a whole series of productive ideas, in particular the concept of the “zone of proximal development,” which became especially popular. Vygotsky insisted that effective learning is only that which “runs ahead of development,” as if pulling it along with it, revealing the child’s ability to solve problems with the participation of the teacher that he cannot cope with on his own.

Vygotsky substantiated a great many other innovative ideas, which were later developed by his numerous students and followers.

Activities of Vygotsky L.S. in the field of oligophrenopedagogy.

The creative path of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, an outstanding Soviet psychologist, is an example of the ideological, theoretical struggle for the creation of a truly scientificpsychology and defectology, for the creation of a dialectical-materialistic science about the normal and difficult child. On the one hand, consideration of an anomalous child in the light of general psychological patterns played a big role in uncovering this or that developmental anomaly, on the other hand, psychological problems in the light of defectology data received new theoretical and factual justification and disclosure. In Vygotsky's theoretical and experimental studies, problems of defectology have always occupied a large place. Vygotsky made a major contribution to the creation scientific foundations Soviet defectology. His experimental and theoretical research conducted in the field of abnormal childhood remains fundamental for the productive development of problems in defectology. Vygotsky's works contributed to the restructuring of special education practice.

Vygotsky developed an interest in the personality of a mentally retarded and physically handicapped child in early period scientific activity. He became closely interested in the problems of teaching mentally retarded children in Gomel while working at a teachers' seminary. Throughout creative path Vygotsky critically examined the theories of mental development of normal and abnormal children and analyzed various types of developmental anomalies. His analysis is aimed at revealing the internal essence of pathology - from the genesis of primary defects to the emergence of secondary and tertiary symptoms in the process of development and further, taking into account the emerging interfunctional connections and relationships, to understanding the features of the structure of the integral personality of an abnormal child. The theory of the unity of learning and development, where learning plays a leading role in the development of the child’s psyche; the doctrine of the zone of proximal development, which is still in service both in defectology and in generalpsychology and pedagogy; the concept of the unity of intellect and affect in the psyche - this is not a complete list of his contributions both to general psychology, and in defectology.

Revealing the dynamics underlying the unique development of a mentally retarded, physically defective and difficult to educate child, Vygotsky showed positive sides the personalities of these children. This optimistic attitude toward searching for positive opportunities for the development of an abnormal child is leading in all of Vygotsky’s defectological works, in particular in his works related to developmental diagnostics. Vygotsky's attention - and this was the novelty of his approach - was attracted by those abilities that remained intact in such children and could form the basis for the development of their potential capabilities. It was the capabilities of children, and not their defects, that primarily interested Vygotsky.

Vygotsky attached particular importance to the development of higher mental processes in abnormal children and their relationship with more elementary ones. His research showed the possibility of developing and compensating for mental and sensory defects through the development and improvement primarily of higher mental functions, rather than simple training of elementary ones.

The focus on searching for positive opportunities and qualitative uniqueness in the development of an anomalous child is leading in all of Vygotsky’s works, and in particular in his works related to developmental diagnostics.

Such works by Vygotsky on defectology as “Diagnostics of development and pedological clinic of difficult childhood”, “Problem mental retardation" (1935), represent a direct and immediate contribution to general psychological theory.

At the same time, he showed how, with timely and properly organized training of abnormal children, the manifestation of the defect changes, possible additional consequences of the defect are overcome and prevented, and higher mental functions develop.

Vygotsky’s ideas lay in the scientific substantiation of the system of education, upbringing and labor training of students in auxiliary schools (G. M. Lulnev, V. G. Petrova, Zh. I. Shif, etc.), which contributed to overcoming the traditions of “therapeutic pedagogy” with its adapted to the defect in the upbringing of mentally retarded children.

On the theoretical foundation of Vygotsky, all the work of the Research Institute of Defectology of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR was built - aimed at differentiated education of different categories of abnormal children and taking into account Vygotsky’s instructions about primary and secondary formations present in the structure of developmental defects of such children. Thanks to this, special schools of 10 types were created in the country (except auxiliary schools), in which children are given secondary or incomplete secondary education according to mass school programs and industrial and labor training. Vygotsky’s scientific legacy underlay the development at the Research Institute of Defectology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (T. A. Vlasova, V. I. Lubovsky, K. S. Lebedinskaya, M. S. Pevzner) of the problem of children with the so-called mental retardation (MRD), for which a new type of special school was approved in 1981. This is a special category of children, which includes children with complicated forms of infantilism, cerebral asthenia and other minor cerebral dysfunctions. Such students persistently do not succeed in public school and often drop out of school in the early stages of education, end up in a school for mentally retarded children, without mental retardation. defect.

In his works, L.S. Vygotsky showed that the development of a child is a unity of biological and social. Without the human brain, without human biological prerequisites, there is and cannot be mental development. At the same time, mental development cannot occur without the human environment.
Development proceeds through the child’s appropriation of social experience. At each age stage, the appropriation of social experience occurs in its own way, which is to a certain extent determined by the degree of biological maturation. Thus, the combination of biological and social changes and enters into a new relationship, which is expressed in a combination of levels of physical and mental development. The physical and mental development of a child proceeds in unity, but this does not mean that the level of physical and mental development coincides in every child. For example, by the age of 1.5 years a child develops normally physically, walks well, plays with toys, but does not speak basic speech at all. Although mastering speech is already quite possible. But this discrepancy remains within the normal range.
However, there are cases when the discrepancy between physical and mental development goes beyond the age norm, then we are dealing with an abnormal child.
For example, with hearing loss, mental retardation or motor allalia, a preschooler can move, navigate a familiar situation, but cannot speak at all. It is precisely the fact that the physical and mental levels of development do not coincide and do not represent identity that formed the basis of L.S. Vygotsky’s idea of ​​primary and secondary defects.
The domestic system of education and training of mentally retarded children is based on the following provisions of L.S. Vygotsky: on the complex structure of the defect arising as a result of the primary and secondary nature of the disorders; about the general patterns of development of normal and abnormal children; that correction and compensation of abnormal development can be carried out only in the process of developmental education, with maximum use of sensitive periods and reliance on the zone of proximal development.

Correction and compensation of abnormal development cannot occur spontaneously. A child with intellectual disabilities, to a much greater extent than a normally developing child, needs timely and comprehensive systematic pedagogical influence. A child with intellectual disabilities must go through all stages of ontogenetic development. However, the rate of development of a mentally retarded person is different from that of a normally developing person. In addition, in a child with intellectual disabilities, the formation of certain capabilities is achieved by different means than in their normal peers. The final results naturally do not coincide in children with normal and intellectual disabilities. However, it is necessary to strive to ensure that each stage of the age-related development of a child with intellectual disabilities is as close as possible to the norm.
The next important principle correctional work is the developmental nature of training. Developmental education should take into account both the characteristics of age and the characteristics of the structure of the disorder. It should be aimed at the earliest possible start of the correctional and educational process, accelerating the pace of development and overcoming developmental deviations. Education turns out to be developmental only when it takes into account the child’s zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development represents that reserve of potential capabilities of a child that he cannot realize on his own, but only with the help of an adult. It is possible and necessary to teach what is not yet perceived independently, but is learned under the guidance of an adult.

Developmental education is also closely related to sensitive periods of development. L.S. Vygotsky showed that in the development of a child there are periods in which this process, this function is formed most quickly and, most importantly, fully. In no other period can such completeness be achieved. He called these periods sensitive, i.e. sensitive to development specific function, process, activity. For example, the most sensitive period for a child’s speech development is normally from 1 to 3 years. If speech does not develop during this period, its formation in the future takes place with significant difficulties and requires special training.

Vygotsky’s theoretical analysis of the process of mental development of abnormal children was always closely connected with the problems of general and special pedagogy. The connection between psychology and pedagogy and defectology is inextricable in Vygotsky’s works. As a result of a creative approach and special interest in defectology, developed on the basis of the theoretical positions and experiments put forward by him, Vygotsky came to the conclusion that the problems studied by defectology can be the key to solving a number of general psychological problems; he showed that with the abnormal development of a child and his special education, essential links of mental activity appear, which normally appear in an undifferentiated form.

Using the material of pathological development, Vygotsky confirmed what he discovered general patterns development and showed their specific features. All these provisions led to a new understanding of the problem of special, differentiated and timely education and development of an anomalous child and allowed a new understanding of the problem of diagnosis and compensation of various defects. With this, Vygotsky marked a new stage in the development of defectology and raised it to the level of dialectical-materialist science; he introduced the genetic principle into the study of an abnormal child, showed that an abnormal child is, first of all, a child who develops like any other, but his development proceeds in a unique way. He showed the complexity of the structure of the defect and the specific features of the stages of development in children with various defects, defending an optimistic point of view on the capabilities of these children.

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

According to M.G. Yaroshevsky, despite his early death (he did not live to see the age of 38), Vygotsky was able to enrich his science as significantly and diversified as any of outstanding psychologists peace. He had to overcome many difficulties on a daily basis, associated not only with his catastrophically deteriorating state of health and material hardships, but also with hardships caused by the fact that he was not provided with decent work, and in order to earn money, he had to travel to give lectures in other cities. He barely managed to feed his small family.

One of the listeners of his lectures is A.I. Lipkina recalls that the students, feeling his greatness, were surprised at how poorly he was dressed. He gave lectures in a fairly shabby coat, from under which cheap trousers were visible, and on his feet (in the harsh January of 1934) light shoes. And this is in a seriously ill patient with tuberculosis!

Listeners from many Moscow universities flocked to his lectures. Usually the auditorium was crowded, and people listened to lectures even standing at the windows. Walking around the audience, with his hands behind his back, a tall, slender man with surprisingly radiant eyes and an unhealthy blush on his pale cheeks, in an even, calm voice, introduced the listeners, who hung on his every word, with new views on the mental world of man, which will acquire for future generations the value of the classics. To this it must be added that the unorthodox sense of psychological analysis that Vygotsky cultivated constantly aroused suspicion among vigilant ideologists of deviations from Marxism.

After the ever-memorable decree of 1936, his works dedicated to the child’s soul were included in the proscription list. With the liquidation of pedology, of which he was declared one of the leaders, they found themselves in a “special storage facility.” Decades passed before Vygotsky was recognized throughout the world as the greatest innovator and the triumphal march of his ideas began. Nurtured in Moscow schools and laboratories, they gave a powerful impetus to the movement of scientific and psychological thought both in our country and in many countries of the world.

When in the spring of 1934, due to another terrible attack of illness, Vygotsky was taken to a sanatorium in Serebryany Bor, he took with him only one book - his favorite Shakespeare's Hamlet, the notes to which served as a kind of diary for him for many years. In his treatise on tragedy, he wrote in his youth: “Not determination, but readiness - such is Hamlet’s state.”

According to the recollections of the nurse who treated Vygotsky, his last words were: “I’m ready.” During the time allotted to him, Vygotsky accomplished more than any psychologist in the entire previous history of human science.

The creators of the American Biographical Dictionary of Psychology, who included Vygotsky in the cohort of greats, conclude the article about him with these words: “There is no point in guessing what Vygotsky could have achieved had he lived as long as, for example, Piaget, or had he lived to see his century. He would certainly have constructively criticized modern psychobiology and theories of consciousness, but there is no doubt that he would have done it with a smile.”

1. L.S. Vygotsky (1896 - 1934):

Universities and Education;

First hobby;

Meeting with Luria;

Other interests;

To go beyond;

Innovative performances.

2 . Activities of L.S. Vygotsky in the field of oligophrenopedagogy.

3. Overcoming adversity.

Bibliography:

1. Zamsky Kh.S. History of oligophrenopedagogy.-2 ed.-M. education, 1980 – 398 p.

2. Kataeva A.A., Strebeleva E.A. Preschool oligophrenopedagogy: Proc. for students higher textbook establishments. – M.: Humanit.ed. VLAGOS center, 2001.- 208 p.

3. Correction Pedagogical: fundamentals of teaching and raising children with developmental disabilities: textbook. aid for students avg. Ped. textbook institutions, ed. B.P. Puzanova. – M., 1998.

4. Kolbanovsky V. N. (1956) On the psychological views of L. S. Vygotsky.Psychology issues, № 5.

5. Luria A. R. (1966) The theory of the development of higher mental functions in Soviet psychology.Questions of Philosophy, № 7.

6. Leontyev A. A. (1967)Psycholinguistics. Science, Moscow.

7. Brushlinsky A. V. (1968)Cultural-historical theory of thinking.Higher school, Moscow.

8. Bozhovich L. I. (1988) On the cultural-historical concept of L. S. Vygotsky and its significance for modern research personality psychology.Questions of psychology, № 5.

9. Levitin K. E. (1990)People are not born with personality. Science, Moscow.

10. Etkind A. M. (1993) More about L. S. Vygotsky: Forgotten texts and unfound contexts.Questions of psychology, No. 4, p. 37-55.

11. Yaroshevsky M. G. (1993) L. S.Vygotsky: in search of a new psychology.Publishing House International. Foundation for the History of Science, St. Petersburg.

12. Elkonin B. D. (1994)Introduction to Developmental Psychology: In the Tradition cultural-historical theories of L. S. Vygotsky.Trivola, Moscow.

13. (1996) Questions of psychology,No. 5 (the entire magazine is dedicated to the memory of L. S. Vygotsky).

14. Vygodskaya G. L., Lifanova T. M. (1996)Lev Semenovich Vygotsky: Life. Activity. Touches to the portrait. Meaning, Moscow.

15. Psychological Dictionary (1997) Pedagogy-press, Moscow, p. 63-64.

The biography of Lev Vygotsky, Soviet psychologist, founder of the cultural-historical school, is presented in this article.

Vygotsky Lev Semenovich biography briefly

Lev Vygotsky short biography which begins November 17, 1896. He was born in the city of Orsha in large family bank employee. When the boy was only a year old, his father founded a public library in the city of Gomel and moved his wife and nine children here.

In 1914 he entered the Faculty of Medicine at Moscow University. After studying a little at the faculty, Vygotsky transferred to the Faculty of Law and at the same time studied at the Faculty of History and Philology at the People's University. A. L. Shanyavsky. As a student, he begins to publish his reviews of books by famous symbolist writers - V. I. Ivanov, A. Bely, D. S. Merezhkovsky. At the same time, he wrote his first major work on the topic “The Tragedy of the Danish Hamlet by W. Shakespeare.” Although she saw the light only 50 years later in his collection “Psychology of Art”.

In 1917, Lev Semenovich returned to Gomel and took an active part in the process of creating a new type of school. He begins to conduct research in a specially organized psychological laboratory at the pedagogical college.

In 1924, he was appointed a delegate to the II All-Russian Congress on Psychoneurology in Petrograd. There he read out a report on the reflexological techniques that he used when studying the mechanisms of consciousness. After an enchanting speech at this congress, Vygotsky was invited to work by the director of the Institute of Experimental Psychology in Moscow, N.K. Kornilov. 2 years later, under his leadership, a defectological experimental institute was created, which was later renamed the Institute of Correctional Pedagogy Russian Academy education. Thanks to the efforts of Lev Vygotsky, the foundation of defectology in the USSR was laid.

He proved himself to be a talented scientific psychologist. In 1926, he published the book “Educational Psychology”, in which he defended the individuality of the child. A year later, psychologist Lev Vygotsky begins to publish articles that analyze various areas of world psychology. He also developed a new concept in psychology - cultural-historical. According to the concept, human behavior, regulated by consciousness, is closely related to in different forms culture, art and language.

Lev Vygotsky developed the concept of a sign, a symbol, as a special psychological tool that serves as a means for transforming the psyche from biological to historical. As a result, in 1960, a work entitled “The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions” was written.