Psychology in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521594424.025

24 - Psychology in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe

from PART III - THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

Jaromír Janoušek and

Irina Sirotkina

Edited by

Theodore M. Porter and

Dorothy Ross

Show author details

Theodore M. Porter: Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Dorothy Ross: Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University

Book contents

Get access

Summary

If we assume, as many scholars do, that psychology is mainly European in origin and appeared as a special scientific discipline during the second half of the nineteenth century, we may ask how specific national contexts have affected the discipline’s development. Have the particular social and cultural contexts of Russia and central and eastern Europe, for instance, fostered any original developments in psychology? Can we say, as one historian has recently claimed, that there was a specific “Russian way” in the human sciences? What are the results for the human sciences of the “communist experiment” in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries? Did the Iron Curtain that separated the communist countries from the West for several decades create a “splendid isolation,” in which psychology proliferated unencumbered by controversies that surrounded the discipline elsewhere? Or did this situation produce a cultural and academic enclave that fostered parochial tendencies and hindered the discipline’s development?

Unambiguous answers to these questions are impossible to provide. On the one hand, in Russia after 1917 and in some eastern and central European countries after World War II, political pressures gave a particular twist to local psychological research. On the other hand, there were many conceptual developments in these countries that deserve close attention. There also were intense theoretical debates, of relevance for Western psychology, on questions of psychology’s relationship to philosophy and to physiology, the interaction between psychological theory and practice, and the remodeling of human nature.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Science , pp. 431 - 449

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521594424.025 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abul’khanova, Ksenia A. and Brushlinskii, Andrei V.Filosofsko-psikhologicheskaia kontseptsiia S. L. Rubinshteina [S. L. Rubinshtein’s conception of philosophical psychology] (Moscow: Nauka, 1989).Google Scholar

Adams, Mark B. “Eugenics as Social Medicine in Revolutionary Russia,” in Health and Society in Revolutionary Russia, ed. Solomon, Susan Gross and Hutchinson, John F. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

Allport, Gordon W. “The Historical Background of Modern Social Pychology,” in The Handbook of Social Psychology, vol. 1, ed. Lindzey, Gardner and Aronson, Elliot (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1968).Google Scholar

Ash, Mitchell G.Gestalt Psychology in German Culture, 1890–1967: Holism and the Quest for Objectivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

Balicki, ZygmungEgoizm narodowy wobec etyki [National egoism and ethics] (Lwow: Towarzystwo Wydawnicze, 1914)Google Scholar

Balicki, ZygmuntPsykhologia spoleczna [Social psychology] (Lwow: Altenberg, 1908).Google Scholar

Banac, Ivo and Verdery, Katherine, eds., National Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe (Yale Russian and East European Publications No. 13) (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, 1995).Google Scholar

Bauer, Raymond A.The New Man in Soviet Psychology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952).CrossRef Google Scholar

Bogdanchikov, Sergei A.Proiskhozhdenie marksistskoi psikhologii: Diskussiia mezhdu K. N. Kornilovym i G. I. Chelpanovym [The origins of Marxist psychology: The discussion between K. N. Kornilov and G. I. Chelpanov] (Saratov: Saratovskii iuridicheskii universitet, 2000).Google Scholar

Bogišic, BaltazarPravni obitchai u Slovena [Legal customs of the Slavs] (Zagreb: Jugoslavenska akademia znanosti i umjetnosti, 1866)Google Scholar

Boring, Edwin G.A History of Experimental Psychology (New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1950)Google Scholar

Brushlinskii, Andrei V., ed., Psikhologicheskaia nauka v Rossii XX stoletiia [Psychological science in twentieth-century Russia] (Moscow: Institut psikhologii, 1997).Google Scholar

Budilova, Elena A.Bor’ba materializma i idealizma v russkoi psikhologicheskoi nauke, vtoraia polovina XIX – nachalo XXv. [The struggle between materialism and idealism in Russian psychological science, late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries] (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1960).Google Scholar

Budilova, Elena A.Sotsial’no-psikhologicheskie problemy v russkoi nauke [Problems of social psychology in Russian science] (Moscow: Nauka, 1983).Google Scholar

Cole, Michael and Scribner, SylviaCulture and Thought: A Psychological Introduction (New York: Wiley, 1974)Google Scholar

Constantin, Radulescu-MotruSufletul neamului nostru [Soul of our nation] (Bucharest: Lumen, 1910)Google Scholar

Cvijic, JovanLa péninsula Balkanique, Géographie humaine (Paris: Armand Colin, 1918)Google Scholar

Draghicescu, DumitruDin psihologia poporului roman [On Romanian national psychology] (Bucuresti: Alcalay, 1907)Google Scholar

Ellenberger, Henri F.The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry (London: Allen Lane, 1970).Google Scholar

Emanuel, ChalupnýNárodní povaha eská [The Czech national character] (Prague: Lesching, 1907)Google Scholar

Etkind, AlexanderEros of the Impossible: The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997).Google Scholar

Fleck, Christian and Nowotny, Helga “A Marginal Discipline in the Making: Austrian Sociology in European Context,” in Sociology in Europe: In Search of Identity, ed. Nedelmann, Birgitta and Sztompka, Piotr (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993).Google Scholar

Foucault, Michel “Technologies of the Self,” in Technologies of the Self, ed. Martin, Luther H., Gutman, Huck, and Hutton, Patrick H. (London: Tavistock, 1988)Google Scholar

Glaser, ErnstIm Umfeld des Austromarxism [In the area of Austromarxism] (Vienna: Europa Verlag, 1981).Google Scholar

Graham, Loren R.Science, Philosophy and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

Graham, Loren R.What Have We Learned about Science and Technology from the Russian Experience? (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

Gusti, DimitrieLa Monographie et l’action monographique en Roumanie [The monograph and monographic activity in Romania] (Paris: Collections de l’Institut de Droit comparédel’Université de Paris, 1935).Google Scholar

Illyés, GyulaA Puszták népe [People from Puszta] (1936), 3rd ed. (Budapest: Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, 1969)Google Scholar

Jahoda, GustavCrossroads between Culture and Mind: Continuities and Change in Theories of Human Nature (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992).Google Scholar

Jászi, OscarThe Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929).Google Scholar

Jay, MartinThe Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923–1950 (London: Heinemann, 1972).Google Scholar

Joravsky, DavidRussian Psychology: A Critical History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989)Google Scholar

Joravsky, DavidSoviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917–1932 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)Google Scholar

Joravsky, DavidThe Lysenko Affair (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).CrossRef Google Scholar

Jurovský, Anton “Slovenskánárodná povaha” [The Slovak national character], in Slovenská vlastiveda [Slovak national history and geography], 3 vols. (Bratislava: Slovenská akadémia vied a umení, 1943).Google Scholar

Khadzhiiski, Ivan M.Biti i dushevnost na nashia narod [The life and mentality of our nation] (1940, 1945), 3rd ed. (Sofia: Bolgarski pisatel, 1966)Google Scholar

Khomskaia, Elena D.Aleksandr Romanovich Luria: Nauchnaia biografiia [Aleksandr Romanovich Luria: A scientific biography] (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1992).Google Scholar

Kosturkov, Stoian P.Vrkhu psikhologiiata na bolgarina [On the psychology of the Bulgarian] (Sofia: Narodna kniga, 1949).Google Scholar

Kozulin, AlexPsychology in Utopia: Toward a Social History of Soviet Psychology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984)Google Scholar

Kozulin, AlexVygotsky’s Psychology: A Biography of Ideas (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990)Google Scholar

Krementsov, NikolaiStalinist Science (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

Luria, Aleksandr R.The Making of Mind: A Personal Account of Soviet Psychology, ed. Cole, Michael and Cole, Sheila (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).Google Scholar

Mandelker Frieden, NancyRussian Physicians in an Era of Reform and Revolution, 1856–1905 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981)Google Scholar

Masaryk, Thomas G.The Meaning of Czech History, ed. Wellek, Rene (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974).Google Scholar

O’Donnell, John M.The Origins of Behaviorism: American Psychology, 1870–1920 (New York: New York University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

Parsons, Talcott, Shils, Edward and Lazarsfeld, PaulSoziologie – autobiographisch (Stuttgart: Enke, 1975)Google Scholar

Peroutka, FerdinandJaci jsme [The kind of people we are] (Praha: Borový, 1924).Google Scholar

Petrovskii, Artur V.Voprosy istorii i teorii psikhologii. Izbrannye trudy [Problems in the history and theory of psychology: Selected works] (Moscow: Pedagogika, 1984).Google Scholar

Reisner, Mikhail A.Teoriia L. I. Petrazhitskogo, marksizm i sotsial’naia ideologiia [L. I. Petrazhitsky’s theory, Marxism, and the social ideology] (St. Petersburg: Vol’f, 1909).Google Scholar

Rose, NikolasGoverning the Self: The Shaping of the Private Self (London: Free Association Books, 1999).Google Scholar

Rostohar, MihailoNárodnost a její mravní význam [Nationality and its moral significance] (Prague: Library of the Minority Museum, 1913).Google Scholar

Sandor, KarácsonyA magyar észjárás [The Hungarian mentality] (1939), 2nd ed. (Budapest: Magvetö, 1985).Google Scholar

Sirotkina, Irina “N. A. Bernstein: The Years before and after the ‘Pavlov Session’,” Russian Studies in History, 34 (1995).CrossRef Google Scholar

Sirotkina, IrinaDiagnosing Literary Genius: A Cultural History of Russian Psychiatry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).Google Scholar

Smith, RogerInhibition: History and Meaning in the Sciences of Mind and Brain (London: Free Association Books and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).Google Scholar

Smith, RogerThe Fontana History of the Human Sciences (London: Fontana Press, 1997)Google Scholar

Strashimirov, Anton T.Kniga za bolgarite [Book on Bulgarians] (Sofia: Voenen Zhurnal, 1918)Google Scholar

Studencki, Stanislaw M.O typie psycho-fizycznym Polaka [On the psycho-physical type of the Pole] (Poznan: Chrzéscÿańsko-Narodowe Nauczycielstwo, 1931).Google Scholar

Studencki, Stanislaw M.Psykhologia porownawcza narodow [Comparative psychology of nations] (Warsaw: Szkól Powszechnych, 1935).Google Scholar

Todes, Daniel P. “Pavlov and the Bolsheviks,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 17 (1995).Google Scholar

Todes, Daniel P. “Pavlov’s Physiology Factory,” Isis, 88 (1997).CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Umrikhin, Vladimir “Russian and World Psychology: A Common Origin of Divergent Paths,” in Psychology in Russia: Past, Present, Future, ed. Grigorenko, Elena L., Ruzgis, Patricia, and Sternberg, Robert J. (Commack, N.Y.: Nova Science Publishers, 1997).Google Scholar

van der Veer, René and Valsiner, JaanUnderstanding Vygotsky: A Quest for Synthesis (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991)Google Scholar

Veer, Van and Valsiner, , Understanding Vygotsky; Wertsch, JamesVygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985)Google Scholar

Weindling, PaulHealth, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

Windholz, George “Emmanuil Enchmen – A Soviet Behaviorist and the Commonality of Zeitgest,” The Psychological Record, 45 (1995).Google Scholar

Woodward, William R. and Ash, Mitchell G., eds., The Problematic Science: Psychology in Nineteenth-Century Thought (New York: Praeger, 1982).Google Scholar

Yaroshevsky, Mikhail G.Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov, 1829–1905 (Leningrad: Nauka, 1968).Google Scholar

Yaroshevsky, Mikhail G.Lev Vygotsky (Moscow: Progress, 1989).Google Scholar

Yaroshevsky, Mikhail G.Nauka o povedenii: Russkii put’ [The science of behavior: The Russian way] (Moscow: Akademiia pedagogicheskikh i social’nykh nauk, 1996).Google Scholar

Yaroshevsky, Mikhail G., ed., Repressirovannaia nauka [The oppressed science], 2 vols. (Leningrad/Petersburg: Nauka, 1991–4).Google Scholar

Zinchenko, Vladimir P. “Krizis ili katastrofa?” [Crisis or catastrophe?], Voprosy filosofii, 5 (1993).Google Scholar

Book contents

24 - Psychology in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe

Summary

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive