Ancient Indian chronotope in Pali and Sanskrit sources

The author analyses the chronotope problem in the Ancient Indian texts written in Sanskrit (“Manu-Smriti”, “Arthashastra”, “Ramayana”, “Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad”) and Pali (“Simavisodhani”) languages. The “chronotope” is a category introduced by the Soviet scholar Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975). This category describes how configurations of time and space are represented in language and discourse. In particular, the author analyses the problem of the ideas of space regarding the “country” and “Kingdom” categories. The research has yielded two main results. In the first instance, the so-called “sacred space” in the ancient Indian texts is always represented in form of a square (or rectangle). It is similar to what is called a Vastu-mandala in the Vastu-Vidya, the traditional science of building and construction. In the second instance, thе so-called “sacred space” in the ancient Indian texts written in Sanskrit and Pali is associated with a set of heterogeneous phenomena: space, socium, time, etc. In a similar passage taken from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad the author discovers a remarkable phenomenon. In describing the spatial reality, the number of times where one refers to the category of “time” is higher than that, which refers to the spatial category. This fact invites a conclusion: in ancient Indian culture, the categories of space and time are inseparable and always go together. Therefore, the ancient Indian culture definitively included a category of the chronotope. As a result of this discovery one should not any longer take into consideration the common topic of the “ atemporal” character of the ancient Indian culture.

Re-understanding Vygotsky’s Psycholinguistics

The origins and nature of consciousness have preoccupied mankind since human beings became aware of themselves as thinking beings. Seeking answers to these questions was the focus of the life-long research project of the former Soviet scholar, Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896–1934), who was intent on developing a holistic theory of psycholinguistics to explore consciousness through psyche. In this quest, he concentrated on rechevóye myshlénie, a key element of consciousness created through the unification of thinking processes and languaging processes (the processes involved in the acquisition and use of language). However, the fact Vygotsky used this concept to imply a psychological process/ formation/system is lost when understanding it as “verbal thinking.” Despite its centrality in his whole theory of psycholinguistics, Vygotsky’s analysis of rechevóye myshlénie as the cornerstone of the creation of znachenie slova (meaning through language) has not received the same attention as his analyses of other concepts. Therefore, in this article we attempt to make a detailed investigation of rechevóye myshlénie upon Vygotsky’s methodology of psychological materialism and a number of related concepts compared with some prevalent translations and interpretations.

Mental Development in Early Childhood

This is the first English translation of the paper of the prominent Soviet scholar Alexey Nikolaevich Leontiev (1903—1979) published in 1948. The paper introduces the author’s ideas on mental and personality development in preschool children based on the research results of his close colleagues under his leadership during the 1930-s and 1940-s. It embraces the conditions and features of the development of the hierarchy of motives in preschoolers which underlies the emergence of volitional behaviour at this age. Evidence is provided for the role of the motivational structure in the volitional regulation of such cognitive processes as perception, memory and in the emergence of children’s control of their motor processes. It demonstrates that the motives of the child of the preschool age get subordinated when the child is engaged in the social interaction with the participation of an adult. In a brief preface to this publication, E.E. Sokolova highlights the context of the author’s work, the continuity of his ideas of the activity theory with Vygotsky’s approach, and emphasizes a nontrivial approach in Leontiev’s school to mental development as rooted in the total activity of the subject rather than in the brain processes

Zenina Lyubov Vasilievna (1936–2018) – The Preceptor and the Keeper of Traditions for Japan and Korean Studies at the Oriental Department in Leningrad University (For Hundred Years Anniversary)

This article commemorates the 100th year anniversary since the birth of the prominent Soviet scholar and professor of Japanese and Korean History – L. V. Zenina (1920–2018). The article describes the landmarks of her lifetime activities and academic career. The significance of the traditions and its continuity in Russian oriental studies is depicted by Zenina’s tutorial talents and by means of the human factor.

Was There a “Simple Soviet” Person? Debating the Politics and Sociology of “Homo Sovieticus”

Intellectual efforts to understand post-Crimean Russian society have brought to prominence explanations that emphasize psychological and attitudinal legacies of Soviet society. The recent revival of the term homo sovieticus (or Soviet man) in the media and intellectual discourse is a good illustration of this trend. Yurii Levada's late-Soviet sociological research project on the “simple Soviet man” serves as a frequent reference point in these discussions. In this article, I explore the ideological and analytical foundations of the Levada project and juxtapose the sociological construct developed by Levada and his team with the interpretative approach developed by Natalya Kozlova, another Soviet scholar who dedicated her life to studying Soviet society. I argue that essentialist and deterministic views of individual personality underpinning the Levada project that guide the current use of the Soviet man category are more politically and ideologically driven rather than being based on the state of the art in social psychology.

Reading Scientific Atheism Against the Grain

Reviewing a current publication on the academic study of religion in Eastern Europe the article proposes to read the scholarly output of Soviet Marxist-Leninist so-called scientific atheism not primarily with regard to its anti-religious ideological imprint, but as the expression of a specific discourse on the essence of religion that shows parallels with the Western study of religion of that time. As an example for such a comparison, two texts by the Soviet scholar of religion Iosif Kryvelev are discussed.

Reception of Piotr Ya. Gal'Perin's Ideas in the West

A review of the references to the works of the Soviet scholar Piotr Ya. Gal'perin revealed the inadequacy of the reception of his contribution to psychology in the West. He is usually referred to as the author of concrete instructional techniques whereas in actual fact his work was much broader in scope and encompassed original contributions to fundamental problems of psychology.