A man of his country and his time: Jewish influences on Lev Semionovich Vygotsky's world view.

Abstract

Lev Semionovich Vygotsky created the cultural-historical school of psychology, yet all too few of those writing about his work take into account the family, education, and cultural tradition from which he came. The authors contend that the Jewish nature of these elements was of some importance in forming his personality and his consciousness. The 1st part of the article traces his early upbringing, describes the Jewishness of his environment, notes 3 instances in which his "otherness" was imprinted on his consciousness, and points to the sources of his determination to forge a harmonious synthesis with his environment. The 2nd part examines his writings, both earlier journalistic and mature psychological, and points to evidence of the influence of his Jewish upbringing and environment on his work.

Not by bread alone

“…Semyon L’vovich, who headed a department of the United Bank ( Pamyatnaya knizhka , 1910: 166), 3 was also the leader of the local section of the Society for the Spreading of the Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia (OPE) and the founder of a public library created under the auspices of this organization, which was located on the first floor of the mansion where the Vygodskys lived (Kotik-Friedgut and Friedgut, 2008: 18). The main slogan of the Society, ‘be a man in the street and a Jew at home’, was taken from a poem by Yehudah Leyb Gordon 4 and perfectly characterized the situation in which Vygotsky grew up (Zavershneva and Van der Veer, 2018).…”

“…The main slogan of the Society, ‘be a man in the street and a Jew at home’, was taken from a poem by Yehudah Leyb Gordon 4 and perfectly characterized the situation in which Vygotsky grew up (Zavershneva and Van der Veer, 2018). As Kotik-Friedgut and Friedgut (2008: 28) have argued, ‘This was neither a moral double standard nor a splitting of the Jew’s personality but a means of integration into Russian society without a loss of the particular Jewish identity, a goal shared by many of the modern, educated Jewish intelligentsia of Russia’. Semyon L’vovich’s house also formed the headquarters of the Gomel section of the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), a philanthropic organization founded by Baron Maurice de Hirsch 5 that facilitated the mass emigration of Jews from Russia and other Eastern European countries by settling them in agricultural colonies on lands purchased by the committee, particularly in North and South America (e.g.…”

“…Also, the tremendous influence on his worldview of the Jewish philosopher Spinoza should be mentioned, as well as the fact that Vygotsky in his youth became infatuated with Chaim Nahman Bialik’s poems, which were primarily written in Hebrew. Although the Vygodskys identified with the Jewish identity and history, Vygotsky’s biographers agree that they were not orthodox believers and that Vygotsky grew up in a more or less secular environment (Kotik-Friedgut and Friedgut, 2008: 33; Van der Veer and Valsiner, 1991: 6). Knowing Vygotsky, however, it is quite possible that he considered various worldviews without making a clear choice.…”

Vygotsky's Stage Theory: The Psychology of Art and the Actor under the Direction ofPerezhivanie

“…Others have written about the ways his Jewish heritage shaped his worldview (Kotik-Friedgut & Friedgut, 2008), his simultaneous immersion in both the Enlightenment and Romantic traditions and how they created unresolved conflicts in Thinking and Speech (Wertsch, 2000), and other factors that channeled Vygotsky's own development and normalized his cultural experiences to the point where he seemed not able to recognize them as local and situated. Vygotsky, then, although able to account for cultural-historical elements in human development, was also limited by those factors in his generalizations about humanity based on his cultural perspective.…”

“Every individual has his own insanity”: Applying Vygotsky's work on defectology to the question of mental health as an issue of inclusion

“…In spite of this claim byKotik-Friedgut and Friedgut (2008), the Plenum translation of Volume 2 of the Collected Works byKnox and Stevens (1993) does represent some of Vygotsky's language in deficit terms. AsVan der Veer (1992) and others have argued, English translations of Vygotsky must be read with caution given the wide variation in how his ideas and language have been interpreted.…”