[Xmca-l] About Vygotsky and Bar-Kokhba [Бар-Кохба (בר כוכבא‎)]. Bella or somebody can instruct me?

[Achilles Delari Junior]

Nice to read you Bella, 
Peace and Health for you and all that you love.


Ted was very clear and deep in his analysis, thank to him, because this help me very much, adding new important connections to the also interesting and serious considerings from David. This is very important here in Brazil, because many young people talking a about a revolution without know how, neither for what, even more with some "marxists" scholars talking about Education and Revolution as this word means something kind of change of fashion in the way we dress, forgot about Lenin's statement that "Revolution is War" - and for all international civilization, is right that we here live in a democracy - not the best one, of course, but 'revolution' for me is not a good word for popular manifestations claiming civil rights inside the actual legal order... But there people in university selling books about Education and Revolution. And I disagree and try to remember than something about historical concept embodied at this word... No so simple as talk about a "revolutionary method to learn a language faster", for instant.  Actually in October Revolution there was not so enormous number of deaths, history show a very fast process. But the civil war between Reds and Whites there was a very sad lost of many lives of both sides. 


I was thinking about that three historical moments about Vygotsky wrote: (a) Bar Kokhba; (b) the Decabrists (not so numerous but also lost their cause) ; and (c) October Revolution. I wonder if was certain attraction by Vygotsky to insurgence process. You and Ted had wrote about the role of Vygotsky's father not in insurgence but in victorious resistance to pogrom(s). And that there was a dramatic situation in war when a Jew soldier kill an enemy and him in his last seconds of life did the pray of the same religion. And that there was a link of this political problems with de Jewish Enlightenment.  I suspect that there was a dramatic (conflictive) situation again - to fight for liberation of his own ancestral tradition and/or fight for workers' class liberation... Tragically, the Nazis discourse repeatedly take hand of the false justifying that Jews in Germany was the Grate Capitalists and proprietaries of banks, etc., placing in scene an perverse kind of use of concept of class struggle. Without say nothing about catastrophic extermination of the "kulaks" in URSS. But, returning to the core, I though about the problem of oppression and liberation, and «Путь к свободе»... the great image for the development of personality - I think about this ancient problem, the personal choices, and the all human kind destiny, trough de destiny of a entire nation before... how the to planes inter-constitute reciprocally.  The memory of the ancestral inheritance, the prospective imagination and planning of the future for the new generations, and our common, everyday life, with play, learning of concepts, professional choices of the adolescent... and so on... Even Hamlet feel oppressed by the vision of crime against her father, living him alone, and the doubt about continue to live and kill himself. Its curious, because he decides to leave, but leaving he is fatally oriented to dead duelling against the traitors. This typical of tragedy, the hero find his destiny even more he tries to scape of it...


How to be a developed personality, a free person, when the social group, or the entire social class, are ever in fight for the freedom we never have? Only when Messiah arrives? Only in the day of Final Judgement? Of course this is not only a problem of researchers in Human Sciences, but of every citizen of this world not really in peace yet. But. as a psychologist I must to think about other spheres of social relations that not only dyads or little groups as in a classroom. I don't know. My life is really not so bad, but what I can say about the others?... What mission I will have. What can I do? "Что делать"? There is no single answer, but I must to making sense of relation between personal concerns and broader social national and international concerns. Of course people follow an international mail academic list not only to distraction, but mainly because there important things to learn one with other. 


Thank you, I am in a Zone of instability of sense of life "The Crisis of the 45 years"... But your precious contribution give me many keys to organize better my projects for the rest o my life, which must be not so long, I guess.


Best regards, greetings for you, Ted, and al XMCA...


Achilles from Brazil.


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P.S. Think about the same problems I was trying to read "Teatr i Revolutsia" by Vigotski, 1919. But my copy is very hard to recognize the characters. I saw your paper that quotes this source. Maybe, if you pleased, can you give a clue of how to order a copy from the correct institution? In Russian National Library of Sainkt Peterburg I do not find, for instance. But this is not so nuclear, is one more source to think about Way for Freedom / Insurgence / Personality Development... This is a social/personal, autobiographical concern for me, I already was arrested because political motives, and this destruct all my future perspectives along more than 10 years, because I fall very seek in prison, and never return to good health after. You fight for freedom and them you turn all your life more restrict, sometimes... but we must "perejivaem" - in the sense given by Vasiliuk... overcome critical situations. And critical situations are not only accidents in our lives... Vygotsky said the crisis is a way to interior life too.   



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De: "Bella Kotik-Friedgut"  
Em: Terça-feira 24 de Junho de 2014 12:44, 
Para: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
Assunto: [Xmca-l] Re:	About Vygotsky and Bar-Kokhba [Бар-Кохба (בר כוכבא‎)]. Bella or somebody can instruct me?Achiles shalomSorry for a delay, but we were on the way from 3rd Estoril Vygotskyconference. These conferences (every 2 years) became traditional and thedates of the N4 in June 2016 are already fixed- 12-14/06. I wonder whatcould be a good reason (motivation, incentive) for  xmca members to takepart in 4th EVC of the next time? Estoril is a beautiful resort on theAthlantic shore and Quintino Aires the organizer is a very generous host.As about Bar Kochba I asked my husband Ted Friedgut, who knows Jewishhistory better to answer you and here what he say: Bar Kochba has been a controversial character since the time of his lifeand remains so to this day.  By no means all the Rabbis of his timeregarded him as a Messianic figure, but the great authority of Rabbi Akivawho supported Bar Kochba whole heartedly was sufficient to outweigh hisdetractors.  Even as recently as 1982, Yehoshafat Harkabi, a HebrewUniversity professor of International Relations wrote a book with the title“The Bar Kochba Syndrome: Fantasy and Realism in International Relations”pointing to the disastrous outcome of the Bar Kochba revolt againstRome—580,000 war dead and uncounted thousands more who perished of diseaseand famine during the three year war; fifty towns and 597 villages razed tothe ground by the vengeful Roman armies, a total destruction of Jewishpublic and religious life in Palestine.  All this is attributed to theunrealistic fanaticism that drove Bar Kochba’s war against the Roman Empire.            In 1882, Avraham Goldfaden wrote an operetta on the life anddeeds of Bar Kochba, seeking to encourage jewish morale and resistance tothe pogrom wave that swept Russia following the assassination of AlexanderII.  It is most likely this presentation of Bar Kochba that Lev Vygotskysaw and about which he wrote in his role as theater critic for the Gomel’local newspaper in April 1923.  His praise of Bar Kochba as a revolutionaryrepresentative of the younger generation in defiance of the older, morecautious religious-political establishment can certainly be viewed asautobiographical, for Vygotsky too, was acting against the older Jewishestablishment in adopting Marxist socialism as the best way to build a new,universal and just society.Sincerely yours Bella Kotik-FriedgutOn Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 8:49 AM, Achilles Delari Junior   wrote:> Please, dear professors,>>> In front Vygotsky's publications about poetry, theatre and arts in> general, from Gomel's 1921/1922 period, I turn motivated to know something> about the relation of Vygotsky as man (tchelovek), citizen and young> thinker, with different kinds of insurgent social process, struggling for> freedom. For instance there are, at least, 3 different situations of this> kind touched by him in those newspaper publications : (1) Bar-Kohba; (2)> The Dekabrists; and (3) October Revolution. But what more deeply touch me> is just the first one, because I really do not know nothing about, and> seems to be very very important in Jewish long history for Land and> Freedom. And, believe me or not, this is important for many people here in> my country, not necessarily Jews. If you pleased, could you help me to find> more reliable sources about the historical process in which was envolved> Bar-Kohba? If the answer would be excessively obvious - sorry for spend> your time with me. I will search better by myself. Thank you, a lot.>>> Achilles, from Brazil.>>