[Xmca-l] Re: Help With Russian

[mike cole]

Implantation of the zygote has always seemed to be a great example of a
crisis in
prenatal development. But if birth is not a crisis for all involved
post-natally, hard to think of what might be. Blood flow reverses, oxygen
has to come through breathing, nutrients can't flow withhout someone else's
(culturally mediated) actions.

Whew. A wonder any of us made it this far.
mike

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 8:32 PM, Natalia Gajdamaschko <nataliag@sfu.ca>
wrote:

> Hi David,
>  It seems that the para points to more logical usage of "внеутробного
> развития".
> I just doubt that Vygotsky was venturing into discussion of intra-uterine
> development in his theory of development. But I don't know for sure.
> Cheers,
> Natalia.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Kellogg" <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2015 7:35:37 PM
> Subject: [Xmca-l]  Help With Russian
>
> In Chapter One of the Problem of Age Periodization, Vygotsky is trying to
> "finalize" the chain of critical ages, and argues that birth should be
> included as a "crisis". He and Blonsky apparently agree here. He writes:
>
> Катастрофическое, скачкообразное изменение всего хода развития в акте р
> ождения, когда новорожденный, быстро, критически попадая в совершенно новую
> среду (Блонский), изменяет весь строй и ход своей жизни, определяет
> начальный период внутриутробного развития как один из самых острых и
> несомненных критических возрастов.
>
> I take this means something like: "Catastrophic, leaping changes (i.e.
> "breaks" or "ruptures", discontinuous changes--DK) in the whole course of
> development in the act of birth, when the newborn, rapidly entering
> critically into a completely new environment (Blonsky), transforms the
> whole structure and the course of his life and defines the beginning period
> of intra-uterine development as one of the most acute and undoubtedly
> critical ages.
>
>
>
> The problem with this translation is that it is utter nonsense, because the
> beginning period of intra-uterine development is not birth but conception.
> The
> Russian collected works (which simply omits Blonsky's name because he is a
> non-person) just changes внутриутробного развития to внеутробного развития
> without any comment at all. (In all fairness the Soviet editors seem to be
> working with a different manuscript or transcription of this material, and
> the correction might have been Vygotsky's.)
>
> Now, my grasp of Russian grammar is pretty tenuous. But it seems to me it
> MIGHT be possible to interpret this passage as someting like this:
>
> "Catastrophic, leaping changes (i.e. "breaks" or "ruptures", discontinuous
> changes--DK) in the whole course of development in the act of birth, when
> the newborn, rapidly entering critically into a completely new environment
> (Blonsky), transforms the whole structure and the course of his life and
> defines (i.e. delimits, fixes and puts an end to--DK) the beginning period
> of intra-uterine development, seem (appear to be--DK) one of the most acute
> and undoubtedly critical ages."
>
> So--once again a question for the infinite patience of the Russophones of
> the list--is this a reasonable interpretation, or did Vygotsky make a
> mistake (saying "внутриутробного развития" when he really meant "
> внеутробного развития") and did the Soviet editors put him right?
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
>
>
>
>
>  My question, for the Russophones on the
>
>


-- 
"Each new level of development is a new relevant context." C.H. Waddington