Re: Vygotsky & the meaning of giftedness

Olga Marchenko (olyam who-is-at rtsnet.ru)
Fri, 14 Aug 1998 14:16:58 +0400

Eva wrote:
Is any of the Russian speakers awake to the list and able to give us some
input on what Vygotsky was about in the quote?

At 22.43 -0500 98-08-02, Nate Schmolze quoted L.S.V. about
>People with great passions
>people who accomplish great deeds
>People who possess strong feelings
>even people with great minds
>and a strong personality

There exists hystorically developed mythology about gifteness in any
culture, not only in Russia. Russian mythes of geniues , I think, includes
image of strong personality (like revolutioner) who can solve incredible
tasks and is ready to lose his life for a deal. Greek Prometheus is one of
the prototypes for undestanding of Russian talented people. I can show some
example. It will be enouph to mentioned the life-stories of our classical
writers - Dostoyewsky,Tolstoy and so on. I had an oppotunity to listen Gita
Vygotskaya personally and was very surprised how presicely she explicate
Russian ( Soviet) mythology of gifteness in her story about her father. I
think you
pick up the obvious exagerations in the biography LSV.

What about my preference to gifteness difinition I like modern concept of
talented person as a person with high abilities and socialized in current
context (renowned).

About mythology ... I am Ukraine, in my culture gifteness is connected with
ability of person to create the new relationships with others to find out
something new in the world.

Olga Marchenko,
Russia