RE: A.V. Brushlinsky

From: Stetsenko, Anna (AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu)
Date: Fri Feb 01 2002 - 09:22:13 PST


 
Mike, what a tragic news. I knew Anrej Vladimirovich and had many
opportunities to see how genuinely motivated he was to further develop
Rubinstein's theory. Staunch critic of Vygotsky and Leont'ev he sure was,
yet he was also very open-minded and longing for a productive dialogue
between the Vygotsky-Luria-Leont'ev and the Rubinstein's schools. His main
grievance has been that this dialogue was not taking place.

One cautionary note: This only happened two days ago; the perpetrator(s) of
the crime escaped and no one has been arrested so far. The investigation has
just begun (the news of Brushlinskij's death is on TV all over Russia). The
nature of the crime is unclear -- he had no valuable possessions with him
yet was brutally murdered, apparently after he lost consiousness (he was
also a very petite and cautious man, unlikely to try to resist an assualt).
Whether this was a robbery, or an assualt by some lunatic or whatever else -
remains to be investigated.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Cole
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: 1/31/2002 2:47 PM
Subject: A.V. Brushlinsky

Andrei Brushlinky, the head of the Insitute of Psychology, Russian
Academcy
of Sciences, was murdered this evening as he was entering his apartment
by
a robber.

Andrei and I have had our differences over the years -- he was a staunch
advocate of the Rubenshtein version of activity theory and a severe
critic of Vygotsky and Leontiev. But he was an honest person who did his
best under difficult circumstances, and did not deserve to be murdered
for
his money-- of which there wasn't much-- since he worked for the Russian
Academy which has little to pay its scholars.

RIP, Andrei.
mike



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