Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Gordon Craig's Hamlet

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Thanks Anton-- I fear to think about what would have happened if you gave a
full response!!

Very interesting to see Bratus there, demonstrating the general
applicability of activity beyond the treatment of alcoholism -- spirits to
spirit!
mike


On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Good question, Mike, but in order to answer it, I guess, a serious
> research would need to be done,
> besides, it is hardly a topic for a brief note, but rather a fundamental
> scholarly paper. Thus, I would
> comment on only some issues.
>
> A comment on Yaroshevskii.He might have been quite efficient in
> propagating the "oppressed science" for roughly half century--
> from his earlier 1952 paper on "Cyberntics is the science of
> obscurantists" (Kibernetika - nauka mrakobesov)
> until his later exercises in censoring and distorting Vygotsky in
> 1970s-1980s and, finally and somewhat ironically,
> actually introducing the ludicrous phrase the "oppressed science"
> (repressirovannaia nauka)  in 1990s.
> Given the extent of his familiarity with Vygotsky, his actual writings and
> ideas, and the distorted image of Vygotsky
> that has emerged in large part due to his editorial work of the six-volume
> collected works of Vygotskii, --
> I believe, the validity of his scholarly research and writing on Vygotsky
> is considerably undermined.
>
> As to intellectual landscape of contemporary Russia, I would characterize
> is as 'void'. How else could I characterize it
> given that one of the dominant theoretical streams in the country these
> days is "Russian Orthodox", "Christian psychology"
> (e.g., http://dusha-orthodox.ru/) that is harboured even under the
> auspices of
> Department of General Psychology of Moscow State University (Lomonosov)?
> For nice self-explanatory pics from the Faculty of Psy at MSU see
> http://psychosoft.ru/2010-11-22/index.htm or
> http://psychosoft.ru/2011-02-07/ . For instance this picture --
> http://psychosoft.ru/2011-01-26/_DSC4724.jpg -- features
> the Dean of the Faculty of Psychology someone Yurii Zinchenko (standing,
> no relation with either Vladimir or Piotr Zinchenko
> whatsoever), the Head of the Department of General Psychology B. Bratus'
> (sitting civilian, beside, a former student
> of Zeigarnik, believe it or not) and a representative of Russian Orthodox
> Church, in presidium. What a "troika", indeed! :)
> Bratus' speaking in a somewhat different setting, here:
> http://damian.ru/news/2011-01-06/DSC_A053.jpg
> Curious transformation of the formerly allegedly
> Marxist/progressivist/futurist/activist scholarship, right?
>
> As to Vygotksiana in Russia, in my humble opinion, nobody cares about
> actual scholarship of the kind despite the fact that
> Vygotsky remains the most quoted Russian psychologist in contemporary
> Russia and abroad. A couple of guys are doing
> really nice job, for instance, Zavershneva, whose works were featured in
> already two special issues of the
> Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, in 2010 and 2012. Some
> bits and pieces, here and there, but that's basically it.
> On Zavershneva, overview of her research, bibliography of published works
> and the links to some of these works see
> http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/70476.html
>
> There is also RGGU headed by the heirs and descendants of Vygotsky who
> disseminate the propagandist "Vygotsky cult"--
> incredibly shallow and uncritical--that has virtually nothing to do with
> scholarship. For a nice discussion of the phenomenon,
> in Russian, see http://exxistencia.livejournal.com/1101.html and
> http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/88483.html
>
> AY
>
>
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> *To:* Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>; "eXtended Mind, Culture,
> Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> *Sent:* Friday, February 1, 2013 11:54:06 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Gordon Craig's Hamlet
>
> Anton--
>
> I was interested in your statement that  "Yaroshevskii is totally
> irrelevant as long as Vygotsky and his legacy are concerned."
>
> I aware that there are various groups and individuals who claim to have
> relevant things to say about Vygotsky and his legacy. I was not aware that
> there a way to figure out who the "ones that count" are.
>
> How do you see this intellectual landscape of contemporary Russians who
> take an interest in Vygotsky
> and his legacy? What is at issue and what are the stakes?
>
> mike
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 6:49 AM, Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>wrote:
>
> Some comments.
>
>
> 1. The fact that Vygotsky moved to Moscow and started his unfinished (i.e.
> dropout) studies in Moscow University
>
> does not prove anything other than he started his studies in that very
> year. Thus, there is at least a theoretical possibility
>
> that he, some 15-16 years old, traveled to Moscow in order to see the
> show. Well, not likely, but not improbable either.
>
>
> 2. Another--purely speculative--option is that someone Vygotsky (Vygodskii
> back then) knew had attended the performance and
> shared his or her first-hand experience. I could think about David
> Vygodskii, his cousin, a prominent translator and literary critic,
> from Gomel' too and several years older, who might be the person. In other
> words, who cares if he actually saw the show or not,
> given the diversity and richness of sources of information about this
> fashionable theatrical production then and there? ;)
>
>
> 3. Vygodskaia & Lifanova's story certainly gives wrong chronology (i.e.,
> definitely not 1916!),
> is messy and does not make much sense, indeed.
>
>
> 4.
>
> 5. As some of you might know, a nice discussion of the topic of the
> interrelations between Vygotsky, Gordon Craig's MKhT production,
>
> and phenomenological aesthetics can be found in a recent paper by Priscila
> Nascimento Marques in the leading Vygotskian journal
>
> PsyAnima [ http://www.psyanima.ru/ ] and is currently freely available on
> the journal's web-site in Portuguese, and, somewhat shorter
> versions, in English and Russian. See here:
> http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2012/3/index.php
>
>
> AY
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2013 3:48:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Gordon Craig's Hamlet
>
> David,
>
> I have this, though it doesn't seem to make sense, from:
>
> Vygodskaia, G. I., & Lifanoya, T. M. (1999). Lev Semonovich Vygotsky.
> Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 37(3), Whole number.
>
> "Lev Semen6vich developed an interest in the theater early, back in his
> high-school years; he would try never to miss a play by a local group or a
> visiting theater group. In Moscow the student art group became his favorite
> theater, and he would visit it often with pleasure. In fact, such plays as
> Malen 'kie tragedii, Brat 'ia Karamazovy, Nikolai Stavrogin were events in
> Moscow's theater life. Hamlet was staged by Gordon Craig, the English
> director, in this theater in 1916, when Lev Semenovich was still a
> university student. The staging was original: there was no set: the play
> was performed on a bare stage. This made it possible to concentrate the
> spectators' attention on the actors and their performance. The role of
> Hamlet was played by v.I. Kachelov. This play was, of course, espe- cially
> interesting to Lev Semenovich." (p. 34)
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> On Jan 31, 2013, at 3:15 PM, Bella Kotik-Friedgut <bella.kotik@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Vygotsky came to Moscow in 1913
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 6:09 AM, kellogg <kellogg59@hanmail.net> wrote:
> >
> >>  Does anyone happen to know whether Vygotsky personally saw the Gordon
> >> Craig version of Hamlet in Moscow in 1912? He would have been sixteen, I
> >> guess, and it was about the time he was starting to write about Hamlet.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I'm reading a book which attempts to reconstruct the Gordon Craig
> version
> >> of Hamlet (directed by Stanislavsky). It has the interesting that the
> >> production was greater than the sum of its antithetical parts. Craig saw
> >> the play in intensely psychological terms (Craig believed that only
> Hamlet
> >> was a real person, and everybody else in the play has the same status as
> >> the ghost). Stanislavsky, on the other hand, saw it in equally intense
> >> sociological terms (Stanislavsky believed that it should be historically
> >> accurate, and that is why he insisted on a medieval rather than a
> >> Renaissance setting).
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> And so of course it occurs to me that Chapter Eight of Psychology of Art
> >> is an attempt to square the circle. But on p. 172 he speaks
> disapprovingly
> >> of the 1924 revival of the Gordon Craig version by Michael Chekhov,
> because
> >> it transforms Hamlet into an action hero, puts Claudius in the role of
> >> nemesis, and confers extraordinary depth of character on Hamlet.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Kozulin seems to think that Vygotsky really sided with Craig against
> >> Stanislavsky, that is, he saw the work as a mystery play and not a bit
> of
> >> realism. I am not so sure: The way I read Vygotsky, he really turns
> Craig
> >> upside down: Hamlet is the ONLY person in the play who has no real
> >> character at all.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I also think that reading Hamlet as a myth or a mystery play makes it
> >> quite impossible to achieve what Vygostky is really trying to get out of
> >> the play: a little model of the mind as a sociological backstage and
> >> a psychological proscenium, with the great midstage occupied by various
> >> forms of speech.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> David Kellogg
> >>
> >> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
> >>
> >>
> >> <kellogg59@hanmail.net>
> >> __________________________________________
> >> _____
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> >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Sincerely yours Bella Kotik-Friedgut
> > __________________________________________
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