Vygotsky and Luria formulated their hypotheses and experimental design of
the famous experiments of central Asia in the light of the German Ideology
theoretical framework (Marx and Engels, 1845-46). In German Ideology, Marx
and Engels provide us with a detailed theoretical analysis and systematic
description of the changes that occured during the process of transition
from preindustrial society to modern society (capitalist society), paying
special attention to the social relations, relations of people to one to
another, and their relations to nature and to the world.
Vygotsky and Luria were interested in what happens to individual's
cognitive development, thinking and reasoning when one mode of production
replaces another (in their case feudal mode of production is replaced by
socialist mode of production). In German Ideology, Marx and Engels analyzed
what happens to individuals' social relations, consciousness and cognitive
growth when one mode of production and social relations were replaced by
another ( in their case pre-industrial mode of production to industrial
mode of production).
In Luria's last discussions of the Uzbekistan Studies in his intellectual
biography (1979), he writes that Uzkek culture "could [indeed] boast of an
ancient high culture which included the outstanding scientific and poetic
achievements associated with such figures as Uleg Bek, a mathematician and
astronomer who left behind a remarkable observatory near Samarkand, the
philosopher Al-Biruni, the physician Ali-Ibn Senna (Avecenna), the poets
Saadi and Nezami, and others [such as Abu Nasr Mansur ibn Ali who worked on
trigonometry and discovered the sine law: a/sin A = b/sin B = c/sin
C])"(1979, p. 60). Luria maintained that the cultural level seen "as is
typical of feudal societies, the peasant masses remained illiterate and for
the most part separated from high culture. They lived in villages that were
completely dependent on wealthy landowners and powerful feudal lords"
(1979, p. 60).
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