Re: [xmca] Russian-American collaborations, historically speaking

[Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>]

Hi Mike,

Curiously enough, fairly recently I finished a lengthy paper exactly on this fascinating topic, i.e. international contacts of Soviet psychology in the interwar period, and am now continuing the investigation further into the Cold War times. The paper is unfortunately--at this point--in Russian only. I submitted the manuscript to one of the journals out there and they seem to have liked it. Anyway, this is all to say that your Russian correspondent should feel free to contact me with inquiries if needed, and I guess I might be of help to her in case she has specific questions in mind. Possibly, we find it interesting and mutually beneficial to collaborate on the topic with this Russian colleague of ours.

Best,
Anton




----- Original Message ----
From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Cc: tanja akhutina <akhutina@rambler.ru>; Vladimir Zinchenko <ZinchRAE@mtu-net.ru>; Galina Zuckerman <galina_zuckerman@hotmail.com>; Karl Levitin <c.levitin@l-card.ru>
Sent: Sun, March 7, 2010 11:08:20 PM
Subject: [xmca] Russian-American collaborations, historically speaking

Anton, Jean, Bella, Anna, et. al--

I have been corresponding with a Russian colleague about the history
of Russian-American collaborations/mutual influences in psychology. I
wonder if you could help fill out this picture?

Up to the early 1920's I really know of nothing. Perhaps Sechenov was
influenced
by and influenced people in the U.S. Or perhaps it was just an
undifferentiated
zeitgeist.

Horsely Gantt translated Pavlov, who certainly had a big influence in the
U.S. and later
Luria. He was influenced, in his work, but i know of no mutual collaboration
other than the
translations. Luria interacted with Americans as a result of his visit to
the US in 1929, but
so far as I know, the collaborations were at the level of journal editing,
prefaces, and
that sort of thing. There were also interactions around psychoanalysis, but
i think that was
mostly with Europeans.

Some like to think that Dewey and Vygotsky met and were mutually influenced,
but that never
has seemed likely to me. The influence of Dewey on Russian psychology seems
clear, but the
reverse doubtful at best.

Hebert Mueller (sp?) the geneticist went to the USSR in the late 1930's, but
I know of no collaborative
consequences. The topic of genetics was kind of life threatening in the USSR
at the time (in one
way) and in the US in another.

Seems like cooperation really began after Stalin's death with visits from
Luria, Sokolov and others to the
"west," delegations of Americans going to Russia, the start of the
post-doctoral exchange program circa
1959. Herb Pick worked with Gippenreiter, I worked with Luria, Jim Wertsch
worked with AA Leontiev,
and there was probably mutual influence in all these cases of some sort.

Very sketchy, I realize. I know there were more extended exchanges from
1970-1991 and then a lot of
different kinds of mutual interaction. But perhaps there are older and
deeper connections.

Can anyone help on this topic?
mike
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