RE: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groundbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal (Mind in Society, Vygotsky's Paedology of 1931, and psychoanalysis)!

[larry smolucha <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>]

Comments from Francine Smolucha:
The Groundbreaking role that Mind in Society played in introducing Vygotsky's writings on the zone of proximal development and therole of children's play is not diminished by the debate over the exact authorship of Tools and Symbols (Signs). There was a more thoroughtranslation of Vygotsky's paper The Role of Play in Development publishedin 1967 in English, but it is Mind in Society that reached many more readers.
Somehow the chapters from Tool and Symbol  published in Mind in Society werenever of interest to me, as I amassed my own translations of Vygotsky's writings.Since I did my own translations of the Russian texts for the last three chapters in Mind in Society,I can say that overall the translations in Mind in Society are reliable. Granted, therea few places were an important line or words from the Russian text were omittedand perhaps a new slightly expanded edition of Mind in Society will be forthcoming.
Freud's works appear in the Standard Edition which is the authoritative source for themost serious of Freud scholars. The paperback translations of Freud's books are the one'smost psychologists have read and even quote. Vygotsky scholars will need to navigate betweenthe various translations and controversies regarding his texts (just as Freud scholarsdo - for example in German triebe means drive not instinct so it is not the death instinct butthe death drive, i.e. the aggression drive directed toward the self or others.)
The most advanced scholars should mentor people just entering the field and make them aware of troublesome texts. However, readers of Vygotsky should not be intimidated by the existenceof such controversies, but instead take what inspiration they can and try to be precise when citingVygotsky's writings (acknowledging controversy where it exists.)
> Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:45:42 -0700
> From: vaughndogblack@yahoo.com
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groundbreaking	discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal (Mind in Society,	Vygotsky's Paedology of 1931, and psychoanalysis)!
> To: the_yasya@yahoo.com; xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> CC: 
> 
> Some points on Anton's points, trivial and more substantial:
>  
> a) We know that the English manuscript produced by Luria has a handwritten note, NOT in Luria's hand, which says "Check the Russian original". Whoever wrote this note must have known of the existence of a Russian original somewhere.
>  
> b) Goldberg's account, written by an aging psychologist for aging executives who want to cling to their powers of memory, is highly amusing, but it is anecdotal. Even the wisest of brains will find that anecdotes are not quite the same thing as textological evidence.
>  
> c) I think that Anton's position depends on an unspoken assumption that we would do well to make explicit. It is that Alexander Luria is not a co-author of "Tool and Sign in Child Development". If Luria is recognized as a co-author, then the manuscript which he gave to Mike in Moscow must be recognized as at least partly authorial, that is, revised and approved personally by an author. This would, incidentally, account for the anachronisms that Anton has discovered in the text--like Vygotsky, Luria continued to change his mind, and both authors may well have fiddled with the manuscript accordingly.
>  
> d) Take a look at p. 106 of your Vygotsky Reader (downloadable from Andy's website, or directly from the University of Leiden). At the end of the third paragraph, the authors promise a set of new investigations aimed at demonstrating the specifically human in human intellect. 
>  
> If we follow the Russian version, that is exactly what we get. But if we take the English version as the Ur-text, there is a HUGE jump cut: the article appears to start al over again from the very beginning, with the words "This article deals with two processes of vital psychological importance". 
>  
> Of course, the discontinuity might indeed by authorial, and Goldberg might have copied and pasted material to patch this discontinuity as well as back-translated (although it is odd that he does not mention the fact in his amusing account). 
>  
> But then why didn't Goldberg delete the material in the place that he copied it from? If he is so concerned with producing a coherent text, why does he allow verbatim repetition of this section later on in the text?
>  
> e) I think Anton's explanation of the Vygotsky reference to the "chapter on practical intelligence for America" is ingenious, and I certainly agree that Vygotsky and Luria were trying to publish their material abroad through many different avenues. The problem is that none of the articles Anton mentions, and none that I am aware of, are about practical intelligence, and that is precisely what Chapter One of Tool and Sign is all about: "The problem of practical intelligence in animals and children". So I think it's safe to assume that what is referred to in Vygotsky's letter is indeed the first chapter of Tool and Sign.
>  
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>  
> --- On Mon, 3/26/12, Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> From: Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groundbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal (Mind in Society, Vygotsky's Paedology of 1931, and psychoanalysis)!
> To: "larry smolucha" <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>, "Activity eXtended Mind Culture" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Monday, March 26, 2012, 10:18 AM
> 
> 
> Terrific questions, indeed!
> 
> 
> 1. Question: 
> 
> "Luria's bibliography of Vygotsky's writings (published in Mind in Society) was
> not mentioned in Anton's paper. Any particular reason why?"
> 
> 
> Answer:
> Primarily because the study focused on the most authentic or the most reliable sources on Vygotsky,
> and Mind in Society (1978), Vygotsky's most famous book that he never wrote, is definitely neither.
> Besides, the author of the study was simply oblivious of the fact that this book contained 
> yet another bibliography of Vygotsky's works.
> 
> There is nothing interesting in this "Luria's bibliography", although it might need somewhat closer examination.
> Anyway, from its looks, this is a(n uncredited) republication of  T.M. Lifanova's (nee Shakhlevich) bibliography, 
> one of the first in a row, the one that came out in 1974 in Russian journal Voprosy psikhologii, and was later
> incorporated into the revised and substantially extended version that was published in 1996 (available online,
> in Russian in Cyrillic characters -- http://www.voppsy.ru/journals_all/issues/1996/965/965137.htm, 
> or  in Russian in Latin transliteration -- http://www.vigotski.net/lsv_biblio-1996,1999.pdf  ).
> This earlier Lifanova (Shakhlevich) bibliography was taken in consideration 
> in
> Anton's paper The Vygotsky That We (Do Not) Know, and --unlike in Mind in Society --
> it is referred in the full version of this paper, please see:
> 
> Yasnitsky, A. (2011). "I Wish You Knew From What Stray Matter...": 
> Identifying the set of Vygotsky's major oeuvre and determining the chronology of their composition. 
> PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal, 4(4), 1-52 (In Russian); 
> http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a1/2011n4a1.pdf
> 
> The reference in question is the one under #139:
> 139. Шахлевич, Т. М. (1974). Библиография трудов Л. С. Выготского. 
> Вопросы психологии(3), 152―160.
> 
> Still, fyi, the best (the fullest, the most precise, etc.) Russian bibliography of Vygotsky's works is available on 
> Russian wikipedia, here:
> 
> http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Библиография_Выготского;
> 
> (some isntructions on the use of this invaluable resource are available here: 
> http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/75872.html )
> 
> 2. Question: 
> " Luria provided the rough translations for the chapters from Tool and Symbol
> that were published as the first four chapters of Mind in Society, what text was Luria working
> from?"
> 
> Answer:
> God knows. Perhaps, nobody else. In other words, the text just --voila!--appeared, 
> and nobody knows where exactly it comes from. We might assume that there was a
> prototypical Russian text that might have been translated into English for a handbook 
> to be published in 1930 in the US by Murchison, BUT:
> - the book came out, with a few chapters by Americans and foreigners, --
> no Vygotsky or Luria's chapter was among these
> - no traces of the manuscript or a translation of 1930s exists (or, at least, is known to exist)
> - we have no evidence to safely claim that the English text that Luria  
> provided as the rough translations for the chapters from Tool and Symbol
> AND that were published as the first four chapters of Mind in Society is this very text of 1930, ON THE CONTRARY --
> - our analysis of the actual text demonstrates several ideas that could not 
> have appeared in Vygotsky's text as early as 1930, but could well have
> be formulated at a later time, say, not earlier than 1932 
> 
> 3. Question:
> "Did Luria have his own archival texts? " 
> 
> Answer: NO.
> Quote ( On Tool and Sign/Symbol): 
> "The original Russian text [of Tool and Sign] was lost and only the English translation remained, 
> prepared for a conference in the United States [not quite so -- AY] but never actually delivered. 
> Forty years later, in the late sixties, the political climate thawed and their early ideas were exonerated. 
> It was then that Luria discovered, to [p. 99] his dismay, the loss of the Russian original. 
> Not one to by stymied by a challenge and always a practical man, he told me to translate 
> The Tool and the Symbol from English "back" into Russian and make it sound like the original text. 
> With a mixture of awe and amusement, I did just that, and our benigh forgery was passed for the real thing. 
> Today, it graces the opening volume of the collection of Vygotsky's writings, 
> without an explanation of what had actually happened."
> 
> Source: http://books.google.ca/books?id=9NEN80chkT8C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=benign%20forgery&f=false
> 
> Goldberg, E. (2005). The wisdom paradox: How your mind can grow stronger as your brain grows older. New York: Gotham books.
> Pages 98-99
> 
> Luckily for us, the researchers, but quite unfortunately for us the readers, the editors manipulated with the text
> even more than usual and published several fragments of the text twice, in different loci of the Russian edition.
> 
> Anlysis of the structure of the outcome and the style and language of these repeated text fragments--
>  --obviously identical, but
> not verbatim repetitions--confirms Goldberg's testimony and strongly suggests that
> yet another (at least one) translator was employed to do the job. The repeated texts have all traced of the same 
> original, phrased differently by several (at least two) different translators, each of which 
> fairly consistently followed 
> different, pretty idiosyncratic style of  translation. Discourse analysis convincingly shows this.
> 
> References:
> 
> For discourse analysis of a repeated fragment in the Russian text see:
> Yasnitsky, A. (2011). "I Wish You Knew From What Stray Matter...": 
> Identifying the set of Vygotsky's major oeuvre and determining the chronology of their composition.
> PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal, 4(4), 1-52 (In Russian)
> http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a1/2011n4a1.pdf
> Table 5, page 28
> 
> For the representation of the structural features of the Russian/English texts and nice pics for the repeated fragments see:
> Kellogg, D. & Yasnitsky, A. (2011). The differences between the Russian and English texts of 
> Tool and Symbol in Child Development. Supplementary and analytic materials. 
> PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal, 4(4), 98-158
> http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a4/2011n4a4.pdf
> Figures 1 and 2, pp. 101 and 102 respectively; the rest might be of interest, too.
> 
> For a summary of Yasntisky's (2011 ) longer paper see:
> Yasnitsky, A. (2011). The Vygotsky That We (Do Not) Know: 
> Vygotsky’s Main Works and the Chronology of their Composition. PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal, 4(4), 53-61
> http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a1/2011n4a1.1.pdf
>  
> 
> 4 Question:
> "how does this textual material  relate to the history
> of the translations of Tool and Sign on page 54 of Anton's paper?"
> 
> Answer: 
> I believe the above answers 2 & 3 are pretty explanatory, but please let me know if any questions remain, or
> further questions, comments or suggestions emerge.
> 
> 5. Question:
> "Does Anton know the titles of the three missing chapters from the Pedalogy of the Adolescent (Chapters 13, 14, 15)
> from the Russian Collected Works? [In the Russian text chapter 12 is followed by chapter 16.]"
> 
> Answer: YES, he does.
> The titles are:
> Chapter 13: The choice of profession [Vybor professii] pp. 457-464
> Chapter 14: Social behaviour of the adolescent [Sotsial'noe povedenie podrostka] pp. 464-471
> Chapter 15: Working [Alternatively: Working-class --AY] adolescent [Rabochii podrostok]  pp. 471-481
> 
> For the relative size of the chapters in Vygotsky's "Paedology of the adolescent" [Pedologiia podrostka]  (1931)
> see:
> Yasnitsky, A. (2011). "I Wish You Knew From What Stray Matter...": 
> Identifying the set of Vygotsky's major oeuvre and determining the chronology of their composition.
> PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal, 4(4), 1-52 (In Russian)
> http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a1/2011n4a1.pdf Scheme 1, page 18 
> 
> 6. Question: 
> "Is there any information in the Vygotsky archives about Vygotsky's involvement in the Russian
> Psychoanalytic Society (co-founded by Sabina Speilrein)?"
> 
> Answer: YES and NO.
> Yes - there is, no - not in the archives.
> A remark, though: Sabina S. returned to Russia from Switzerland/Austria in 1923, and Russian Psychoanalytic Society 
> had been founded a year before, in 1922, by Ermakov, Wulf, Kannabich, and dozens of other enthusiasts 
> (btw, Luria was not among them, he was in Kazan' back then, founding, in turn, Kazan' Psychoanalytic Society, though).
> 
> As to Vygotsky, here it is: he is mentioned among the reports of the Russian Society as an occasional presenter in 1924 &1927 
> (he talked twice -- on 4.12.1924 and on 10.3.1927 on the topics related to the psychology of art). No other traces of 
> Vygotsky among the activities of the Society has been found. After all, it was only in 1930 
> that Vygotsky  was listed as its member. 
> I tend to think this membership, were it true, was pretty formal. Then, in 1930 the Society ceased to exist, 
> but definitely not for the reason it was not Marxist.
> 
> These reports were authored by A.R. Luria, later - Vera Schmidt, and published in Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse 
> (and also in its mirror version that was published in English, too; I am not very sure about this, though). 
> For the translated Russian texts of these reports documenting the activities of the Russian Psychoanalytic Society in 1922-1930 see:
> 
> http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/35949.html
> 
> 
> AY
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: larry smolucha <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>
> To: the_yasya@yahoo.com 
> Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2012 11:31:24 PM
> Subject: RE: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groudbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal (Trotsky, Shmotsky, and Vygotsky)!
> 
> 
> 
> In regard to Anton's paper The Vygotsky That We (Do Not) Know:
> 
> Luria's bibliography of Vygotsky's writings (published in Mind in Society) was
> not mentioned in Anton's paper. Any particular reason why?
> 
>  Luria provided the rough translations for the chapters from Tool and Symbol
> that were published as the first four chapters of Mind in Society, what text was Luria working
> from? Did Luria have his own archival texts? And, how does this textual material  relate to the history
> of the translations of Tool and Sign on page 54 of Anton's paper?
> 
> Does Anton know the titles of the three missing chapters from the Pedalogy of the Adolescent (Chapters 13, 14, 15)
> from the Russian Collected Works? [In the Russian text chapter 12 is followed by chapter 16.]
> 
> Is there any information in the Vygotsky archives about Vygotsky's involvement in the Russian
> Psychoanalytic Society (co-founded by Sabina Speilrein)? Speilrein was a notable psychoanalyst 
> who introduced the concept of the so-called death instinct (aggression toward self or others).
> She was also Jung's first analysand and allegedly his lover (Madame X in his letters to Freud).
> Speilrein was also Piaget's analyst. Both Vygotsky and Luria were members of the Russian
> Psychoanalytic Society until it had to be disbanded (because it was not Marxist).
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:24:56 -0700
> > From: the_yasya@yahoo.com
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groudbreaking    discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal (Trotsky,    Shmotsky, and Vygotsky)!
> > To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > 
> > Steve, thank you for you Trostkian update!
> > 
> > I am afraid, though, this input leads us quite away from the main topic that we attempt to discuss, namely: 
> > 
> > 
> > recent groundbreaking textological and historiographic research that demonstrates that our view on what we believed were Vygotsky's main texts
> > 
> > was largely distorted and -- due to numerous falsifications, manipulations, and other damage done to Vygotsky's discourse --
> > 
> > still much work needs to be done. Luckily, a few important contribution have already been made and clarify the picture to some extent:
> > 
> > 
> > http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/index.php
> > 
> > 
> > Thus, keeping this focus of our current discussion in mind, I believe I need to respond to several questions of yours that I can parse in your message.
> > 
> > 
> > 1. A remark. I might well agree with you that Stalin, like Hitler -- and quite unlike Lenin or Trotsky -- was a reincarnation of Darth Vader, or, at least, Lord Voldemort,
> > but please keep it in mind that such Manichean perspective on the history of Soviet science does not quite allow us understand why quite a few of American scholars were so 
> > fascinated with "Stalinist" Soviet science of 1930s --
> > 
> > 
> > see, e.g.: Peter J. Kuznick (1987). Beyond the laboratory: scientists as political activists in 1930s
> > 
> > http://books.google.ca/books?id=pQxy2PRHWrwC&pg=PA106#v=onepage&q&f=false
> > 
> > 
> > or  how come the "oppressed science" of zee ruskies was able to scare all of us out of ours witts back in the 1950s with the launch of 'sputnik' in 1957 and, then Gagarin in 1961. 
> > 
> > For the not so simple and truly exciting history of the inseparable union between the science and the party-state apparatus in the Soviet Union from mid-1920s onwards see. e.g.: 
> > 
> > Krementsov, N. (1997). Stalinist Science. Princeton
> > 
> > Stalinist Science (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997)
> > 
> > http://books.google.ca/books?id=8Nl_FUgFykQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
> > 
> > 2. Another remark. Yep, Vygotsky did refer to Trotsky's Utopian visions of the superman (Uebermensch, if you wish) of the inevitable Communist future, in his (i.e. Vygotsky's) 
> > three books of mid-1920s, and, generally,seems to have been charmed by the "prophet armed/unarmed/outcast".
> > However, I do not think there is anything distinctly Marxist in this variation of Uebermensch, 
> > and the idea of a "new man" is very much ingrained into the entire construct of Western civilization and from time to time reoccurs in the history of humanity here and there.
> > 
> > 3. Now, to question. It seems that Trotsky's "Literature and revolution" came out in the original in 1923, and then, second, augmented edition - in 1924.
> > 
> > 4. Question: "
> > Marxists tend to be very careful about claiming they have a "new" idea.  Marx and Engels were meticulous about this.  Vygotsky was like that too, yes? "
> > Answer: yes and no, that depends. In certain instances Vygotsky does refer to his predecessors, in some instances -- he pretty charmingly forgets to do so. 
> > Pretty messy and unorganized author, I should say.
> > 
> > 5. Phrase: "Vygotsky, who himself contributed to this revolution in substantial ways, despite the rising Stalinist counter-revolution that eventually buried Vygotsky's writings"
> > Comments:
> > * Vygotsky did contribute to the social and scientific life of the country in many, but not necessarily in substantial ways,
> > * he did so in full accordance with all turns, ups and downs of the national policy and social processes throughout 1920s-1930s,
> > * contributed notably to Stalinist counter-revolution during and after the Great Break and Cultural Revoltion of 1929-1932 as well as to the movements of the NEP period of 1920s
> > * and, finally, was buried not by Stalinist oppressive apparatus, but by his allegedly most devoted students and followers :))
> > 
> > This is why much of the published legacy of Vygotsky, especially, the Soviet six-volume collection of his works of 1982-1984, is in such bad shape. 
> For discussion and materials please see:
> > 
> > Yasnitsky, A.
> > The Vygotsky That We (Do Not) Know: Vygotsky’s Main Works and the Chronology of their Composition
> > http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a1/2011n4a1.1.pdf
> > 
> > Kellogg, D.
> > Which is (More) Original, and Does Either Version Really Matter?
> > (A comment on A. Yasnitsky’s “The Vygotsky That We (Do Not) Know: Vygotsky’s Main Works and the Chronology of their Composition”)
> > http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a2/2011n4a2.pdf
> > 
> > Kellogg, D.
> > Untangling a genetic root of Thinking and Speech:
> > Towards a textology of Tool and Sign in Child Development
> > http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a3/2011n4a3.pdf
> > 
> > Kellogg, D. & Yasnitsky, A.
> > The differences between the Russian and English texts of Tool and Symbol in Child Development. Supplementary and analytic materials
> > http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a4/2011n4a4.pdf
> > 
> > Mecacci, L. & Yasnitsky, A.
> > Editorial Changes in the Three Russian Editions of Vygotsky's "Thinking and Speech" (1934, 1956, 1982): Towards Authoritative and Ultimate English Translation of the Book
> > http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/2011n4a5/2011n4a5.pdf
> > 
> 
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
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