| Summary: | This dissertation presents a study of the scientific practices of the circle of
Vygotsky’s closest collaborators and students during the decade of the 1930s-and
including the early 1940s (until Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union and the
beginning of the Great Patriotic War in 1941). The notion of Vygotsky Circle is
introduced in this work and is explicitly distinguished from a traditional—yet
frequently criticised—notion of “the school of Vygotsky-Leontiev-Luria”. The
scientific practices of the Vygotsky Circle are discussed here as the unity of a) social
and interpersonal relations, b) the practices of empirical scientific research, and c)
discursive practices of the Soviet science—more specifically, the “Stalinist Science”
of the 1930s. Thus, this study analyzes the social and interpersonal relations between
the members of the Vygotsky Circle and the evolution of this circle in the social
context of Soviet science during the decade of 1930s; various practices of empirical
scientific research conducted by the members of the Vygotsky Circle were also
overviewed. Finally, discursive practices of the Soviet scientific “doublespeak” were
discussed and illustrated with several examples borrowed from publications of the
time.
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