New Collected Works

ANNOUNCEMENT

The Complete Collected Works of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky Will be Published and Available by Subscription

The Lev Vygotsky Fund is preparing to publish the complete collected works of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky. The collected works will include new materials from the L. S. Vygotsky family archives and from other private and state archives. Also, they will contain the original versions of all previously published materials written by L. S. Vygotsky. The collected works will be annotated by leading Vygotsky scholars.

The collected works are important because much of L. S. Vygotsky’s research and related materials are currently not available. A large portion of his research papers were never published during his lifetime. These include significant studies such as “Psychology of Art”, “The Historical Meaning of Psychological Crisis,” and “Sprinosa” (Study of Emotions). Also, most of his published articles and books were withdrawn from libraries in the USSR and destroyed after a decision on June 4, 1936, by the Central Committee VKP (the decision was titled “About pedological distortions in the system Narkomprosov”). Many of his published works have either been difficult to find or have been unavailable to researchers.

Fortunately, a majority of L. S. Vygotsky’s published works and letters, as well as many of his manuscripts and notes, were saved through the efforts of his pupils and his family. Most of them are now in the L. S. Vygotsky archive, maintained by Gita L’vovna Vygodskaya, his daughter.

During the early 1980s, a Moscow publishing company, Pedagogics, published the collected works of Vygotsky in six volumes; the volumes were incomplete. Some of the published papers had essential gaps, and many important papers and other materials were not included.

The new complete collected works will include not only Vygotsky’s most famous books and articles, but will also make widely available for the first time his early articles, manuscripts, scientific diaries, notes, and letters. The collected works will be grouped chronologically to allow readers to re-create a fuller picture of L. S. Vygotsky’s scientific creativity and to track the evolution of his theoretical ideas. Also, they will include informal and documentary photographs directly related to Vygotsky and his life. In addition, they will contain other materials that document the conditions and the social and political context within which Vygotsky lived and worked.

The complete collected works of L. V. Vygotsky will be interesting to psychologists working in different areas of psychology and to students specializing in Vygotskian psychology. The brilliant, wide-ranging theories formulated by Vygotsky should also attract philosophers, philologists, teachers, special education experts, anthropologists, art critics, historians, and others curious about intellectual history.

The complete collected works of Vygotsky will be issued in 15 volumes, with the first volumes to be published in 2008. Each volume will cost between 500 and 700 rubles ($20 to $32). They will be available through subscription. Persons, libraries, and others interested in subscribing to purchase this series of books are invited to contact the L. S. Vygotsky Fund at vygotsky@list.ru, send a fax to 7-495-973-44-33, or communicate through the website http://www.levvygotsky.ru Also, inquires about a subscription can be made by calling the L. S. Vygotsky Fund in Moscow at 7-495-250-61-47.

When subscribing to this series, please provide your name, the name of your organization (if the subscription is not for personal use), your e-mail and postal address, and the number of complete sets of the collected works for which you would like to subscribe.

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THE COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS OF L. S. VYGOTSKY

Honorary Chairwoman of the Editorial Board: Gita L’vovna Vygodskaya

Editor-in-Chief: Professor Elena E. Kravtsova, Director of the Vygotsky Institute, Russian State University for the Humanities

Planned Volumes of the Complete Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky

Volume 1. Dramaturgy (Dramatic Art) and Theater

Theatrical reviews and notes (never republished)

“The Tragedy of Hamlet” with notes (1916) and parallel texts from draft copies written in 1915

The Thesis of Hamlet from notebooks (unpublished) and others

Volume 2. The Literature and Art

Book reviews of philological works

“The Tragicomedy of Searches”: Earliest of L. S. Vygotsky's known works (1912), devoted to the "Book of Ecclesiastes” (unpublished)

Book and other reviews (never republished)

“The Psychology of Art”

K. N. Kornilov's letters on “The Psychology of Art” (unpublished)

Volume 3. Psychology, Pedagogy and “Defectology” (1922-1926)

Part 1: Early Research

Pedagogical-related works, the Gomel research, early works in “defectology”

Several articles and reports from the family archive (published for the first time)

Part 2: Pedagogy

“Pedagogical Psychology” (author’s original unedited version)

Volume 4. General Psychology and Methodology of Psychology (1923–1927)

Methodological works, book forewords, other articles written during Vygotsky’s first period of creativity (1924-1927)

“Sense of Psychological Crisis” (original unedited version)

Several unpublished theoretical articles, plus other published articles that have not been reprinted

Volume 5. Cultural Development of the Child (1927-1930)

First theses of cultural-historical theory containing the hypothesis of sign mediation and research related to “age psychology” and “defectology.” (Much of this research will be published for the first time or republished for the first time since they were originally published)

Volume 6. Psychological Development in Onto-and Phylogenesis (1929-1930)

Part 1: Theory and Methodology

Notes and programmatic plans for L. S. Vygotsky’s second period of creativity (1928-1930)

Part 2: Psychological Development in Onto-and Phylogenesis Ethnopsychology

“Essays on the History of Behaviour” (with A. R. Luria) (These essays are related to Luria’s travel to Central Asia)

Volume 7. Psychological Dictionary by B.E. Warsawa and L. S. Vygotsky

Articles for encyclopedias, dictionaries, forewords, and reviews (1929-1930) (This volume includes several texts published for the first time since their original publication)

Volume 8. Development of the Higher Psychological Functions (1930-1931)

The central works of the Vygotsky’s second period of creativity (1928-1931), including “Tool and Sign in the Development of the Child” and “History of the Development of the Higher Psychological Functions”

Volume 9. “Pedology” of the Adolescent (1929-1931)

“’Pedology’ of the Adolescent” (first time published since original publication).

Fragments from “The ‘Pedology’ of Young Adults” (never republished)

“The ‘Pedology’ of School Age” (never republished)

Several works related to transitional age (never republished)

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Volume 10. Lectures on Age (Developmental) Psychology (1932-1934)

Transcripts of lectures on “age psychology,” delivered by L. S. Vygotsky in Leningrad and Moscow. (Most of these texts are published here for the first time)

Volume 11. Problems of Learning and Development (1931-1934)

Transcripts of lectures on pedagogical psychology and “pedology”

The manuscript entitled “Bases for ‘Pedology’” (1934) (previously inaccessible to most researchers)

Volume 12. The Problem of Affect (1931-1933)

“The Doctrine of Emotions in View of Modern Psychoneurology” (1931-1933) (first publication of the complete version)

Vygotsky’s marginal notes on Spinoza's "Ethics"

Volume 13. The Problem of Consciousness, Thinking and Speech (1932-1934)

The central works of L. S. Vygotsky’s last period of creativity (1931-1934) during which the principle of a semantic and systemic structure of consciousness was realized. The works include:

“Lectures on Psychology”

“Thinking and Speech”

“The Problem of Consciousness”

Materials from internal conferences on the problem of the consciousness held with close colleagues, including A. R. Luria, A. N. Leontev, and others (previously unpublished)

Plans for an unwritten book about the problem of consciousness (previously unpublished)

Volume 14. The Problem of Development and Disintegration of Psychological Functions (1931-1934)

Works in the field of patho- and neuropsychology from Vygotsky’s last period of creativity, including:

Clinical notebooks (including the notebook from the Don’s Clinic, 1933-34) containing conversations with patients and clinical cases

Materials from internal conferences with colleagues on problems of neuropsychology (previously unpublished)

Volume 15. Notebooks, Scientific Diaries, and Letters

Archival materials published for the first time. These materials provide new insight into the creation of Vygotsky’s key works, including “Thought and Speech” and “The Doctrine About Emotions”. The materials include:

Records and notes of L. S. Vygotsky's from the 1920s and 1930s

Materials from internal conferences with colleagues

Notes and other previously unpublished materials, including plans for books, outlines, and written thoughts.

Planned additional volumes:

In addition to these collected works, the Lev Vogotsky Fund plans to publish the following:

G. L. Vygodskaya and T. M. Lifanova “Lev Semenovich Vygotsky”(Reprint)

Memoirs and articles by pupils of L. S. Vygotsky, including A. R. Luria, B. V. Zejgarnik, B. D. Elkonin, N. G. Morozova, A. V. Zaporozhets, and others

Publications by opponents of L. S. Vygotsky