A  Biographical Sketch

Vygotsky’s biography can be divided into two basic periods: the first, from his birth in 1896 until 1924, the year in which he made his initial appearance as a major intellectual figure in the USSR; the second, from 1924 until his death from tuberculosis in 1934.

Vygotsky was born on November 17, 1896, in Orsha, a town not far from Minsk in Belorussia. Vygotsky changed his name from Vygodsky in the early 1920s because he believed that it derived from the name Vygotovo, where his family had its origins. Other members of his family, such as his daughters retained the “d” in the spelling of their name.

The picture that emerges from information about Vygotsky’s early years is one of a happy, intellectually stimulating life — in spite of the fact that, like other members of his family, he was excluded from several avenues of opportunity because he was Jewish.

Instead of attending public schools, Vygotsky studied with a private tutor for several years and then finished his secondary education in a Jewish gymnasium. He profited enormously from his early years of study with his tutor, Solomon Ashpiz. Ashpiz’s pedagogical technique was apparently grounded in a form of ingenious Socratic dialogue, which left his students, especially one as gifted as Lev Semenovich, with well-developed, inquisitive minds.

By the age of fifteen Vygotsky had become known as the “little professor”, because he often led student discussions on intellectual matters. For example, he ex­amined the historical context of thought by arranging debates and mock trials in which his peers played the role of figures such as Aristotle and Napoleon. These debates were a manifestation of one of Vygotsky’s main interests during that period of his life — philosophy.

While still a child in Gomel, Lev Semenovich also began to show fervent interest in the theater and in literature.

Vygotsky graduated from his gymnasium in 1913 with a gold medal. Though widely recognized as an outstanding student, he had great difficulty entering the university of his choice — largely because he was Jewish.

During this period there was a quota on the number of Jews who could enter Moscow and Saint Petersburg universities: no more than 3 percent of the student bodies could be Jewish. As Levitin points out, this meant that all the Jewish gold medalists and about half the silver medalists would be admitted. Since Lev Se­menovich had every reason to expect a gold medal, his matriculation to the university of his choice seemed assured.

Midway through Vygotsky's deputy examinations, however, the tsarist minister of education decreed a change in procedures by which Jews would be chosen for Moscow and Saint Petersburg universities. The 3 percent quota was maintained, but Jewish applicants were now to be selected by casting lots, a change apparently designed to dilute the quality of Jewish students at the best universities. But then the incredible happened: late in August, the Vygodskys received a cable from their friends in Moscow telling them that Lev had been enrolled at the University by the draw.

In 1914, while in Moscow as a student, Vygotsky also began at­tending the Shanyavskii People's University, an unofficial school that sprang up in 1911 after a minister of education had expelled most of the students and more than a hundred of the faculty from Moscow University in a crackdown on an antitsarist movement.

Vygotsky graduated from Moscow University in 1917 with a degree in law. Although he received no official degree from Shanyavskii Uni­versity, he profited greatly from his studies in psychology, philosophy, and literature. He returned to Gomel after his graduation to teach literature and psychology.

Very little information is available about the impact of the 1917 Revolution on Lev Semenovich. Lev Semenovich continued living in Gomel's relatively peaceful set­ting for seven years after his return in 1917. With his cousin David Vygodsky he taught literature at a school in Gomel. He also conducted classes on aesthetics and the history of art in a conservatory and gave many lectures on literature and science. Furthermore, he organized a psychology laboratory at the Gomel Teacher's College, where he de­livered a series of lectures that provided the groundwork for his 1926 volume, Pedagogical Psychology.

In 1920 Vygotsky was in poor health. The disease that was eventually to kill him, tuberculosis, had begun to take its toll. It was already a serious enough threat to Vy­gotsky’s life in 1920 that he spent a brief period in a sanatorium and asked one of his former professors from Shanyavskii University to publish his collected manuscripts in the event of his death. He recovered from this bout of tuberculosis, however, and continued his projects in Gomel. In 1924 he married Roza Smekhova. They had two daugh­ters.

In retrospect all this work seems to have been preparation for an event in 1924 that was to change Vygotsky’s life irrevocably. This turning point, which separates the two major periods of Vygotsky’s biography, was his appearance on January 6, 1924, at the Second All-Russian Psychoneurological Congress in Leningrad. There he made a presentation, "Methods of Reflexological and Psychological Investi­gations."

Vygotsky’s brilliant, performance so impressed the director of the Psychological Institute in Moscow, K. N. Kornilov, that he immedi­ately invited this "Mozart of psychology" to join himself and others in restructuring the institution. Lev Semenovich accepted and later that year left Gomel to begin his new career.

In 1925 Lev Semenovich completed his dissertation, “The Psy­chology of Art.” During the fall of that year he received permission to have a public defense, but a renewed and serious bout of tuberculosis made that impossible. Recognizing this fact, the qualifying commission excused him from a public defense, and he was passed.

The years between 1924 and 1934 were extremely busy and pro­ductive for Vygotsky. Soon after his arrival in Moscow, Aleksandr Romanovich Luria (1902-1977) and Aleksei Nikolaevich Leont’ev (1904-1979) joined him as students and colleagues. Together these three became known as the "troika" of the Vygotskian School. Several other students and followers eventually joined the school, but it was Luria and Leont’ev who were destined to be the major developers of Vygotsky’s ideas after his death.

The excitement that Vygotsky generated among his students and colleagues is perhaps impossible to appreciate in today’s setting.

In 1925 he produced the written version of his 1924 presentation at the Second All-Russian Psychoneurology Congress; between Novem­ber of 1925 and the spring of 1926, while in the hospital with another attack of tuberculosis, he wrote a major philosophical critique of the theoretical foundations of psychology, “The Historical Significance of the Crisis in Psychology”.

Between 1931 and 1934 Vygotsky produced manuscripts for re­views, articles, and books at an ever accelerating pace. He edited and wrote a long introduction for the 1932 Russian translation of Piaget's volume Le langage et la pensée chez l’enfant (1923). His introduction was later to serve as the second chapter of his posthumous volume Thinking and Speech (1934). During Vygotsky’s last few years of life, he lectured and wrote at an almost frenetic pace.

Throughout this period Vygotsky’s bouts of tuberculosis became increasingly frequent and severe. His protracted, terrifying spells of coughing led to exhaustion for several days, but instead of resting, he tried to reach as many of his goals as possible. In the spring of 1934 his health grew much worse. His doctors insisted that he enter the hospital, but he refused because of work he needed to complete by the end of the school year. One May 9 he had a very severe attack at work and was brought home. At the end of May his bleeding began again, and on June 2 he was hospitalized in Serebryanii Bor Sanatorium. Shortly after midnight on June 11 he died. He was buried in Novodevechii Cemetery in Moscow.

In all, Vygotsky produced approximately 180 works.