L. S. Vygotsky and His Students: Outputs of the Collective Research Activities in the First Half of the 20th Century

Within the framework of the study of collective forms of arranging national scientific activity the paper presents the outcomes of the activity of the groups organized by L. S. Vygotsky at the Institute of Experimental Psychology, the Experimental Defectologic Institute, the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine, and the Academy of Communist Education named after N. K. Krupskaya. The analysis of the titles and contents of the works published from 1924 to 1950 revealed the fact that prevailing number of researches were fundamental, a third part of which, however, had a practical orientation. The author has come to the conclusion that collective research activities were of importance for realization of L. S. Vygotsky’s general psychology ideas and methodological sets in the course of solving practical tasks in child and educational psychology, defectology, neuropsychology, and pathopsychology that were significant for public.

Mérei Ferenc a polgári és a szocialista embereszmény feszültségei közepette

Összefoglaló. Mérei Ferenc (1909–1986) életműve sok nyilvánvaló paradoxont tartalmaz. Ott áll az egyik oldalon az 1945 és 1949 közti kommunista nevelési vezér, aki az általa vezetett budapesti műhelyben és a nagy hatáskörű Országos Neveléstudományi Intézetben aktívan alakította az államilag szervezett szocialista iskolát, és ott van az 1950-től a partvonalra került, majd bebörtönzött értelmiségi, harmadik lépésként pedig az 1970-es évektől a lelki ellenállás alapú, egyéni életmód-szerveződések és csoportterápiák irányítója. Felfogásom szerint a kettősségek nem csupán az élet külsőségeiből fakadó kényszerek következményei, hanem Mérei szellemi arculatára végig jellemző belső dilemmákból fakadtak. A Franciaországban töltött korai 1930-as évek óta élt benne az a hit, hogy összhang teremthető a francia felvilágosodás örökségeként értelmezett baloldali, gyerekközpontú pedagógiai hitvallás (én ezt a polgári, individualizációs eszménynek tartom) és a kommunista társadalomszervezés egyenlősítő centralizációs elvei között. Szervező munkájában, miközben sokat tett azért, hogy a demokratikus eszményképeket követő általános iskola egyenlőség eszméje hassa át a szocialista nevelést, ezt összekapcsolta azzal a hittel, hogy a gyermeki közösségek sajátos érzelmikohó-szerepe meg tudja teremteni az összhangot az egyenlőség és a centralizáció között. Igyekszem rámutatni arra, hogy valójában nehezen összeegyeztethető a polgári individualizáció, mint a modern pszichológia egyik kiindulópontja és a hivatalnok eszményű szocialista közösségi felszabadítás. A gyermekből induló liberális és az egyenlőség elvű baloldali eszmények az oktatás irányába nem olyan könnyen illeszkednek, mint sok baloldali polgár, köztük Mérei hitte volt. Summary. The work of Ferenc Mérei (1909–1986) the Hungarian social and clinical psychologist and for a time communist educational leader involves several paradoxes. On one hand, we have the leader of the communist education reform between 1945 and 1949, who, as head of the Budapest municipal institute for education and the Countrywide Institute for Educational Research helped shape socialist schooling. On the other hand, from 1950 on, there is the expelled ostracized intellectual, who is even sentenced to prison after the 1956 revolution. As a third step, from the 1970s on, he appears as the leader of small groups, displaying life style reforms relying on mental resistance and resilience. In my view, these dualities are not only due to constraints of external life events, but are embedded in the internal dilemmas of the intellectual tensions continuously characterizing Mérei. From the time he spent in France in the early 1930s he cherished the belief that a harmony could be found between a child-centered educational commitment as a continuation of the heritage of French enlightenment (I consider this to be a citoyen individuation ideal) and the centralizing principles of communist social organization aimed at equalization. In his organizational work while he made many efforts to center socialist education around the program of a comprehensive school based on principles of democratic equality, he connected these to the belief that the peculiar emotional atmosphere of child communities could reconcile equality and centralization. I try to show that bourgeois individualization as one starting point of modern psychology is difficult to reconcile with community liberation with burocratic inspirations. The liberal child based ideals of education are not easy to reconcile with leftist ideals of equality – contrary to what was and is believed by many left wing citoyen thinkers, among them by Mérei.

SOVIET PRACTICE OF TEACHER TRAINING IN THE OSTROH PEDAGOGICAL SCHOOL (1939–1941, 1944–1956)

Based on the study of new documentary sources, the Soviet practice of teacher training in the Ostroh pedagogical school from the time of its creation and until the reorganization of the institution has been comprehensively considered. The functioning of a vocational school during the two periods of the Soviet regime, separated by the German-Soviet war and the establishment of the Nazi occupation power on Ukrainian territories, has been analyzed. In the first, against the background of socio-political transformations since the accession of Western Ukrainian lands to the USSR, the reorganization of the educational sector on the Soviet model has been noted and the emphasis has been made on directives and tasks of the party leadership concerning the establishing of pedagogical schools to train teachers from the local population. The peculiarities of the system of teaching and introduction of communist education in the pedagogical school at the initial stage of Sovietization of the region have been clarified. The second, longer period of activity of the Ostroh Pedagogical School is characterized by the resumption of the educational process in the postwar years, the rise of the Soviet government after the victorious end of World War II and the continuation of the course of socialist transformation in Western Ukraine. The analysis of statistical information helped to reproduce the dynamics of the number of teachers and students, as well as to determine their national and social composition. The organizational principles and content of professional and educational training of teachers in the postwar years have been highlighted. The attention is paid to the methods and forms of ideological treatment of student youth, among which the atheism, the activities of the Komsomol organization, conducting various events on communist propaganda work have been distinguished. These factors in Soviet practice determined the basic principles of the educational process in professional training of primary school teachers.

Communist human models promoted by the Romanian history textbooks

This paper proposes a historical approach of Romanian communist education as it is reflected in the textbooks edited in the second part of XX century. For communist regime the textbooks, especially history ones became a tool of promotion political principles. There are many pictures, texts, exercises, additional readings which offer enough examples about what behaviour ought to be (non)appreciated and manifested by students, what they have to feel, to act or not. Also, scientific contents of textbook transmit to students a set of beliefs and values even if the teacher do not intend to focus on them. In this way, history textbook could be a perfect promoter of communist thinking and lifestyle. In addition, the textbook narrates about some „heroes” and their acts, gestures, political and military victories. Talking about them, it is a good way to promote those personalities that could become „models” for younger generation. Using theoretical research methodology, we have structured human models, as they had presented in the history textbooks, placing them into a communist human typology. As a result, this paper demonstrates that the textbooks have been important ideological tools, having a bigger impact to students’ consciousness and behaviour. Keywords: Education; communist ideology; human models; textbooks; history;

The Problem of Emigration and Deportation in the Fate of Academician Community of the Kamianets-Podilskyi State Ukrainian University

The problem of further development of the national university structure in the context of the European integration processes of the Ukrainian educational system and its internal transformation significantly foregrounds research studios, in which the subject of retrospective approaches has being developed various aspects of the topic, including the fate of representatives of professorial teaching corporations and studentship in the event of defeat of national liberation struggles the beginning of the 20th century and the establish­ment of the Soviet form of statehood in Ukraine. This process has been analyzed on the example of the Kamianets-Podilskyi State Ukrainian University, which was founded on the eve of Hetman P. Skoropadskyi with the direct participation of representatives of government structures, local self-government and public institutions. The authors used the problem-chronological and historical-typological methods, which provided a distinction in the topic of research of certain problems. The change of political regimes in Ukraine has led to the use of the historical-comparative method, and the biographical has allowed to ascertain the activity of concrete activists in a fractious period of history. It was emphasized that at the end of 1920, the academician community of the Kamianets-Podilskyi State Ukrainian University faced the problem of further life choices. It has been noted that a part of the staff of the educational institution, based on the previous experience of Bolshevik governance in Podillia, has made a decision in favor of emigration. It has been proved that 18 members of the corporation sent abroad from among the professors, private associate professors and assistants, were headed by rector I. Ohiienko. Students were a separate group. The challenges of everyday life have been described in the conditions of emigration being, and attempts have been demonstrated to overcome them. I. Ohiienkoʼs active position in solving urgent questions concerning the assignment of members of the professorial corporation to European scientific centers has been shown with purpuse to complete the researches begun at home and their employment in educational institutions organized in the camps of the interned. Great efforts were also made by I. Ohiienko to help students continue their studies at European Higher Education Centers. Despite the unstable political and difficult financial situation, these tasks have been successfully implemented to a certain extent. With the rest of the projects and programs it looked less important. It has been demonstrated that the expectations of those representatives of the corporation that remained in Ukraine, in order to contribute to the development of the educational system in its national forms by its own work, in view of the general strategy of the Bolshevik Party to unify all spheres of social and political life, have not been justified. Some representatives of the corporation were included in the list of prominent figures of science and culture, which the Soviet authorities preferred to deport abroad at the end of 1922 – early 1923 has been shown. The precondition of this process has been proved by the fact that the communist education system was oriented to satisfy the needs of the state, Bolshevik model of socialism, but much less to improve social relations. As a result, political purges and permanent terror, including deportation, have become an inalienable and key method of «sovietization» of the intelligentsia in scientific and educational institutions.

The Social Portrait of the Most Active Communists and Their Supporters in the First Republic of Lithuania

The aim of this article is to provide a social portrait of the most active communists and their supporters who had participated in the illegal underground communist movement during the period of the First Lithuanian Republic (1918–1940). Also, we analyze the question of what socioeconomic conditions led these people to participate in or support the communist underground. The biographies and biographical data of two hundred forty-two individuals (the most active members of the communist party of Lithuania, their supporters, and party leadership from 1926) were researched. The main source for such a study were autobiographies and questionnaires gathered by the former Institute of Party History of Soviet Lithuania. The social portrait was divided by studying the birthplace (city, town, or village), social origins, the situation of the wealth of the family, the education of the person, their marital status, children, occupation, and imprisonment. Many causes (written in autobiographies) of why these individuals joined the communist movement were related to their socialization and social contacts (influence from parents, friends, school, etc.). But it cannot be said that only these causes were relevant. People were also influenced by their social background, education, and the welfare of their families. All these aspects were also interrelated. This problem must be analyzed using a multicausal approach.There was not much quantitative difference between those who were born in the cities or in the villages, but when they began participating in the underground communist movement, their supporters mostly migrated to cities. Most of the analyzed people had come from workers’ families (about 40%) or the peasantry (28%). In total, about 70 percent of them came from quite poor families – 47% of the analyzed individuals described in their autobiographies the poor financial conditions of their upbringing; others also described difficulties, having lost one or both of their parents. However, about 20% wrote that their families lived quite normally, although these individuals still joined the communist movement. This proves that not only the financial situation of families was the deciding factor.The education acquired by these individuals was quite poor, too – about half had only primary education and did go to secondary school but did not finish it. About 13% had finished secondary schools, and only 5% acquired a higher degree diploma. The leadership of the CPL differed, as half of them had finished communist education schools in Moscow before returning to Lithuania.Because of the illegal activities in which they were engaged, many active communists and their supporters did not have families of their own (only 27% were married), and many did not have children (only 15% had a child).Most of the people analyzed were workers; some 9% did not have any long-term occupation, having to hide and move around a lot. About 12% were “professional revolutionaries” engaged in party work and were paid by the party. About 18% were pupils or students (mostly the supporters). Only about 14% worked as teachers, medics, accountants, etc. About half of these people were imprisoned at least once, and about 35% of them were imprisoned longer than 3 months. Party members were imprisoned more often and longer.

Leftization of Education in South Korean Society Centering Around the Authorized Textbooks

In South Korea, education is no longer a place for learning, but a base for preparing ideological warriors, due to left-wing ideology education and fervent and conscientious teachers’ union and strong left-leaning media. Since left-wing president Moon took office in 2017, omnidirectional “leftization” of education is ongoing in society. According to Prof. Chul-hong Kim, the current left-leaning “authorized” textbook system strenuously inculcates students with the appropriateness of materialistic historical views. A high school student engaged in the protest against the campaign of “state-designated” textbooks says at a press interview, “I’m a proletarian class. It’s only the proletarian revolution that can change our social structure and its fundamental contradiction.” For reference, there are three kinds of textbooks: (1) state-designated textbook published by state (so, its copyright belongs to state), (2) authorized textbook published by private publishing companies, on the condition of passing through the government screening system (inviting criticism for its “poor screening”), (3) free-published textbook left entirely to the private sector without any state intervention. Prologue The second authorized textbook system is a “compromise” plan between state-led and privately-led textbooks. The main motive for adopting authorized textbooks (from previous state-designated textbooks) was to introduce “diversity of views and opinions” in Korean education, but a conservative journalist Gap-je Cho concluded - from analyzing 14 authorized history textbooks - that “promoting educational diversity” by authorized textbook system ended in failure. Because a great majority of left-wing professors and teachers take part in writing historical textbooks on the basis of Marxist class struggle theory: that is, Koreanized “popular view of history” or populism-based historical perspective (民衆史觀). These authorized textbooks are adopted by almost 99% of high schools across the country. Moreover, they tend to implant one “monolithic” idea (historical materialism) in the consciousness of young students. According to Cho, the authorized textbook system mired in controversy is degraded into a “certificate” of anti-state, pro-communist education, in place of diversity.