Dedication to Boris Daniilovich Elkonin

Photo by A.A. Shvedovskaya

In Memory of Boris Daniilovich Elkonin

On 14 November 2023, a severe illness cut short the life of Boris Daniilovich Elkonin, our colleague and friend, Doctor in Psychology, Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Psychology of Primary Schoolchildren at the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education, President of the International Association for Developmental Learning, Rector of the Open Institute "Developmental Education", Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Cultural-Historical Psychology".

B.D. Elkonin was one of the brightest, generous, caring and beloved by MA students mentors who accompanied their work on MSUPE programme "Cultural-Historical Psychology and Activity Approach in Education".

Boris Elkonin was born on 12 March 1950 into the family of psychologist Daniil Borisovich Elkonin, a pupil of L.S. Vygotsky. He became not just an heir to the family name. Boris Pasternak wrote: "There are many talents, no spirit". Mighty spirit and great talent met in D.B. Elkonin, the continuation of their meeting was B.D. Elkonin's life. The continuation of the father's work by his son turned out to be not only organic and natural, but also extremely productive.

B.D. Elkonin's book "The Psychology of Development" (in the tradition of L.S. Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory), published in 1994 and reprinted in different versions several times, became a milestone for cultural-historical psychology. Daniil Borisovich called Vygotsky's psychology non-classical; Boris Daniilovich sharpened the meaning of his father's assessment in a special way.

The idea that human life is culturally mediated took the form of the idea of intermediation as the first form of mediation. Cultural instruments, means, tools, etc., are themselves only elements of a special environment, the nature of which we can say nothing about until we see in their bearers, manifestors, in B.D. Elkonin's terminology, living people, co-participants in the individual life of each person from the moment of birth.

Boris Daniilovich was able to read this theoretical message in Lev Semyonovich's and Daniil Borisovich's works and developed his picture of "cultural development" on this basis. A variety of developmental processes had been studied in cultural-historical psychology before him, but the mechanism and structure of the act of development, which is inconceivable outside the mediating subjectivity of the other person (including himself as the other), is Boris Daniilovich's fundamental discovery. It is the closure of any understanding and explanation within the framework of cultural-historical psychology.

Boris Elkonin himself was and remains the mediator between the non-classical psychology of our classical teachers and the science of the 21st century, the era of the global "post-ne...", where everyone will have to become disciples of the classics anew. This is the only way to prevent the disintegration of the bond of time. For times, time is not in the natural flow of events, but in the events that people create for each other, in the events that form a special history. It is this history that interests cultural-historical psychology. L.S. Vygotsky, D.B. Elkonin, Boris Elkonin's first and main teacher, and Boris Elkonin himself were its creators.

B.D. Elkonin worked on those fundamental problems of developmental psychology and developmental education, behind which stand the eternal questions of L.S. Vygotsky's cultural-historical concept and "the ultimate meanings of education", as I.M. Remorenko accurately noted (his word is published below). At the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century Boris Elkonin actually problematized them anew and by this breathed new life, modernity, into the cultural-historical concept and its educational implementation. Perhaps, after L.S. Vygotsky, he was the only one in this tradition who turned not just to the study of diverse developmental processes, but to the comprehension of the phenomenon of development as such, the Act or Step of development, in his terminology.

It is an indication of what and whose great deeds B.D. Elkonin achieved. After the demise of his second teacher - V.V. Davydov - Boris Elkonin was unanimously elected to the International Association for Developmental Learning founded by Vasily Vasilievich. The Laboratory of Psychology of the Primary Schoolchildren of the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, headed by B.D. Elkonin, was formerly called the Laboratory of Developmental Psychology. It was under this name that B.D. Elkonin received his Laboratory of the Psychology of the Primary Schoolchildren from V.V. Davydov. It was once "handed down" from its founder, D.B. Elkonin, to V.V. Davydov... Such a continuity. After V.P. Zinchenko, the editor-in-chief of the journal "Cultural and Historical Psychology", passed away, he headed the journal, the level of which was set by Vladimir Petrovich, an old friend of the Elkonin family, who closely followed Boris Elkonin's research, highly appreciated what he found and sincerely loved its author.

Boris Elkonin brought to scientific life the teaching spirit of friendship and love. ...Truth or friend - there is no such dilemma: we make our way to the truth with friends, driven by their inspiration and love for the truth itself, which has not yet been born. Boris Daniilovich, like Daniil Borisovich, was a wonderful inspiration, in love with what he was searching for. 

Condolences to all who were close to Boris Daniilovich Elkonin and loved him. 

Our memory of Boris Daniilovich is thinking about what was significant for him and opened up an untravelled zone of distant development of cultural-historical psychology, which his followers will have to pass through together with his ideas. 

Editorial board of the journal "Cultural-Historical Psychology"

Colleagues, friends, students about B.D. Elkonin

On the authenticity of the individual and the ultimate meanings of science, education, life  

A.G. Asmolov

academician of Russian Academy of Education

Head of the Department of Personality Psychology

Faculty of Psychology, MSU named after M.V. Lomonosov

From the article "Genuine Boris Elkonin" (Psychological Gazette, 7 December 2023)

Boris Elkonin always spoke the language of meaning, as Daniil Elkonin also spoke, as Halperin often spoke. And Boris Elkonin, as well as other "children" in the genetic and methodological sense of Vygotsky's school, "nest". They are semanticists. They had and have a unique philosophical and methodological culture. Just as Vygotsky loved Spinoza, so Boris Elkonin suffered and loved Heidegger, no matter how hard I personally feel about Heidegger on many moral grounds.

Boris Elkonin is a true psychologist because he never, at any time, just like V.V. Davydov, just like V.P. Zinchenko, in any of the most difficult situations was never threatened to become "volunteers of debasing" (writer Leskov's term).

Boris Elkonin was genuine, because for him, life itself and the profession of psychologist was his destiny. And he did not think of any other destiny for himself. He was inimitable in his honesty, conscientiousness of falling in love with psychology and in his unique ability to ask questions, coming from Leontiev's whole "nest". It is no coincidence that one of his last articles was entitled "Questioning the Psyche".

Boris Elkonin was full of questioning ideas. And when I read the correspondence of recent years with Boris Elkonin, I am amazed at his immense intellectual power and his philosophical acumen.

Lev Vygotsky said that there are two types of methodologies: shell methodology and skeletal methodology. A shell methodology is like a house on a snail. You can climb out of it and move on. It performs mainly a protective function. And skeletal methodology is our intellectual skeleton, it is the value and intellectual core that holds the body of Vygotsky's school ideology together. Each of the Vygotsky school is a unique exponent of skeletal methodology. And its exponent is such a Master, in the Bulgakovian sense of the word, as my friend, classmate, classmate... (We studied in the same group with Borya Elkonin, Lena Vygotskaya (later Kravtsova), Vadim Petrovsky, Vladimir Sobkin and others). It was a group of individuals... I could list a number of others from our group of wonderful researchers. But Borya in our group was always a boundlessly open-minded mischief-maker and intellectual bully.

Boris Elkonin has always been and remains a teenager. He lived cheerfully, he could prank, he pranked from the first to the fifth year... Each time he loved life and those with whom he came into contact. Love for life, for intellect, for meaning, for the authenticity of scientific existence is one of the brightest characteristics of such a meaning-maker, which Boris Elkonin was, is and will remain for me.

It is very difficult to be the son of this or that great scientist. It was very difficult for Alexei Alexeevich Leontiev to be the son of Alexei Nikolayevich Leontiev, and even more so for Dmitry Leontiev to be the grandson of Alexei Nikolayevich and the son of Alexei Alexeevich. It was not easy for Vladimir Zinchenko to be the son of Pyotr Ivanovich Zinchenko and literally the son of the whole family, who was loved and admired by Zaporozhets, Leontiev and Galperin.

Boris Elkonin was beloved by our teachers. Boris Elkonin is not just an extension, he is literally a completely non-scientific copy of Daniil Elkonin, because he powerfully said his own word in psychology!

When Vasily Davydov (whom my friends called Vaska Partisan, just as they called Volodya Zinchenko Lohmatiy (Shaggy)) passed away, it was Boris Elkonin who picked up the baton of Davydov's and Elkonin's theory of developmental learning. And he did the following: he turned it into practice. He made Isak Frumin, Viktor Bolotov, Igor Remorenko and many others come to education through psychology…

Boris Elkonin wrote a brilliant article together with Isak Frumin that human maturation through additional education permeates all ages of life. This was back in the 1990s.

And without Boris Elkonin, it is literally impossible to imagine developmental pedagogy, which my friends from Krasnoyarsk took as a flag: Viktor Bolotov, Isak Frumin, and Pavel Sergomanov. All of them were born in dialogue not only with Davydov, but also with Boris Elkonin.

B.D. Elkonin and I.M. Remorenko. Photo by M.V. Klarin

I.M. Remorenko

Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Education

Rector of Moscow State Pedagogical University

When Boris Daniilovich was invited to various conferences and seminars, one always expected from him either to make a set, framework, basic judgement, or to generalize and participate in the construction of conclusions.

Why is that so?

Because he was one of the few who could talk about the most important things, discuss the ultimate meanings of education.

Photo by M.V. Klarin

V.V. Rubtsov

Academician of Russian Academy of Education

President of the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education 

A.A. Margolis

Rector of Moscow State University of Psychology and Education

V.T. Kudryavtsev

Professor of Moscow State University of Psychology and Education and Moscow State Pedagogical University

A.A. Shvedovskaya

Head of the Department of Information and Publishing Projects, Associate Professor at MSUPE

From the article "Celebrating the 70th Birthday of B.D. Elkonin. The Mediator Between 'Non-classical' Psychologies" (Cultural-Historical Psychology. 2020. Vol. 16, no. 1)  

...Cultural-historical psychology, in B.D. Elkonin's version, is the knowledge of how the ideal and real forms (according to Vygotsky) meet in human development, a meeting that is far from "idyllic" in itself, but is intensely contradictory, requiring a person to overcome himself in creative action. Development is not so much the child's attempt to "take a sample of culture" as to find himself in this "sample". To "recognize", to build oneself in culture as a subject of development. <...>

According to both D.B. Elkonin and B.D. Elkonin, no system of ideal cultural samples will ever replace the human image - the image of activity, which the adult reveals to the child from the moment of birth. "Appears" for B.D. Elkonin is a key word: the adult for the child is, first of all, the "manifestor" of the image of activity. And it is in the process of "manifestation" of the image of activity that he does not immediately, but gradually becomes the bearer of its model. At first we observe the primordial fusion of the image and the sample, but very soon the sample is separated and begins to live some "own" life. Mum no longer just gently strokes the baby's hands, into which human things accidentally fall from her hands, but teaches him to grasp, hold, shake, roll - in a human way, in accordance with the "established norm"…

This is the way it should be. But perhaps even later, in the symphonic sound we will "recognize" distant echoes of the mother's song: in the working movements of a master - the confidence of daddy's hands, in outstanding books - the continuation of conversations with wise teachers and talented friends. So that it all becomes "ours" - like mum's love, dad's reliability, like apprenticeship and friendship. Cultural meanings come into a child's life through semantic "gates" - not at all contrary to L.S. Vygotsky. As well as samples - as part of the image of activity. An image, which can only be revealed by a living, meaningful intermediary. Not just as a "significant other" (according to Harry Sullivan), but as a mirror of the child's own abilities, as D.B. Elkonin wrote.

Photo from E.A. Bugrimenko's archive

T. Yu. Bazarov

Professor Emeritus of Moscow University

Professor of the Department of Social Psychology, MSU named after M.V. Lomonosov 

Boris Elkonin. Memory through the Blue Smoke

Smoking a pipe, as you know, is not a naughty thing. And if it is, it's a special kind of naughty. A cigarette is frivolous, a cigar is prim. A pipe is not. I've been smoking a pipe for a long time. For many people, it's either kitschy or a slur. Anyway, it's a purely personal matter. And who cares what kind of fun that satisfies me. Personally for me it is obvious that at some moments without a pipe the world looks different: preoccupied, dull and dreary. Yes, what's the world, I myself look duller and clumsier, dull and haggard. But that's a small thing. I can ignore them.

And so are people. Some pass by unnoticed, as if they never existed. Others seem significant. But it's not accurate. Accuracy takes time and effort.  And then there are others.

I mean them.

Prominent and remarkable. Without a shadow of self-presentation. They are enough. And not just for themselves. They are seen, they are different. Something mesmerising. You expect something special. And still you squint. A kind of equivalence. If there's something to it.

A conversation begins. Saturated with meanings and shimmering halftones of meaning. The anticipation of an upheaval of understanding. Then rapture and expectation again. It's not that you have nothing to say. It's simply not necessary. Relax, immerse yourself in the inevitable intellectual feast. You don't need anything. It's just this. That's all you need. But how difficult it is to be transported into this boundless ocean of doubts and deep meanings that are in front of you and many thousands of years away.

You're being torn apart: come back here, stay there. Be there and here, be everywhere. Be everywhere. Please try. Please don't upset the Universe, you're a Human Being. So you can.

I realize you can't do everything. I realize you can't do much. But still.

Tell me you can do it. Tell me why. Tell me why you can do it. What if I can't? What happens if you don't? Will everything stop? Is it all for nothing? No. Maybe next time. Next time, there are footprints. Maybe ours. So let's make a mark.

You're a pipe smoker. Do you know how to screw the mouthpiece in? Clockwise. That's what I know. And I advise you to do it that way. Never anti-clockwise. It's possible, of course, but don't ever do that. Why? I think it would violate a very important law of the Universe. Or maybe a human law. Anyway, some important law. You don't have to think about it. You just do it and that's it.

A charming smile. A supportive squint. Not everything. Just the stuff that reeks of kindness and soul effort.

There is no practical psychology. There are practical psychologists.

PS. Every day, while filling my pipe, I remember Boris Elkonin's very words. I never screw the mouthpiece in anti-clockwise. But I could. After all, there's nothing easier to do the other way round. And now I think, how did he manage to stay by leaving?  Was it through the simple act of making meaning? Yes. But not only that. Rather, through the meaning he embodied? But that's just a hypothesis, too. It's all about asking the right question.

Answers to the "Questionnaire" of the Editorial Board  of the Journal "Cultural-Historical Psychology"

While preparing this issue, we addressed the representatives of the scientific and educational community with a proposal for 2 questions: 

1) What do you think B. D. Elkonin entered science and education with?

2) In which role has Boris Daniilovich entered your life? 

We also asked colleagues to share Boris Daniilovich's unique archive photos, including those shared with him.

We thank everyone who responded to the editorial board's proposal and request!

At the Conference on Anthropopractices of Development (2015) in Izhevsk.

Standing (left to right): S.F. Sirotkin, T.M. Kovaleva, S.A. Smirnov. B.D. Elkonin is sitting.

Sergey Alevtinovich Smirnov

Doctor in Philosophy,

Chief Scientific Associate,

Institute of Philosophy and Law, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Chelovek.RU"

Novosibirsk

1. Boris Daniilovich entered science with his Thought. He set a new horizon for cultural-historical psychology. He expanded its vocabulary, enriched it with his Word. And although he said many times that the word "event" had also become a hackneyed word, we can still say that he was building an event psychology and pedagogy, the Psychology of Event, the Event of human accomplishment in man, in the little man. He considered himself first of all a child psychologist. But in fact he set the ultimate horizon for further searches, not only within the framework of cultural-historical psychology, but in general for the whole of humanistics. He was with his vocabulary unaccustomed to psychologists, since his constant interlocutors were M. Heidegger and M. Bakhtin, and, of course, his teachers P. Y. Halperin, A. V. Zaporozhets, and, of course, L. S. Vygotsky himself, and his father Daniil Borisovich.

Boris Daniilovich accepted the baton of cultural-historical psychology development and established his indispensable and irreplaceable place in it, setting himself a new milestone in it, strengthening it by setting the ontological and anthropological horizons of CHP development. 

2. He came into my life since 1995. He became a thick, juicy and deep Voice of the Author, a constant interlocutor and companion, an older comrade and friend, who did not suffer from metropolitan snobbery. Each of our meetings, of which there were many in different cities of the country, became another moment, an episode of an endless Conversation, which I wanted to prolong for a long, long time, indefinitely.

This Conversation has not been interrupted even now. And Boris Daniilovich remains my constant interlocutor, to whom you can always turn again, ask a question, and listen, listen, talk again, listen again…

Deepest gratitude.

With T.N. Kovaleva in Izhevsk (2015)

Tatiana Mikhailovna Kovaleva

Doctor in Pedagogy, Professor,

Head of the Laboratory of Individualization of Continuing Education and Tutoring, Moscow State Pedagogical University

1. For education, B.D. Elkonin made a fundamentally new and very important contribution (in fact, the second after Ushinsky), developing a whole direction of anthropopraxis as the practice of supporting human development. And within the framework of this approach it became possible to rethink the pedagogy of development, the very act of development, and productive action… 

For several years, annual conferences on anthropopraxis were held in Izhevsk on the initiative of B.D. Elkonin (he was the Chairman of the Programme Committee), bringing together researchers from various fields of psychology, pedagogy, culturology, and philosophy who were developing and implementing the anthropopraxis approach. 

2. For our scientific and practical tutor group and the whole staff of the school "Eureka-Development" in Tomsk, B.D. was a great friend and the main expert, with whom we jointly created a polysystemic model of the school and discussed all the stages of its formation. Later, developing the tutor problematics within the framework of the Interregional Tutor Association, we constantly held annual tutor conferences and joint scientific seminars, where we discussed the specifics of the tutor's position, its resourcefulness and interaction with the positions of teachers and psychologists; the technology of the tutor's work, etc.  Without B.D. Elkonin's participation in all this work, the conceptual advancement of our group would have been impossible. 

Cultural-historical psychologists Boris Elkonin, Nikolai Veresov,

Pentti Hakkarainen (d. 2021). Kajani, Finland, 2001.

Nikolay Nikolaevich Veresov

PhD in Psychology, Doctor in Philosophy, PhD,

Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Monash University (Melbourne, Australia),

Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal "Cultural-Historical Psychology"

1. A new philosophical justification (for psychology!) of the idea of mediation and productive free action (and this is the condition (mediation) and realization (productive action) of freedom. Unlike trivial discourses like free will and freedom of choice, this reflection gives psychology the opportunity to investigate the process of freedom's genesis.

2. An older comrade, wise and ironic. Perfect form.

Dmitry Kovalev's photo shows the familiar "Alchemy" of scientific communication in the Laboratory of Psychology of the Primary Schoolchildren at the Psychological Institute on Mokhovaya Street. Renovated basement room where L.S. Vygotsky lived when he moved from Gomel to Moscow. Portraits on the wall: Daniil Borisovich Elkonin, Vasily Vasilyevich Davydov, Vladimir Petrovich Zinchenko. Under the frame with a calendar - L.S.Vygotsky's associates and Lyudmila Filippovna Obukhova. 

Dmitry Yuryevich Kovalev

Engineer - pedagogue, MA in Psychology,

graduate of the MSUPE MA programme

"Cultural-Historical Psychology and

Activity Approach in Education" 

1. It is not in my status to give estimates about the contribution of dear Boris Daniilovich Elkonin to science and education, but still I would like to say that he was the Alchemist of psychology. Why, you may ask? Everything is very simple - Daniil Borisovich - his Work, Life, everything was directed on cognition of "essence of phenomena", he as an ancient Alchemist (and we remember that Alchemy, in translation from Ancient Greek contains such concepts, χυμεία - "fluid" and χέω - "pour") spreading the "fluids" of his masculine charm and charisma to others, "poured" into science Ideas about the development of fundamentally new thinking abilities of students. 

2. And for me personally, Boris Daniilovich will always remain the person who explained to me how to correctly set my own boundaries of support in this difficult World and confirmed in the understanding that Development always implies only good!

"Everyone but best friends come back..."

"The deeply human meaning of cultural-historical psychology" in its splendid faces: Elena Smirnova and Boris Elkonin. Photo by Maria Sokolova.

Elina Lampert-Shepel

Associate Professor at Touro College,

New York State (USA)

1. From my point of view, B.D. Elkonin created a new cultural-historical language of activity theory, constructed new concepts of subjectivity, mediation, and probation. His theoretical language was born difficult and original, and was a product of his spiritualized thinking. His philosophical and anthropological foundations of developmental psychology continued the rebellious and deeply human meaning of cultural-historical psychology, forced a rethinking of the formalized concepts of activity theory, breathed new living meanings into them, and thus gave rise to new innovative educational practices.

2. I treasured Borya's consciousness aloud, a creative co-existence in which the event of experiencing new meanings and ideas together was born. For a while, in the early 1990s, as a simultaneous interpreter of his consciousness aloud, when I had to run ahead and speculate on emerging ideas (a requirement of simultaneous translation), I was lucky enough to experience his consciousness "glimmering" (Bunin). In each such speculation, B.D. had the responsibility to continue a cultural tradition and the creative courage to create new ideas and a new theoretical language. In my practice as a researcher, I try not to lose the voice of cultural tradition and the reprobation of trying the new.

Tatyana Nikolayevna Voloshko

Editor-in-Chief of the electronic newspaper "News of Education",

MA in Psychology, graduate of the MSUPE MA programme

"Cultural-Historical Psychology and Activity Approach in Education",

co-researcher of the UNESCO Department "Cultural and Historical Psychology of Childhood", MSUPE

1. Boris Daniilovich Elkonin introduced the principles of developmental education, but he focused not on primary school, but on adolescence, which is very close to me due to my professional activity. BD spoke about the importance of "one's" place (in this or that activity, in this or that collective; more broadly, in the Universe). In particular, adolescents need to find this place and feel significant, necessary, influential; to become "co-participants" in planning the learning process; to think critically, to evaluate their activities, to find and correct mistakes independently, etc. 

2. B.D. was my lecturer at the MSUPE MA programme "Cultural-Historical Psychology and Activity Approach in Education". We adored his lectures, jokes, manner of speaking. (Reading the book he gave me, I can clearly hear his low voice).  He often used the words "endure" and "question" and I loved it. He did not stop questioning himself, showing a keen and sincere interest in our research.

I am very grateful to Boris Daniilovich for his warm, parental support at my seminar before the defence of my MA thesis; for his interest in my work and for the time he spent with me. His participation and attitude made me feel relevant and significant. I will never forget his kind face, smile, delicate compliments, careful and subtle remarks (more like wishes) and very precise and necessary recommendations when discussing my work. 

Thank you, Boris Daniilovich!

Photo by E.N. Soldatenkova

Elena Nikolayevna Soldatenkova 

Pedagogical Psychologist of MSUPE Federal Resource Centre for Complex Support of Children with ASD,

PhD student of the Department of Age Psychology named after L.F. Obukhova

Faculty of Psychology of Education, MSUPE

I met Boris Daniilovich by chance, although I had previously been trained as a teacher in the system of Developmental Education (back in college, in the distant 90s). And then I went to study at postgraduate school (the emptiness about difficult affective childhood, when there was nothing to answer to the remarks of bloggers-journalists, replicating foreign approaches... and they had already entered our walls and dictated the working conditions to us - qualified specialists).

The traditional "analysis should weigh, not count" did not work, more concentrated knowledge was needed, with a developed system of conceptual means. By that time I had a long period of work with such children (closer to 20 years old), I had seen a lot of things, but I did not know the FORM OF THE WORD. And then, one day, one of the students of the Master's programme "Cultural and Historical Psychology" - Alexey Gontarenko, said: "Come to our lecture, everyone is allowed there". I got curious. We went. And here - a quote from "Thinking and Speech" in the rhythm of "easy breathing": "IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD"... It pierced me... Everything in my head was immediately re-structured: situations from practice, concrete examples of syncretism in the thinking of children with autism began to pop up, and everything spun.

And later there were lectures on "Cultural-Historical Psychology" at the Higher School of Economics, discourse seminars at the Psychological Institute, where topical reports with discussions were made. Everyone waited for Boris Daniilovich's final WORD and it was always BEAUTIFUL. CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT WORD was gradually gaining ground under its roots: bloggers began to receive sane answers to their remarks, and parents of children with autism (more than 78% of children with autism in preschool age do not speak) received appropriate recommendations for their work.

Another surprising thing was that once I needed a review of a course. It seemed like a trifling matter, but no one responded. But Boris Daniilovich wrote it, and he wrote it well: it seemed good, but the phrase "high probability of its success" made me think.

He was able to set a task, creating a mediating situation. I kept thinking, WHAT WAS WRONG? And then the publication of the article "Axis. Support. Field" and discussions in PI RAE. Something caught quickly, something slipped away, and the participants of the CLUB of the TWO B's (Boris Daniilovich and Boris Alexeyevich Arkhipov), supported by L.I. Elkoninova and E.A. Bugrimenko, looked at each other and smiled at the presentation of our reports.

Later, we also began to catch erroneous statements (most notably "Seminar is not a place for discussions"), double and triple messages: several action plans and navigation became easier, which was not the case with the seminarians who had just joined. At the same time articles were being written (rewritten), a dissertation (36 versions) was being written, and assistive technologies in work with children were being created. Boris Daniilovich always gave feedback, through any channel, even on holidays, and I was always happy: "Oh, I found the right WORD". The work of recreating the traditions of the experimental-genetic method, the conditions for organizing cumulative/mediated action was fascinating. Together with Boris Daniilovich came L.S. Vygotsky's eight, participants of the Zagorsky experiment (though with a different kind of ontological disability, but... overcoming as a key concept of the genesis of the HMF remained), artists and poets came. He especially liked to quote to us O. Mandelstam "I FORGOT THE WORD that I wanted to say..." and each reference gave birth to a sea of associations: Stygian shadow, reflected subjectivity in a child with ASD…

And later there were seminars: "Activity Approach in Education", conferences "Modern Didactics" and so on.

"And slowly grows as if a tent or a temple..."

He warned that the activity approach "is not a banner, but a subject of consideration and, if we are lucky, reconstruction". He made it clear why personal and meta-subject results are formed only on the basis of activity practice, not functional behavior analysis and ABA-therapy, which imagines itself to be evidence-based practice ("They shout like victory, about forging Gods out of copper... the statues stand for a short time and the lava of the first volcano melts their castings"). The crisis of science and practice became even more apparent thanks to him: methodological recommendations for working with children with autism are still written in the language of primitive functional analysis of behavior, the restructuring of the ways of implementing the unformed function is in no way reflected in the work of practitioners, and children remain at the level of mastering (have they mastered?) ALTERNATIVE communication (NOT SPEECH)

"We are near, yet also far away..."

It is difficult to say WHAT the man who accompanied you for a DAY gave you. In fact, he gave (not only to me, but also to others) a whole WORLD, an OPEN WORLD and a REAL authentic BEING and WORD.

It is also difficult to single out the most significant of his works, but for me, one of the last ones is particularly important: "Towards a Questioning of the Psyche: A Chain of Questions"[1]. where he presented the psyche as "a triangle with state, image and movement at its vertices, and in the center (at the intersection of the bisectors) the CONCEIVED WORD":

"SAVE MY SPEECH FOREVER as the flavor of unhappiness and smoke"...

With E.V. Chudinova

Elena Vasilievna Chudinova

PhD in Psychology,

Leading Researcher of the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education 

B.D.'s contribution to psychology is a new understanding of mental development, a new understanding of Action, and also a bright and lively energy of L.S.Vygotsky's school, stretched out, passed on from the older generations to the younger ones. 

His contribution to education is the rethinking of what has been done in developmental learning in primary school and the breakthrough of developmental learning in basic and high school, the unique project "Teenage School" with the ongoing scientific and educational results generated by the project, and most importantly - thousands of people involved in the DEVELOPMENT of education.

I have been blessed in my life to live near and work alongside a man of great soul. 

With V.A. Lvovsky

Vladimir Alexandrovich Lvovsky,

PhD in Psychology, Associate Professor,

Head of the Laboratory of Designing

Activity-Based Educational Content

Institute of System Projects,

Moscow State Pedagogical University

"Great things are seen at a distance": it will be possible to speak confidently about B.D.'s contribution to science and culture in decades to come. But in human terms, his main contribution is to the people he communicated with, taught and learnt from. And he always taught one thing - trial-and-productive action. To feel the axis, to have supports and to see the field of possibilities. For me personally, B.D. is not just a senior friend and teacher, he is the air of the DE (Developmental Education. - Ed.) school, and I could never have spent many years inventing a developmental physics course.

"It was so soulful and warm..."

B.D. ("Big Daddy") with Galina Anatolievna Tsukerman and Natalia Lazarevna Tabachnikova

Natalia Lazarevna Tabachnikova

Maths teacher at school no. 91 (Moscow)

I met Boris Daniilovich on the 1st of September 1978, when I came to work at school 91 and after lessons I visited their laboratory...

Many vivid memories are associated with this pure-hearted and great man. 

A few years ago, Boris Daniilovich spent a year teaching our pre-school children. It was a great joy and happiness to watch it. Our six-year-olds listened to Big Daddy with their mouths open, twirled around him and even tried to hug him (the bravest ones). 

Another vivid memory is the Hawaii conference and visiting local lessons together. Then I had to translate a lesson analysis made by Boris Daniilovich. That was hilarious. 

In general, I participated in such a marvellous unforgettable story only thanks to Boris Daniilovich. 

It was so soulful and warm...

Photo by M.V. Klarin

Mikhail Vladimirovich Klarin

Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Education,

Doctor in Pedagogy,

Chief Researcher of the Research Institute of Urbanism and Global Education,

Moscow State Pedagogical University 

I remember in one of the experiments where you had to compare the length of two rubber bands, the child answered as best he could and Boris patted him on the head.

It was a formative experiment which shaped human interest, warmth, love.

Conventional experimenters don't pat children on the head.