Российская психология в пространстве мировой науки - Ирина Анатольевна Мироненко

People were interested in psychology. They believed that it could help them to get rid of their stresses and inner conflicts and to be influential. Psychological education became very popular, and it was provided at all levels, from short time courses up to university diplomas.

So, psychology has been boosted in Russia since "Perestroika". The number of graduated psychologists has increased dramatically. In 2003 there were about 300 institutions of higher education in psychology in Russia from which about 5 000 students annually graduated. You can guess that these universities were very different from the old ones. The "father" University faculties also changed to meet the situation: now they were making money not on fundamental research, but on "educational services".

The totalitarian government during the Soviet period had treated psychology as a gardener shaping his tree: letting only those branches grow which fit his plan. Any deviation was illegal. With the fall of the Soviet state, ideological barriers to the development of Russian psychological science were removed. Many of older psychologists were just tired of sticking to the old theoretical "rules". The majority of the newly graduated psychologists had little knowledge of what the theoretical basics of Soviet Psychology were, and no interest to know about it. Most rapidly developing areas of contemporary Russian psychology were those which had been virtually abandoned during the Soviet period: counseling psychology social psychology etc. Naturally Western psychological theories were generally recognized and widely employed. Lots and lots of textbooks translated into Russian had no references to Russian authors whatsoever.

Thus, the majority of the contemporary Russian psychological community does not at all refer to the paradigm prevailing in Soviet psychology.

What part of the contemporary professional community masters theories of Soviet psychology? A very small one. That knowledge had to be transmitted directly from teachers to students, particularly taking into account the role of oral tradition in psychological education in Soviet Russia. There were no tutorials and classbooks for future psychologists. Their studies were based on monographs and papers, which were written in "Aesopian" language. The texts of our classics require hermeneutics, require reading together with the teacher.

That theory is mastered today by a very small part of the professional community, by those who have been specially trained and educated. Moreover, not all of these people cling to the old theoretical positions, so that this group's size gradually decreases.

However, the first group, which we denote is a group of followers of the Soviet psychology traditions, let us call it "Activity theory (AT) trend", as this is the most frequently used label for Soviet psychology in the mainstream. This group is not numerous, but that does not diminish its significance in the context of the problem being discussed.

What other groups should be singled out?

In the 90's with the collapse of the Soviet psychology paradigm, against a combination of processes of blurring of boundaries between the national and the global science and those of disintegration of the national professional community, a focus on foreign theories dominated in Russian psychology. Scientists who cling to those we shall call here "Pro-Western Developments" and assign them to a particular group, the second one in our analysis.

As for authentic trends that have developed in Russia in the post-perestroika period, we can denote Christian Orthodox Psychology, or Spiritual-Philosophical psychology, that is developing vigorously now, continuing a tradition that existed in Russia in pre-Soviet period. This research we shall call here "National Authentic Developments" and assign the scientists to a new group.

Of course, our classification is unilateral and symbolic, it does not appeal to the substance of the theories, very different theoretical orientations we put here in the same group (behaviourists, psychoanalytics, humanistic psychologists are all ascribed to "Pro-Western Developments"), because here we take into account only one aspect – how the theoretical approach developed in Russia in Post – Soviet period: continuing the development of the paradigm of Soviet period (AT); following contemporary Western traditions ("Pro-Western Developments"); Authentic developments ("National Authentic Developments"). And of course, very rarely we can see a pure brand in reality. Yet the classification is very easy to use – just look into the reference lists in papers…

Thus, three groups of scientists result:

• "Activity theory" (AT),

• " Pro-Western Developments",

• "National Authentic Developments".

Note that the structure of scientific community, to which our analysis has lead, to a large extent resembles the one in Russia in the pre-Soviet period, as described by V. A. Koltzova (Koltzova 1997; 2002):

• "Experimental" psychology, closely linked with Russian physiologists (I. M. Sechenov, LP. Pavlov), which became the basis for the development of science through the Soviet period;

• "Empirical" psychology, which is characterized by the orientation to European concepts and methods (followers of V. Vundt);

• Religious and philosophical psychology, based on the ideas of Russian theological, spiritual and philosophical thinkers.

Let us consider the problem of interests, ideals and constraints to integration with the mainstream separately for the groups we denoted in Russian professional community.

«Pro-Western Developments» include those who focus on Western theories: behaviourist, psychoanalytic, humanistic, etc. Globalist tendencies are naturally inherent here. This group accounted for the bulk of the avalanche increment of psychological community in the 90's, due to massive emissions of translated foreign books on psychological education market, the latter growing rapidly at that time.

The growth of counterglobalist tendencies in modern Russia to certain extent results from the disappointment of many of these people which befell them when they tried to enter the mainstream. Their research is of no interest there, their papers are not published in the journals. The point is not that the West is not interested in the life in Russia they assess, as A. V. Yurevich writes. It is the level of their work which does not meet the requirements of the mainstream. This is not surprising, since a substantial part of this group of scientists studied foreign theories by translations and retellings in textbooks, they do not read contemporary Western journals and therefore can