Guseltseva M.S. Review of the article by René van der Veer „Exploring Vygotsky’s Archives“

René van der Veer is a Dutch scholar, professor of history and theory of education at Leiden University. His main areas of expertise include the history of psychology and education, the development of ideas in cultural-historical psychology and the role of L.S. Vygotsky in this process, as well as comparative studies of children’s development and learning across different cultures.

In the reviewed article “Exploring Vygotsky’s Archives” van der Veer argues that a full understanding of L.S. Vygotsky’s intellectual legacy requires studying not only his published works but also his notebooks, draft notes, unedited manuscripts and correspondence. As evidence, R. van der Veer provides his own analysis of several such notes and fragments of scholarly correspondence.

The aim of the publication is to draw attention to the lack of systematized archives of L.S. Vygotsky’s legacy, as well as that of A.R. Luria, which would allow interested researchers to gain an adequate understanding of these scholars. According to R. van der Veer, despite the significant flow of publications and the sustained interest in Vygotsky’s work, there are still no “reliable archives” accessible both to specialists and to the general public. There is no research center that could, upon request, provide facsimile copies of Vygotsky’s manuscripts, articles, and letters. Nor is there a library where one could fully explore copies of his works alongside thematically related publications by his contemporaries. At present, there exist only family archives with highly restricted access and private collections of individual enthusiasts.

Based on his analysis of Vygotsky’s scholarly correspondence and notebooks, van der Veer concludes that there is significant potential for the systematic collection of all correspondence stored in various state and private archives.

Key words: methodology, history of psychology, scholarly archives, thematic letters, interdisciplinary integration

For citation: Guseltseva, M.S. (2025). Review of the article by René van der Veer „Exploring Vygotsky’s Archives“. New Psychological Research, No. 4, 283–295. DOI: 10.51217/npsyresearch_2025_05_04_14

Acknowledgment

The article was prepared within a state task, project FNRE-2024-0016.