Discovering Psychology Across Borders: Russia and Europe

Discovering Psychology across Borders expands the inquiry into the field of social representation of key ideas in psychology by providing systematic coverage of the ways in which psychology advanced in the context of Russian society at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Examining the controversial history of scientific contact in psychology between the European world and the Russian, Maslov provides a unique insight into the changes that psychology in Russia underwent as a result of the influence of European social representations.

The emergence and development of psychological science in Russia took place in the context of deep and insuperable struggle between two poles of society - Slavophiles and Westernizers - as well as the struggles between materialistic and idealistic philosophical and political camps. Using findings gathered from the study of unpublished materials in Russian, Estonian and European archives, Maslov endeavours to construct a unifying history of psychological ideas in Russia. Taking into account the intense personal, scientific and institutional conflicts that Russian psychologists faced, the book will give a wide and multifaceted analysis of their ideas and their applicability from the 1830s to 1922.

Providing unique insights that help us to understand modern and no less controversial tendencies in the current Russian and European scientific, political and cultural spaces, this book will be essential reading for psychologists and historians.

Kirill Maslov is a Researcher at Tallinn University in Estonia and the author of In the Light of Unseen: the life and destiny of A. A. Krogius (2014).