History

The journal is founded by the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education, a large modern scientific center for studying fundamental and applied problems of psychology, which has a high potential to ensure the intellectual sovereignty of the country.

History and Modernity of the Psychological Institute of RAE

The journal is founded by the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education, a large modern scientific center for studying fundamental and applied problems of psychology, which has a high potential to ensure the intellectual sovereignty of the country.

The Psychological Institute is the oldest and the first scientific institution in Russia specially created for research in the field of theoretical and experimental psychology. Its creative activity, aimed at the formation of an integrative research and educational complex of psychological science, has not been interrupted for more than 100 years. The intellectual efforts of several generations of the Institute’s scientists have laid a solid theoretical, methodological, and organizational foundation of domestic achievements in the field of psychological knowledge.

Establishing the Psychological Institute named after L.G. Shchukina at the Imperial Moscow University (its original name) is associated with the names of the outstanding scientist and educator, Professor Georgy I. Chelpanov (1862-1936) and the famous Russian entrepreneur and philanthropist Sergei I. Shchukin (1854-1936).

In November 1911, on Mokhovaya Street in Moscow, in accordance with a target project, the building of the Psychological Institute (architect A.S. Grebenshchikov) was erected, which in those years turned to be the largest scientific psychological institution in the world in terms of scientific space (59 classrooms). To conduct scientific research, the Institute was equipped with a complex of modern scientific and technical facilities (150 units) and a rich scientific library including over 4,000 major publications and 15 titles of European and domestic journals.

The Psychological Institute began its work on September 1, 1912 under the leadership of G.I. Chelpanov. He developed a three-year scientific course for the training of professional psychologists. The students and graduates of the Faculty of History and Philology, who chose the specialization of in-depth study of psychology, were provided with lectures, scientific and theoretical seminars as well as practical classes in experimental psychology. Many of them became the first employees of the Psychological Institute and made up the galaxy of the first domestic professional psychologists. Two years later, the Institute turned to be a completely established scientific psychological institution, and on March 23, 1914, the Inauguration of the Psychological Institute officially took place. It became a "triumph of Russian science" and an important event in the life of the world psychological community.

In 1944, the Institute was included in the newly formed Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR (since 1966 - APS of the USSR), then its activities were coordinated by the Russian Academy of Education, and nowadays - by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.

The staff of the Institute has always been truly "stellar": G.I. Chelpanov, N.A. Bernstein, E.I. Boyko, L.S. Vygotsky, E.A. Golubeva, E.V. Guryanov, F.D. Gorbov, G.G. Granik, K.M. Gurevich, V.V. Davydov, N.F. Dobrynin, N.I. Zhinkin, A.V. Zaporozhets, E.N. Kabanova-Meller, O.A. Konopkin, S.V. Kravkov, V.A. Krutetsky, T.V. Kudryavtsev, L.N. Landa, N.S. Leites, A.N. Leontiev, M.I. Lisina, A.R. Luria, A.K. Markova, A.M. Matyushkin, N.A. Menchinskaya, A.I. Mirakyan, N.G. Morozova, V.D. Nebylitsyn, D.A. Oshanin, A.V. Petrovsky, I.V. Ravich-Shcherbo, N.A. Rybnikov, S.L. Rubinstein, A.A. Smirnov, A.N. Sokolov, M.V. Sokolov, B.M. Teplov, V.V. Chebysheva, V.E. Chudnovsky, P.A. Shevarev, V.M. Ekzemplyarskiy, D.B. Elkonin, I.S. Yakimanskaya, P.M. Yakobson, and others. The works of these scientists have constituted the golden fund of the Russian psychological science and became the pride of the Institute.

Over the years, the Institute was headed by the outstanding domestic scientists and organizers of psychological science - G.I. Chelpanov, K.N. Kornilov, A.A. Smirnov, V.V. Davydov. A.M. Matyushkin, V.V. Rubtsov. At present, the Psychological Institute is directed by Yu.P. Zinchenko.

At the present stage of the Russian psychology development, the scientific divisions of the Institute conduct research on the traditional fundamental as well as the latest interdisciplinary, scientific, theoretical and practical, socially oriented psychological problems under the leadership of A.D. Andreeva, D.B. Bogoyavlenskaya, E.D. Bozhovich, A.N. Veraksa, M.K. Kabardov, A.I. Kovalev, S.B. Malykh, T.D. Martsinkovskaya, A.A. Melik-Pashayev, V.I. Morosanova, L.M. Mitina, V.I. Panov, V.S. Sobkin, E.I. Shcheblanova and others.

The scientific achievements of the Institute's staff of the past years provided the current generation of its researchers with the theoretical core that generates innovative concepts having the potential of basic foundations for the formation of new modern scientific schools.

For the outstanding merits to the motherland, the Psychological Institute was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, was repeatedly awarded with Certificates of Honor from federal and Moscow government departments, was awarded the Patriarchal Diploma of the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church Alexy II. Over the years, more than 70 of the Institute’s employees received awards from the President and the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of education.

In 2022, the Psychological Institute celebrated its 110th anniversary. A special issue of our journal (No. 3, 2022) was dedicated to this event, which contained articles prepared by the heads of almost all scientific departments of the Institute. The materials of the anniversary issue provided an opportunity to learn more about the history of the Institute and the modern directions of its research.