“Lines of Mourning”: On the Issue of National and Cultural Self-Determination of L.S. Vygotsky

The paper presents the full text of a work by L.S. Vygotsky “Lines of Mourning” (1916) along with detailed commentaries. This article was the first of the three published in the Jewish periodical Noviy Put’ that can be considered a triptych dedicated to the issues of national, cultural and religious traditions and their relation with modern times. The text and commentaries provide an insight into personal meanings and attitudes of young Vygotsky in the situation of political and value/normative uncertainty. This enables us to reconstruct the features of social, political, national and ethic self-definition of the scientist and to reveal the grounds and values underlying the cultural-historical approach. Special attention is brought to the dialogic nature of the Jewish and Russian culture. In the commentaries we also focus on the specifics of artistic and reflective position of Vygotsky in relation to pre-revolutionary events that took place at that time: understanding this allows us to comprehend a whole set of social, political, moral, ethic and truly psychological problems that would later on be reflected in his scientific works. Another section of our commentaries is centered on the analysis of the article’s style and composition and its multi-layered structure.