Psychology “in Terms of Drama” Project: The Origins, the Essence, the Implementation

ABSTRACT This article analyzes several essential aspects of L. S. Vygotsky’s manuscript Konkretnaya Psikhologiya Cheloveka (Concrete Human Psychology, 1929) and related works that have to do with his—unrealized personally by himself—project of creating psychology “in terms of drama.” The article also comments on ideas formulated by the French Marxist philosopher Georges Politzer, whose works served as one of the project’s sources. The methodological foundations for creating the “dramatic” (concrete) psychology suggested by Politzer and Vygotsky are explicated as well. The author discusses the contents of such concepts as drama, emploi (in the sense of “onstage speciality”), role, mastery, will, choice—the terms Vygotsky used—in the context of the very broad interpretation of “drama” in works of some contemporary researchers of the scholar’s work. She also analyzes the ways of solving the problems of volitional regulation of activity and the possible mechanisms of resolving role conflict, which is, according to Vygotsky, the essence of drama. Further directions of evolution of these ideas of Vygotsky in the works of Aleksei N. Leontiev’s school, which deal with the psychology of volitional action and deeds, are followed as well.