A Few Words About S.L. Rubinshtein

Abstract

I will begin with a remarkable episode that was astonishing to me. In 1954 through 1956 I was a graduate student in the Scientific Research Institute of Psychology of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, RSFSR, and "on the side" I served as secretary of the Komsomol organization in that institute. In that capacity the institute's director, A.A. Smirnov, who was not a member of the party, sometimes had to meet with me. I tried not to be a bother to him, but sometimes…. One time I was waiting my turn to see him. The line formed in the little narrow hallway, because Anatolii Aleksandrovich, a modest man, did not have a waiting room. Prominent associates of the institute were waiting for their turn, among them Nikolai Dmitrievich Levitov, a grouchy man who was always unhappy (for some reason I think it was just an act). He was out of sorts. I don't remember whether it was he or someone else who was waiting who recalled Mark Twain's essay musing over what this or that person might have turned into if their life had turned out to be happy. N.D. Levitov began to elaborate on this topic as it applied to some very well-known psychologists, many of whom were working in the institute at that time. The assessments were not flattering and sometimes harsh, but right on the mark. I will list the ones I remember, but refrain from using their actual names: Old Man Beekeeper, Archives Keeper, the Cardinal, Father Deacon, the General, Stockbroker…. Someone asked, "Is there anybody who, given a happy confluence of circumstances, would still have become a psychologist?" Levitov thought about it and answered, Yes—Sergei Leonidovich Rubinshtein, and after a slight pause he added that he could only see Rubinshtein as a professor of psychology and philosophy. I am not certain that Levitov was aware that Rubinshtein had received his education in philosophy at Marburg. At that time it was not a good idea to advertise something like that.