V. V. Zenkovsky on the pages of the “Russian School Abroad”

Abstract

The subject of this research is the creative activity of the prominent Russian pedagogue, psychologist, philosopher, figure of the socio-pedagogical movement, and active participant in religious life of the white émigré V. V. Zenkovsky (1881–1962) in the leading educational journal “Russian School Abroad”, which was issued in Prague from 1923 to 1931. The goal is to examine the array of publications of the scholar, including articles published under pseudonyms, for determining their scientific and socio-pedagogical significance in the context of pedagogical life and pedagogical discussions of the 1920s – 1930s. Of special importance is the possibility of reconstructing the scientific dialogue between V. V. Zenkovsky and S. I. Gessen. The scientific novelty of this research lies in the sequential analysis of the entirety of texts published by the scholar in the journal “Russian School Abroad”, genre diversity of these publications (from problematic articles to informative notes), determination of problematic areas and specificity of the pedagogical discourse of V. V. Zenkovsky, who greatly contributed to modern pedagogy and psychology, theory and practice of school education, as well as actively participated in socio-pedagogical movement, coordinated the school work of Russian émigré in Europe and outside it. The article introduces the little-known and hard-to-access publications of V. V. Zenkovsky, namely his peer reviews of the Soviet psychological-pedagogical literature, and comments about Zenkovsky himself.