History of Personality and Personality in History: On the 20th Anniversary of the Publication of the Monograph by A.V. Tolstykh "The Experience of Concrete Historical Psychology of Personality"

The article presents the main provisions of the original concept of personality development by A.V. Tolstykh, relatively little known today due to the early death of this prominent representative of the cultural-historical tradition in psychology. It is shown that within the framework of A.V. Tolstykh, the process of personality development is a three-phase dynamic structure aimed at integrating the individual with the mankind as a full-fledged subject of ancestral life — “historical, cultural, social”. The article describes the methodology based on a polydisciplinary approach to the study of psychological phenomena used by A.V. Tolstykh which allowed him to successfully solve a number of fundamental problems associated with the study of the phenomenology of personality and, thereby, make a real contribution to the development of cultural-historical psychology. We argue that the monograph by A.V. Tolstykh is an essential and even unique textbook for an in-depth study of personality development, both within the framework of the cultural-historical concept itself, and in a wide personal and socio-psychological context.

1. Tolstykh A.V. Opytkonkretno-istoricheskoipsikholo giilichnosti [Experience of concrete historical psychology of personality]. Saint Petersburg: «Aleteiya», 2000. 288 p. (In Russ.).