Introduction to the Rubric: “To the 120th Anniversary of A.N. Leontyev”

A.N. Leontyev has just turned 120 years old. From the beginning of 20s till the mid-70s of last century, Alexey Nikolaevich did so much, that it is impossible to list. A lot has been written and said about the Theory of Activity, which he constructed in his foundations. Although it is written, it is worth rereading these works, mastering the way of thinking embedded in them; rereading together with mastering and understanding of the structure of A.N. Leontyev’s truly brilliant and unique experimental studies. Therefore, from the comprehension of the experimental study of the occurrence of feeling and, of course, the study of musical hearing’s emergence, even now, decades later, considerations about the meaning of the Theory of Activity are being born anew.

My generation remembers Alexey Nikolaevich Leontyev as a founder, head MSU’s Faculty of Psychology and as its remarkable professor. Under his leadership, the faculty professorship worked with us, students, not only "didactically", but also in a professional and scientific way. We had been writing term papers and theses on topics that interested our professors themselves. We can say that we were, if we even could be, their "youngest" scientific collaborators. That's how professors became our unforgettable teachers. In their faces-images — A.N. Leontyev, A.R. Luria, A.V. Zaporozhets, P.Y. Galperin, D.B. Elkonin, B.V. Zeigarnik, E.N. Sokolova — there was and remained for the whole life a concentration of the Thinking Energy. The face-image of the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University was the same, led by its founder and dean A.N. Leontyev.