The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the academic relationship between two leading Russian psychologists, Aleksei Leont’ev and Lev Vygotskii. The initial relationship between the teacher (Vygotskii) and the attentive student and follower (Leont’ev) changed, such that the two scholars eventually sought to differentiate themselves from each other and to seek out and defend their own approaches. The author describes how the psychological ideas of these two scholars changed over time. The two scholars pursued different approaches to the problem of activity and personality over their careers. The article devotes particular attention to the academic work of Leont’ev, which was produced under socialism and thus was subjected to certain ideological pressures. Leont’ev, the founder of activity theory, came to realize that personality needed to be studied across its moral and value dimensions despite working in an environment that frowned upon this approach. Other Soviet scholars gave no place for moral principles, since a person was equated to being a “product.” By citing specific works by Leont’ev, the author shows how the ideas of the “leader of Marxist psychology” evolved and sheds light on the internal context of his scientific investigations. We see that he eventually resolved a question of fundamental disagreement with Vygotskii concerning the problem of experiences and activity. During the last years of his life, Aleksei Leont’ev approached the late Vygotskii in his views, taking the side of his teacher, old friend and, at the same time, main internal opponent, which is not all that uncommon a phenomenon in academic circles. This can be seen by the fact that two years before his death (in 1977), Leont’ev actually resolved a fundamental disagreement he had with Vygotskii concerning the problem of experiences and activity.

COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the person, the society, and the whole human civilization, and it also has challenged the human sciences. The discussion raises a fundamental problem: the collision between psychology and the need to rethink the understanding of а person. A person is considered in the transition from an abstract «psychological» individual to a real, concrete, living person in his bodily, organismic embodiment (or in the aspect of a natural biological subject). The question of expanding the cultural-historical understanding of a person through the prism of his individual history in mastering socio-historical experience is raised. The idea of a critical, emergency situation is introduced not only in the optics of society and nature in the whole or in abstract-hypothetical constructs, but also at the level of individual life of a person. The authors reflect an importance of considering the extreme situation of human existence in theoretical conceptions, not only as an applied problem. Negative interpretations of an extreme, emergency situation require conceptualization in terms of positivity – as a source of overcoming, solving life problems, development, and discovering, opening new experience. In addition, the concept of practice in psychology, which was mentioned by L. Vygotsky, also requires a radical revision. The practice of helping should be considered not only an applied branch in psychology, but in its fundamental, theoretical meaning, revealing psychological helping as the implementation of caring practice. The authors agree, that the existence of a person under the global threat of COVID-19 pandemic radically changes the interaction between a person and society. Global pandemic affects social practices to reveal a person in the context of new relation towards society. Public life is put «on pause» in order to protect a life of individual person. The phenomenon of death, that was previously subjected to theoretical repression in psychology, is now considered to be a part of human life. Meaning as the meaning of life has to be correlated with the meaning of death, which allows to reveal the existence of a person in the fullness of his life and being.

32 English translation © 2005 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Russian text © 1999 by the authors and “Smysl.” “Lichnostnye smysly po A.N. Leont’evu i problema vertikali soznaniia,” in Traditsii i perspektivy deiatel’nostnogo podkhoda v psikhologii, Shkola A.N. Leont’eva, ed. A.E. Voiskunskii, A.N. Zhdan, and O.K. Tikhomirov (Moscow: Smysl, 1999), pp. 284–98. Translated by Stephen D. Shenfield. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 43, no. 6, November–December 2005, pp. 32–44. © 2005 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 1061–0405/2005 $9.50 + 0.00.

19 English translation © 2005 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Russian text © 1979 by Moscow University Press and “Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta.” “K izucheniiu smyslovoi sfery lichnosti,” Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriia 14: Psikhologiia, 1981, no. 2, pp. 46–56. A publication of the Department of Psychology, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. Translated by Stephen D. Shenfield. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 43, no. 6, November–December 2005, pp. 19–31. © 2005 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 1061–0405/2005 $9.50 + 0.00.