People of the Revolution and the USSR

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Soviet Union

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Any Russia 105 United States 46 United Kingdom 28 Germany 11 France 8 China 7 Ukraine 6 Armenia 5 Hungary 5 Poland 5 Czechoslovakia 4 Georgia 4 Finland 3 Belarus 2 Croatia 2 Cuba 2 Czechia 2 Estonia 2 India 2 Ireland 2 Latvia 2 Lithuania 2 Spain 2 Albania 1 Australia 1 Bulgaria 1 Canada 1 Ethiopia 1 Guyana 1 Israel 1 Italy 1 Japan 1 Martinique 1 Netherlands 1 Portugal 1 Romania 1 Serbia 1 Somalia 1 South Africa 1 Trinidad and Tobago 1
Era
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People of the Soviet Union

The revolutionary generation1917–1940 1

People of the wider world

The revolutionary wave and the world war1917–1945 1
Scholarship and theory Background: Belarus Clear all

Vaclau Lastouski

Вацлаў Ластоўскі
Belarus state institutions Nationalism Belarus Belarus 1883–1938 ✕ Executed by shooting

Historian who headed the government of the Belarusian People’s Republic in exile, moved to Soviet Byelorussia and was executed

Born into a landless noble family in the Disna district of the Vilna Governorate in 1883, he had almost no formal schooling. He was active in the Hramada in 1906–1908, was editorial secretary of Nasha Niva and from 1915 openly advocated independence from both Russia and Poland. In 1918 he joined the Rada as a delegate of the Belarusian Council of Vilnius, and in 1919 he led the Belarusian Socialist Revolutionaries. Appointed prime minister in December 1919, he was soon arrested by the Polish authorities; released the following year, he went to Riga and toured European capitals seeking recognition until he stepped down in 1923. In 1927 he moved to Soviet Byelorussia, where he became director of the State Museum and a member of the Academy of Sciences, but he was arrested in 1930, exiled to Saratov and shot in 1938.

Career timeline
  • 1909Editorial secretary of Nasha Niva
  • 1918Member of the Rada for the Belarusian Council of Vilnius
  • 1918Head of the Belarusian representation in Lithuania
  • 1919–1923Prime minister of the Belarusian People’s Republic
  • 1927–1930Director of the Belarusian State Museum
  • 1928Academician of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky

Лев Семёнович Выготский
Soviet Union Belarus 1896–1934 ○ Tuberculosis

Founder of cultural-historical psychology, Marxist psychologist who developed the zone of proximal development

Last words: "I am ready" — echoing his youthful Hamlet essay: "Not resolve but readiness — such is Hamlet's condition."

A Marxist psychologist who founded cultural-historical theory, arguing that higher mental functions develop through sociocultural interaction. He died of tuberculosis at 37, leaving Thinking and Speech (1934), and remains one of the most influential figures in developmental psychology and education worldwide.

Career timeline
  • 1917Graduated Moscow University (Law) and Shanyavsky University (History-Philosophy)
  • 1919–1924Teacher, theatre critic, and editor in Gomel; began psychological research
  • 1924Researcher at Moscow Institute of Experimental Psychology; formed Vygotsky Circle with Luria and Leontiev
  • 1925–1926Defended Psychology of Art; long-term tuberculosis hospitalization
  • 1927–1931Scientific director at Defectological Institute; professor at 2nd Moscow University and Academy of Communist Education
  • 1932–1934Wrote Thinking and Speech; proposed zone of proximal development; medical studies in Kharkov
  • 1934Invited to organize psychology at All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine; died 11 June of tuberculosis