Library of Psychological Literature in Foreign Languages in the name of Vyacheslav Viktorovich Luchkov
A library of contemporary psychological literature in foreign languages is open at the
Psychological Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University. This is a joint project of
Russian-American Center and Psychological Faculty of the MSU.
The library was founded by Vyacheslav Viktorovich Luchkov (1941 - 1997)
 |
Vyacheslav Viktorovich Luchkov (1941 - 1997) |
The idea of such a library occurred to him when he was a scientific editor at the
journal of the MSU Psychological Faculty (Moscow University Bulletin, Series 14,
Psychology). When the journal was created he was assigned to this position by Aleksey
Nikolaevich Leontiev, the Dean of the Psychological Faculty. V. V. Luchkov worked as an
editor for 10 years.
It was hardly possible to find a better person for this difficult and creative work.
Vyacheslav Luchkov was a very talented and widely educated man - a graduate of two Moscow
University faculties: philological and biological, he completed a postgraduate course at
the Institute of Psychology under USSR Academy of Sciences. Vyacheslav Luchkov was an
extraordinarily lively, creative person always full of ideas on journal improvement,
making it more interesting and informative for readers.
His knowledge of English and French languages allowed him to constantly trace the work
of modern psychologists in other countries. He was editing articles and scientific works
of students, postgraduates and researchers of the faculty and it soon became clear that
their non-acquaintance with the work of foreign science fellows conditioned by the
difficult situation in the 80s considerably degraded their own work quality. It was
exactly the reason and the moment when the idea of creating a library of contemporary
foreign psychological literature occurred to Vyacheslav Luchkov. Such a library opened at
the faculty could be of great help to the students of psychology.
In the 90s Luchkov started working in the Russian-American Center in the USA headed by
Dulce W. Murphy in the position of Director Psychology Project.
 |
Dulce W. Murphy |
The major project suggested by Luchkov was aimed at providing overall assistance to
Russian psychology development. One of the main tasks was information support of
psychological faculties and institutes of Russia. The first in the row was the leading
center of psychological study in Russia - Psychological Faculty of the Lomonosov Moscow
State University.
Being aware that students, postgraduates and teachers of the faculty were in dire need
of the foreign psychological literature Luchkov resolutely set about creating such a
library. He carried out much work in the USA collecting books, journals, reference,
educational and bibliographical literature, as well as dictionaries. He turned to the
leading American universities, professional psychological societies, directly to the major
American psychologists, to the management of publishing houses specialized in
psychological literature, etc. asking for the free copy of their editions for Russian
psychologists. The fruits of his efforts were borne: a great amount of books and journals
in English were collected and granted to the Psychological Faculty. This was the beginning
of the Psychological Library in Foreign Languages.
When Vyacheslav Luchkov untimely deceased in 1997 Dulce Murphy, Chief Executive Officer
of the Russian-American Center under Esalen Institute (California) suggested renaming the
library into the Library in the name of Vyacheslav Luchkov.
The then Dean of the Psychological Faculty was academician Eugene Aleksandrovich
Klimov, who was well acquainted with V. V. Luchkov and shared his ideas. He saw the
importance of such a library to educational and scientific process and therefore in 1998 a
small room was given to the library where a huge bulk of work was done to systemize and
register all the books in the major psychology trends, to create modern search systems,
etc. under the supervision of Yuri Borisovich Dormashev, the Docent of General Psychology
Department. From the very beginning all the work was performed on voluntary basis.
Students and postgraduates were those who mostly helped in this activity.
Somewhat later lager premises were provided to the Library by E. A. Klimov to place
a bookstand and necessary equipment.
 |
 |
Library premises |
he Russian-American Center was a real help to the Library in its work
and organizational activities. The Center not merely sent new psychological literature but
also gave money to acquire the required equipment. The major share of money came from the
US Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott - a big friend of V. V. Luchkov.
The official Library presentation took place on September 19, 2000 in the most
beautiful Emperor Hall of the old University building at Mokhovaya Street.
|
|
V. A. Sadovnichy is presenting the Diploma to
Dulce W. Murphy, USA Ambassador in Russia James F. Collins (on the right), Dean of the
Psychological Faculty A. I. Dontsov (on the left) |
MSU Academic Choir |
In summer of 2002 the building that Library occupied was renovated. All the
laboratories were moved to the other faculty building at Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street. With
the vigorous assistance of the Deputy Dean for Commercial and Economic Activity Madrudin
Shamsudinovich Magomed-Eminov the Library was given a room equipped with telephone and
Internet access, TV and video, allowing students to get acquainted with the lectures of
American psychologists, there also was new comfortable furniture. This gave the Library
the opportunity to fully restore and even improve its work. Today the Library Director
is Margarita Vasilievna Luchkova, the Scientific Supervisor's position is occupied by Yuri
Borisovich Dormashev and the Executive Consultant is Roman Sergeevich Shilko.
The major objective of the Library is to provide students, teachers
and employees with the access to the modern works of foreign psychologists, enhance their
scientific English and other languages. Library activity is tightly interconnected with
the educational process - students prepare reports for seminars, find the literature
required for writing their course papers, diploma and candidate's thesis. Professors may
use their knowledge of new books to renew their lectures concerning certain psychology
trends, to enrich reading-books and teaching aids with achievements of foreign psychology,
and as for research assistants and postgraduates - to perform their work on the modern
level of the psychological science. The means of computer scanning and xeroxing are
available at the library. Students and postgraduates of Psychological Faculty use these
devices free of charge to make copies of any Library materials necessary for their
course papers, diploma or candidate researches.
Today there are about 6 thousand books and journals on the open shelves
of the library. Moreover the Library has a series of educational video-films and a
unique collection of audiotapes with the lectures and speeches of the distinguished
psychologists - A. Maslow, K. Rodgers, B. Skinner and many others. The book fund is
enlarged owing to monetary and book contributions of both the Russian and American parts.
It should be noted that the Library is a non-profit organization operating on a
voluntary basis.
The Library is open three day a week in the time suitable for students and
professors. It is attended not merely by students, postgraduates and teachers of the MSU
Psychological Faculty but by specialists and students of other psychological institutions
and establishments. Considerable assistance to the Library work is provided by the
postgraduates of our faculty. They stay in the library during the Library working
hours, consult students, helping them to select the necessary literature, search for new
interesting psychological books, articles and manuscripts in the Internet, maintain the
correspondence with the authors of new psychological works, carry out the classification
of books, etc. Performing the work together and helping each other the students get to
know each other better and thus the very pleasant atmosphere of mutual interests and
common business is developed in the Library. Their contribution to the Library
activity can hardly be overestimated! All kinds of subject exhibitions are organized by
the Library. For instance the photo-exhibition of the faculty students' and
postgraduates' works was a great success.
The Library is not merely a library anymore; it is some kind of scientific club
permeated with the university traditions and conventions that brings up the new generation
of Russian psychologists as an integral part of the world science of psychology.
Stroub Talbott
|
Stroub Talbott |
I met Slava in 1968, through Jerry Schecter (also a contributor to this memorial
volume). In those bad old days, Slava was, in a very real and courageous sense, a
dissident. But that word doesn't quite do him justice. It suggests someone who is makes
his mark by criticizing, by opposing. That wasn't Slava. He was among the more positive
people I've known. He saw the defects and the horrors of the Soviet system clearly. But he
also loved his country for its many admirable qualities, and he was never unremittingly
bleak, nor was he ever bitter. He was a generous realist, including about what used to be
called "Soviet reality". He also had a sense of irony, and humor, about certain
Russian penchants. He once made a comment that I've often remembered, and more than once
quoted: "When it comes to our politics, we have basically only two words in the
Russian language - Ura [hurray] and uvy [alas]. After seventy years of having to chant
"Ura!", we now have the freedom all to chant "Uvy!" Slava was an
exception to his own rule; he saw the good and the bad in both the old and the new of his
country; and his standards in making those judgments were utterly civilized and humane.
For years, whenever I'd fetch up in Moscow, I'd call Slava or Rita and they'd invite me
to their apartment on Ulitsa Narodnogo Opolcheniya. We'd do the Russian thing: long nights
in the kitchen eating food from cans, mixed with stale bread and washed down with local
vodka or a bottle of something I'd pick up at the Beryozka store, plus sulphurous mineral
water. Talking, talking, talking. The one word that covers all those occasions, no matter
what the subject or circumstance, is intensity: Slava and Rita packed so much into every
minute of a friendship. That was partly, no doubt, because of the peculiarly Soviet
dimension of uncertainty about the future, but it was for other, less ominous, more
universal reasons as well, reasons that I associate with pure, unadulterated human
quality.
We went for drives in their dreadful little car ("the Israeli tank", as Slava
called it, which became "the Arab tank" after one of the Middle East wars); we
went for walks with their wonderful Airedale, Barry; Anya, as a quite small girl, started
beating me in chess. And throughout it all, we talked, and talked.
For years, Slava lived and worked on the edges of respectable academe, working, with
his (and my) dear friend Volodya Rokhityansky on their "eternal project" ? the
dictionary of psychology. When Slava was asked to help out on the fringes of perestroika,
I took that phenomenon more seriously than I would have otherwise. When he gave up on it
and moved for a while to the states, I took it less seriously than I would have otherwise.
Then he moved the family to the U.S. It was, in many ways, a delight to have Slava,
Rita and Anya in our midst for a while. Between coasts, he visited Cleveland and instantly
- intensely - became a friend of my parents. But there was also something sad about his
sojourn here. The transplant didn't work; it didn't take. While Slava was, truly, a
citizen of the world - a cosmopolitan in the most positive imaginable connotation of that
word - he was also deeply Russian; he was out of place. His place was Russia.
But there was also something sad about his eventually going home. That didn't entirely
work either - and for reasons that highlighted Slava's high standards and individualism,
and Russia's difficulties in adjusting to the possibilities it had now opened up for
itself.
Among his projects was working for a company in which my father was involved. He helped
an American enterprise stake out its position in the wild, wild west of post-Communist
Russian biznis. It was dangerous territory, including, sometimes, physically. Slava's
combination of savvy, persistence, integrity, loyalty - not to mention his understanding
of psychology (normal and aberrant) - was an invaluable asset. Listening to him tell tales
of adventures and misadventures gave me any number of insights into the unpretty reality
of Russia's economic transformation. And it made me appreciate a whole new side of Slava
himself: not quite an entrepreneur, but the kind of local talent, wisdom and basic honesty
that Western capitalists need when venturing into the badlands.
During the several years before Slava suddenly died, I'd see him only on the run as I
dashed in and out of Moscow on diplomatic missions. He was always slightly bemused but
entirely forgiving. No matter how little advance notice I'd give him, or how little time
for a meeting, he'd make the most of it, thus always reminding me, in the midst of my
preoccupations, what I valued most highly about that place and its people. The old
intensity was always there, and it gave me an added measure of hope that all the new stuff
swirling in the air ? the good, the bad and the ugly - would eventually sort itself out.
Over the years, I've occasionally been called an optimist about Russia. I plead guilty. I
hold Slava largely responsible. I miss him terribly.
Jerrold Schecter
|
Jerrold Schecter |
I first met Slava in 1968 at the trial of his boyhood friend Pavel Litvinov, who had
been arrested for protesting the Soviet invasion of Czech-oslovakia. The trial was held in
a small court house on Silversmith Quay in the old working class district on October 9,
1968. It was a sun - filled day; next to the court house the old log houses with crooked
windows lined up like a traditional village street of izbas. Modern Moscow was hidden from
view. It seemed like I had stepped back into 19th century Russia. Again Russians were
struggling for conscience. The trial marked the only opportunity for public debate over
the Soviet invasion and was a decisive moment for the human rights movement in Moscow. The
court room had been packed by the KGB so that only a few family members for each of the
five defendants could attend. Friends waited outside and eyed the foreign correspondents
carefully. In the afternoon after the first day's testimony ended I chatted cautiously
with two young men, Slava, who had a full red beard that covered his face, and Volodya,
with a dark brown beard that gave him a religious look. Voloyda had a small dog on a
leash, who waited while a street forum gathered to debate the merits of the invasion and
the trial. Like all friendships between foreigners and Russians in those days there was an
initial hesitation. There was always the fear of the KGB planting an informer or planning
a provocation. But the doubt dissipated quickly. After each session of the trial I met
with Slava to discuss the day's events and to tell him how the trial was being covered in
the west.
When the trial ended Pavel was sentenced to five years of internal exile for
"spreading false fabrications" and "disturbing public order." Slava
met with me in a park to deliver the transcripts of the trial, which he had translated
into English. It was my first experience with samizdat. In those days Slava could have
been arrested for passing the materials to a foreign correspondent. When we wrote a family
book about our time in Moscow we did not use Slava and Volodya's real names for fear they
would be charged with anti-Soviet behavior or harassed for associating with us.
Slava soon introduced us to Rita; through Volodya we met Tanya. Our families became
close friends. We spent a lot of time together, exchanged reading materials and enjoyed
the pleasures of meals at home and picnics in the Moscow countryside. A deeply shared part
of our friend-ship was the hope and belief that Russia could change, that intellectuals
like Slava and Volodya and their ideas could make a difference.
In 1987, in the heady atmosphere of Gorbachev's perestroika, we returned to Moscow and
this time Slava and Rita and Rita took part in the Public Television film, Back in the
USSR, which described how much had changed in the Soviet Union since the invasion of
Czechoslovakia It was a hopeful time. Slava spoke often of his work in psychology at
Moscow State University and his difficulties with the university bureaucracy, which too
often managed to thwart him. Slava wanted to help people and make the Soviet system work
for them but he was too independent to follow the Communist Party line. We talked about
his visiting America and continuing his research. How could American studies in psychology
be of value in Russia? In 1970 that was a daring question to ask, by 1987 it was still
daring but possible. How could Russian psychologists provide new insights to their
American colleagues? Slava was a pioneer of ideas. As a first step Slava and Volodya
started compiling an English-Russian dictionary of psychological terms.
Slava was always ready for new projects. His intellectual curiosity and the depth of
his own learning made him a natural teacher. Slava and I worked together with Rita to
translate and edit the third volume of Khruschev's memoirs, The Glasnost Tapes. The
project brought us closer together than ever despite the pressures of deadlines and that
Slava worked best at night while I am a morning person. It was an exciting experience and
for laughs to break the tensions we played a game we called "Khrushchev says,"
using his favorite expressions and story telling style. Khrushchev often told the same
story three or four times and we had to find the best and most faithful version. Arguing
with Slava over the nuances for translations between English and Russian words in the two
great and rich languages was the most exciting and rewarding negotiation in which I have
taken part. Slava always made it fun. Anna beat us all at chess.
Slava's love for psychology was his intellectual base, but he was game for any project
that would expose the dry rot of the Soviet system. When I suggested we try and work with
Beria's son Sergo to prepare Sergo's memoirs, Slava volunteered and spent hours
interviewing Sergo. The results were fascinating, especially Beria's view that a nation
which relied on espionage for new technology was bound to fail because it could never
catch up with those from whom the secrets were stolen.
Slava was my prototype Russian buddy, open, proud and bursting with life. A prodigious
eater and toastmaster, he and Rita would always arrive with flowers and embracing smiles.
Slava savored the search for new ideas and experience wherever they led, and he worked
with Leona and me in our efforts to gather material for a book on the role of Soviet
intelligence in influencing American foreign policy. For Slava it was all part of the life
of the mind, the effort to make life better through understanding motives and causes. I
miss not having him call with a new book proposal and not having him there to test a
theory on Soviet behavior and motivation. His friendship enriched our lives. The wonderful
man he was is a legacy we treasure.
David Satter
|
David Satter |
When I think of Slava, I recall the things he said because he was both very wise and
very well spoken. Slava was a curious mix of East and West. He combined Western
objectivity with Russian sympathy and compassion. There were times, however, when I think
it was his objectivity which prevailed. At one point, we talked about the Russian people
and I observed that Russians were very kind hearted. Slava agreed but he said, "it's
a kindness without principles". To this day, I regard this as the best, short
description of the problem of Russia that I have ever heard.
On another occasion, we talked about Soviet journalists. I said that I did not
understand how any decent person could work for the mendacious Soviet press but Slava said
that the Soviet Union's journalists should not be judged too harshly. There were very few
choices in a closed society and people had to work somewhere. Slava was equally forgiving
of naive Westerners. He said that the reason Westerners were so easily fooled was that
they had a difficult time imagining how terrible the Soviet Union was. Who could blame
them for that? Slava was witty and had a fine sense of irony. On one occasion, we talked
about the inarticulateness of the Soviet leaders and Slava said the reason they spoke so
badly was that "they were always able to accomplish what they wanted by force so they
had little need to develop the skills of persuasion". With those words, he
demonstrated his capacity to sympathize even with oppressors who, in a sense, were victims
of their own aggressivity. Despite his ability to empathize, however, Slava always looked
for the dawn of awareness in people. "Some people die stupid", he once told me,
"never understanding the harm they have done". In reflecting on the self
defeating nature of dogmatic self confidence, he also seemed to express a deeper belief
that only in another world would the crimes of many people really be judged.
Slava knew he was taking a risk by meeting with foreigners but this did not deter him.
At one point, he was stopped by the police after visiting some foreign friends. The
policeman said to him, "In what language are we going to speak to you?" Slava
answered, "Only in the language of the law". In dealing with the Soviet
authorities, he realized that the only defense was to insist on strict legality. The
alternative was submission which, for Slava, was totally unacceptable. His many
friendships with foreign journalists and diplomats were a reflection of his determination
to decide with whom he would be friends and not to internalize the distorted psychology of
the regime.
Slava's friendships with foreigners and dissidents inevitably drew him into a world
which was also populated by informers and provocateurs. Nonetheless, he never expressed
fear about meeting some new or exotic person and remained an avid observer of the life
around him. This made him an enormous help to me as I tried to write about and understand
the nature of the Soviet Union. Slava's instincts for navigating in the Soviet situation
were virtually impeccable and he gave me two pieces of advice which proved invaluable for
me. Once, after I fell victim to a KGB provocation early in my term in Moscow, he said,
"You have come into a situation which demands an entirely different set of reactions
from those that you are accustomed to". It was by keeping this in mind, that I was
able to avoid future, similar traps. He also said that all relationships in the Soviet
Union were based ultimately on trust. The reality of these words and the importance of
knowing whom to trust were brought home to me innumerable times during my six years in
Brezhnev's Soviet Union.
Slava was a loyal friend and we spent many hours together in the kitchen of his small
apartment on Narodnoye Opolchenie discussing the events of our lives. Slava often found it
more rewarding to listen than to talk because, besides being genuinely interested in other
people's experiences, he also sought insight into another way of life.
When I left Moscow, Slava sometimes accompanied me to the station and once when I got
on a train at the Belorussky Station for Poland, he quoted Pasternak's line about stations
being the "unignitable box of our meetings and partings". I think that Slava
realized that life is a series of arrivals and departures and his final, premature
departure, as tragic as it was, at least, left all of us a little better for knowing him.
