Gustav Shpet Archive as Phenomenon of Cultural - Historical Psychology Preface to the publication of the article by G.G. Shpet 'Art as a Form of Knowledge'

Gustav Gustavovich Shpet (1879 - 1937) was a great Russian philosopher, psychologist and theorist of culture. He was a pioneer in cultural-historical psychology in Russia. His works on philosophical issues in psychology are widely known among psychologists. Like many of his contemporaries, Shpet could not express and publish all his ideas due to objective reasons, which makes it even more interesting to explore his archives that include sketches, drafts and unfinished articles on philosophy of word and methodological issues of human sciences. His reconstructed report 'Art as a Form of Knowledge' (1926) contains relevant ideas concerning the problems of studying cultural-historical phenomena (art, literature, poetry etc) that can serve as a 'tuning-fork' in present-day discussions. In the preface to this report T.G. Shchedrina analyses the main conceptual attitudes of G. Shpet taking into account the historical and cultural situation that existed in the 1920s and specifies the features of the reconstructed archival text that differs from the publication.