Life and scientific ideas of D.A. Oshanin

Abstract

This article is devoted to the outstanding scholar Dmitry Aleksandrovich Oshanin, a true patriot of Russia whose life was closely intertwined with pivotal moments in the country’s history and whose scientific career represents a remarkable example of dedication to Russian psychology. D.A. Oshanin (February 13, 1907, Vologda, Russian Empire – November 28, 1979, Paris, France) was a Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Psychological Sciences, and professor. He was raised in a family of Russian intellectuals who emigrated from Russia after the 1917 Revolution. He studied at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), the Paris Conservatory, and the University of Belgrade, and defended his doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne. Oshanin was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Applied Psychology and a foreign member of the French National Society of Psychologists. He made a significant contribution to the development of psychology and pedagogy at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. After considerable effort, he obtained a Soviet passport in Sofia and returned to the USSR in 1955, where he joined the Research Institute of Psychology of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. In 1973, he defended his doctoral dissertation in psychology. He developed the concept of the operational nature of mental imagery and the theory of the regulation of object-directed actions. Oshanin also stood at the origins of engineering psychology and technical aesthetics in the USSR. He headed a laboratory at the Research Institute of General and Educational Psychology of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. D.A. Oshanin was one of the founders of the Russian scientific school of self-regulation psychology, whose core was and remains the Laboratory of Self-Regulation Psychology at the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education (currently the Federal Scientific Center for Psychological and Interdisciplinary Research). The scientific ideas developed in Oshanin’s works remain relevant today and continue to find expression in the methodology, theory, and practice of psychological science.