Ohayon, Annick
Between Pavlov, Freud, and Janet. The Itinerary of a Russian Gentleman who Emigrated to France: Wladimir Drabovitch (1885-1943)
- 2012.
93
In the history of psychology, a number of figures have played an important yet unrecognized part. Such is the case of the Russian psychologist Wladimir Drabovitch. Pavlov’s student, he arrived in France just before the First World War and lived there until his death in 1943. A man of many talents, he undertook the activities of a political journalist, a popularizer of scientific research, and his own psychological research. He served as a bridge between Russian and French scientific research in the fields of physiology and psychology. Furthermore, in the 1930s, he tried to inform the French thinkers, especially his fellow psychologists, about what was taking place at the time in the USRR in a context of a terrible Stalinist repression. This paper presents these two dimensions and examines why his work has been largely forgotten.