Central Asian Psychology
Psychology in Central Asia can serve as a good example of the aphorism of Hermann Ebbinghaus: Psychology has a long past and a short history. The long past is the folk psychology of Kyrgyzstan and the nomads of Central Asia. The short history is the major borrowings from Russia. For much of the twentieth century the Central Asian republics were under the domination of Russia or the Soviet Union. The republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan were part of the Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1990. 
 
 
Keywords: 
 
cultural psychology; 
international psychology; 
indigenous psychology
From Vygotsky to Vygotskian psychology: introduction to the history of the Kharkov School.
Around the end of the 1920s, Vygotsky introduced his integrative framework for psycho-logical research to the Soviet Union. This framework was not abandoned and forgotten until its rediscovery in Russia and America in the 1950s, as some claim. In fact, even after his untimely death in 1934, Vygotsky remained the spiritual leader of a group of his for-mer students and collaborators, who became known as the Kharkov School. This paper reconstructs the early intellectual history of Vygotskian psychology, as it emerged, around the time of Vygotsky's death, in the research program of the Kharkov School.
Genetic Effects of Acute and Chronic Ionizing Irradiation on Pinus sylvestrisL. Inhabiting the Chernobyl Meltdown Area
The main results of the 12-year radiation-genetic monitoring of radiobiological, cytogenetic, and genetic parameters in Pinus sylvestrisforest plantation from the Chernobyl meltdown area are presented. The acute ionizing irradiation at doses > 1 Gy was shown to induce formation of morphoses and depressed growth; at doses >2 Gy, the reproductive ability of the trees declined. The radiobiological parameters showed a linear or close to linear dose-dependence relationship. The acute irradiation at a dose of 0.5 Gy induced cytogenetic and genetic effects that were significantly higher than the corresponding control values. The relationship between the cytogenetic effects and the absorbed dose was exponential. The dependence of the mutation frequency at specific loci on the absorbed dose was described by a nonlinear curve. The results of cytogenetic analysis of seedlings obtained from seeds annually collected in zones of slight, moderate, and strong damage of Pinus sylvestrisL. are presented.