A Russian psychologist who is best known for his work on the connection between thought and language, and the development of the two. Although he was conducting research at the same time as Piaget, because he was working in a Communist country, his research received very little interest in the United States and its allied countries. Because he was Jewish, his research was very little supported in Russia. His books first began to be translated into English in the 1970’s and have been receiving increasing attention ever since. His life story,  by the way, is a rather remarkable example of the triumph of ability, and sometimes blind luck, over prejudice.

By the way, if you are looking for a reference by Vygotsky and can’t find it, you might try the spellings Vygotski and Vygotskii , I guess they are the Russian spellings. I do know that sometimes Vygotsky’s books are catalogued under these spellings.