Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, was born in 1896 in Orsha, Belarus (then a part of the Russian Empire). Vygotsky was tutored privately by Solomon Ashpiz. Graduated from Moscow State University in 1917. Later, he attended the Institute of Psychology in Moscow (1924–34), where he worked extensively on ideas about cognitive development, particularly the relationship between language and thinking. His writings emphasized the roles of historical, cultural, and social factors in cognition and argued that language was the most important symbolic tool provided by society. Vygotsky died of tuberculosis in 1934, leaving a wealth of work that is still being explored. (wikipedia)