ABSTRACT
The chapter is focused on a particular Soviet alternative to philosophy, social sciences and linguistics that was conceived under the auspices of Nikolai Marr’s theory of language. It was framed by Konstantin Megrelidze (1900–1944) as the historical science of thought. Megrelidze, not yet a well-known Soviet-Georgian thinker of the 1930s, can hardly be labelled as a philosopher, psychologist, sociologist or anthropologist. Although he tackles problems belonging to these fields, he does so in a reframed disciplinary context. The chapter clarifies the modalities of this disciplinary realignment, which began with Marr’s formulation of the new methodological and practical requirements he believed the sciences must meet under socialism and the peculiar understanding of language that ensues from this. Megrelidze bridged his conception of consciousness through Gestalt psychology with Marr’s theory of language. The convergence between Marr and Megrelidze lead to the concept of a socio-historical complex constituted of language, thought and labour. Megrelidze’s theoretical pursuits explain Marr’s theory. The author shows how the historical science of thought – being socialist in character and supplanting bourgeois philosophy, social science and linguistics altogether – was self-legitimized by the historical moment, the importance and meaning of which it itself conceptualizes.
