Bluma Zeigarnik (Russian: Блю́ма Ву́льфовна Зейга́рник, IPA: [ˈblʲumə ˈvulʲfəvnə zʲɪjˈɡarnʲɪk]; 9 November [O.S. 27 October] 1900 – 24 February 1988) was a Soviet psychologist of Lithuanian origin, a member of the Berlin School of experimental psychology and the so-called Vygotsky Circle. She contributed to the establishment of experimental psychopathology as a separate discipline in the Soviet Union in the post-World War II period.

In the 1920s she conducted a study on memory, in which she compared memory in relation to interrupted and completed tasks. She had found that interrupted tasks are remembered better than completed ones; this is now known as the Zeigarnik effect. From 1931 she worked in the Soviet Union. She is considered one of the co-founders of the Department of Psychology at the Moscow State University. In 1983 she received the Lewin Memorial Award for her psychological research.

Early life and education

Zeigarnik was born as Ženya Bluma Gerštein (or Geršteinaitė) into a Jewish family in Prienai, Suwałki Governorate (now in Lithuania) to Wulf and Ronya Feiga Gerštein, as their only child. Her primary language was Russian, although she was also able to speak Yiddish, Lithuanian, and Polish. Bluma's parents informally adopted her future husband, Albert Zeigarnik, and paid for education of both children abroad.

In her autobiographic note, which she wrote in 1927 as it was required for her doctorate thesis and which is available from the archive of the Humboldt University, she wrote that until she was 15, she took private lessons and in 1916 she entered the [fifth grade of] Reimann–Dalmatov Gymnasium in Minsk, which she left in 1918 after passing the final exam. In 1920–1922 she attended at lectures at the Department of Humanities of Lithuanian Higher Courses of Study in Kaunas [now Vytautas Magnus University].

In May 1922, the future couple left for Berlin, where he studied at the Polytechnic Institute and she at the University of Berlin. They married in Kaunas on January 9, 1924. At the University of Berlin, she met Kurt Lewin and upon graduation assisted him in his experimental work. She graduated in 1925 and received a Doctoral degree from the same university in 1927. She described the Zeigarnik effect in a thesis prepared under the supervision of Kurt Lewin.

Later life

In May 1931, Zeigarnik relocated from Berlin to Moscow, where she started to work closely with Lev Vygotsky at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity belonging to the Section of Natural Science of the Communist Academy, at the Psychoneurological Hospital of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (existed in Moscow in 1932–1944), and from the 1940s, at the Institute of Psychiatry in Moscow.

In 1940, a major event happened in Zeigarnik's life; her husband Albert was arrested and sentenced (on February 26, 1942) by the Special Council of the NKVD to 10 years in prison in a labor camp, which is often referred to as Gulag, "as an agent of foreign intelligence and for espionage activities" (rehabilitated on June 27, 1956). By this time, they had two children, one six years old (born in 1934) and the other less than a year old (born in 1939); she was left to take care of them by herself. Albert died in the camp in the 1940s.

During World War II, Zeigarnik and her children were evacuated from Moscow. At that period, she worked together with Alexander Luria and other psychologists in the Neurosurgical Hospital No. 3120 in Evacuation in the village of Kisegach, Chelyabinsk oblast, where she was engaged in the restoration of cognitive and mental functions after brain injuries and rehabilitation treatment of the wounded.

Zeigarnik died in Moscow on February 24, 1988.

Influences

One of Zeigarnik's first influences was Kurt Lewin. Zeigarnik met Lewin in 1924 at University of Berlin. During this time, Lewin was a teacher and a researcher. Zeigarnik liked his progressive views and started her scientific career within his research group. It was with Lewin that she developed her well-known theory: the Zeigarnik effect. Not only was Lewin the main influence in Zeigarnik life, but he was also a good friend. Another Influence of Zeigarnik was Lev Vygotsky. Zeigarnik met and started working with him, as well as with Alexander Luria and Alexei Leontyev in 1931. Together they studied topics involving mental structures and general psychology. Their research also allowed Zeigarnik to create and name her own field of psychology