Lange, Nikolai

Lange, Nikolai [Ланге, Николай], b 24 March 1858 in Saint Petersburg, d 15 February 1921 in Odesa. Psychologist; one of the founders of experimental psychology in the Russian Empire. He graduated from Saint Petersburg University (1882) and worked in W. Wundt’s laboratory in Leipzig. As a professor at Odesa University (1888–1921) he founded a psychology laboratory (1895) and organized the Higher Courses for Women in Odesa (1903). In his work Psikhologiia (Psychology, 1922), influenced by Wundt, he proposed a philosophical basis for psychology and defended the dualistic theory of ‘psychophysical reciprocal actions’ while refuting social Darwinism. He also wrote Dusha rebenka v pervye gody zhizni (The Soul of a Child in the First Years of Life, 1891), Psikhologicheskie issledovaniia (Psychological Research, 1893), and Teoriia Vundta o nachale mifa (Wundt’s Theory on the Origin of Myth, 1912).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]