Igor Ivanov

Who is Igor Ivanov?

Igor Petrovich Ivanov was a Soviet pedagogue, initiator and founder of the "social-pedagogical youth movement" known in Russia as the Communard movement. He was a member of the Soviet Academy of Pedagogy, full professor of the Herzen Pedagogical State University, author of several books, laureate of the Makarenko Prize named after early Soviet educator Anton Makarenko. Russian scholars consider Igor Ivanov to be a creator of the "Communard methodology" or, as the author himself called it, the Collective Creative Deeds methodology, founder of the "pedagogy of partnership", which is also named "collective creative pedagogy" and "pedagogy of social creativity". Ivanov's scholarly works continued the development of Creative Pedagogy.

Igor Ivanov laid foundation for the Communard movement in the mid-1950s in Leningrad by gathering young teachers and instructors from several schools into a creative group called Union of Enthusiasts. In this Union, during the years of 1956-1958, Ivanov developed and began to implement his ideas concerning the involvement of teenagers into a prototype of youth social organization which would not impose strict dogmatic rules on its participants. This was in contrast to Communists' practice at that time when most social activities in post-World War II Soviet schools were under the auspices of the pro-communist Pioneer organization. Yet, the death of Stalin in 1953 and the ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power in 1955 led to certain liberalization of Soviet society. And Ivanov's actions were strictly in context of those changes.