Vygotsky's ideas about culture are of special interest because he attributed such an essential role to culture in human psychological processes. However, any attempt to provide an adequate account of his ideas about culture and human nature faces formidable obstacles. To begin with, the term “culture” is virtually absent from the indexes of his published works. When we delve deeper into his texts, we find culture appearing in three distinctive forms.

First, culture defined as artistic products and the processes of creation, appears in such works as The Psychology of Art, as part of Vygotsky's long-standing interest in literary and cultural criticism. This early involvement of culture in Vygotsky's writings (which engaged him in debates with Russian formalists) appears later in his extensive use of literary examples to illustrate the operation of important psychological functions. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and several Russian poets provide important material for his arguments in Thinking and Speech.

Second, when we turn to Vygotsky's better-known works on the development of higher psychological functions, culture appears in two related forms. We find it appearing in terms such as “cultural-historical” and “cultural development,” which apply to the way in which the mediation of action through culture is a defining property of human psychological functioning.