Since 1957, when the Soviet Union launched its satellite Sputnik, until the dissociation of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian tradition of educating gifted children had been world-renowned. However, with a restructuring of society's major domains of functioning in the early 1990s, the Soviet system of complete federal support for gifted education all but disappeared. In this chapter, we argue that the system, despite the challenges of the 1990s, has survived its toughest times. We illustrate that, by capitalizing both on past and current theories of giftedness and cognitive development, the field of gifted studies in Russia continues to develop and that it is in the process of re-creating itself in the changed social and cultural context of Russia.

Russian definitions and approaches to giftedness can be described as very different from Western approaches, particularly the American psychometric approach. For various social, political, cultural, and historical reasons, Soviet (Russian) psychological and pedagogical science developed its own unique theoretical and methodological paradigms. The Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 resulted in a regime that tried (or claimed) to minimize individual differences and establish equity in all areas of human enterprise. Empirical research into individual differences was viewed unfavorably, because it would imply testing, quantification of variation between people, and, consequently, challenging the underlying ideological societal postulates.

Russian society, however, has always been interested in identifying and utilizing outstanding abilities of gifted and talented individuals for the societal “common good,” especially in math and sciences.