The logic and methodology of the century-old development of one of the largest areas of general and pedagogical psychology, founded in the twentieth century by S. L. Rubinstein and led at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries by his student A. V. Brushlinsky are analyzed. From the standpoint of the institutional-personological approach to scientific creativity and by analyzing half-forgotten sources, the key stages of his life are differentiated for the first time, achievements in his development of problems of general and pedagogical psychology based on the subject-activity paradigm are characterized in interaction with participants of the schools of S. L. Rubinstein and A. V. Brushlinsky himself, as well as with a number of Russian philosophers, psychologists and teachers.