The article contains analysis of P.I. Zinchenko's principal works in psychology of memory as well as a number of unknown facts from his life, making the conclusion that theoretical and experimental potential of P.I. Zinchenko's studies make him one of the creators of the activity approach to cognitive processes. He was the first to discover vivid mnemonic phenomena which were much later re-discovered by representatives of Western cognitive psychology (including generalization and depth of processing effects).