Punitive Psychiatry in Russian Empire, the USSR, and Socialist Eastern Europe, 1905 – 1970s

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The political abuse of psychiatry in the USSR in the Brezhnev era is well known from the account of dissidents and human rights advocates, but surprisingly little historical scholarship has addressed the origins and scope of the practice. Recent archivally based work on the history of psychiatry has reshaped our understanding of how the psychiatric profession developed and functioned in Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. This panel brings together papers by four historians of psychiatry to re-examine the relationship between psychiatric experts and state power. Our papers include an examination of forensic psychiatry in the late Russian Empire, forensic psychiatry under Stalin, forensic psychiatry under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, and forensic psychiatry in socialist Czechoslovakia. Using archival materials and new methodological approaches, we deepen the historical understanding of the origins and practice of the political abuse of psychiatry in 20th century Eastern Europe.

Sub Unit

• History: 1945-1990

Chair

• Frances Lee Bernstein, New York U

Papers

• The Insulin Gulag: Involuntary Hospitalization, Stalin's Psycho-Zone, and the Making of Soviet Punitive Psychiatry - Garret James McDonald, St. Mary's College of Maryland

• The Psy Sciences, Political Abuse, and Social Control in Communist Eastern Europe: Surveying the Evidence - Sarah Marks, Birkbeck, U of London (UK)

• 'Communism should not be judged by its psychopaths!': Social Danger, Mental Illness, and Involuntary Commitment in the Post-Stalin Period - Benjamin Zajicek, Towson U

Discussant

• Frances Lee Bernstein, New York U