Diagnosing Literary Genius: A Cultural History of Psychiatry in Russia, 1880-1930, and: Posmertnaia diagnostika genialnosti: Eduard Bagritskii, Andrei Belyi, Vladimir Maiakovskii v kollektsii Instituta mozga: Materialy iz arkhiva G. I. Poliakova (review)

Abstract

Specialists in the new sciences of the mind focused much of their attention in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on classifying mental abnormalities. This was an international endeavor, everywhere tinged by politics and culture, and, as a growing body of fascinating literature demonstrates, Russians were energetic participants. In some respects the efforts of Russian psychiatrists, neuropathologists, and psychologists paralleled those of their counterparts in other societies; in Russia during that era of revolutionary ferment, however, literary culture, medical science, and politics interacted in particularly interesting and distinctive ways.