The Danger of Decadence and Degeneration

Abstract

This article discusses how some Russian satirical journals capitalized on the medical discourse of degeneration shortly after the 1905 Revolution in order to stigmatize certain decadent literary figures as degenerate purveyors of social unrest. This is not an exhaustive examination of the role of satirical journals in this process, but an indicator that the scientific discourse of degeneration was not limited to medical journals, academic lectures and literary salons. Along with this medical discourse, the designation “decadent” became an abusive moniker that was used to stigmatize the writer as a deviant and degenerate psychopath. This article suggests that as a result, medical theory played a more important role in shaping the popular discourse of the Russian fin de siècle than has been previously discussed. In fact, this stigmatizing discourse was quite prevalent, by which criticism of literary decadence was intertwined with the medical pathology of degeneration. Russian satirical journals played a role in this process by popularizing this medical discourse for readers, combining the latest theories on degeneration with sensational accounts of alcoholics, drug addicts and syphilitics, while at the same time depicting modernists as morally corrupt transmitters of social and political discontent.