Martin A. Miller
Irina Sirotkina has written a fascinating history of the evolution of the profession of psychiatry in Russia between the 1880s and 1930 by focusing on the borderland where medicine and literature intersect. Examining the psychiatric pathographies of Russia's most celebrated writers, the author offers a new interpretation of Russian intellectual history in the transitional era before and after the revolution.
— Martin A. Miller, Duke University
Sander L. Gilman
Sirotkina presents a comprehensive overview of the various approaches to madness found from the end of the Imperial period through to the establishment of Stalinist hegemony. Her approach is unique; her material quite exhaustive; and her insights, into the history of medicine, history of literature, and the cultural history of Russia, extraordinary.
— Sander L. Gilman, University of Illinois at Chicago
Daniel P. Todes
As Irina Sirotkina points out, the Russian intelligentsia has always granted an exalted role to literature and literati.By exploring Russian psychiatrists' changing diagnoses of the country's most famous literary figures—particularly Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy—she offers an engaging and instructive look at their changing ideas about mental illness, genius, andcreativity, and embeds those ideas convincingly in Russia's turbulent social, political, and cultural history from the mid-nineteenth century through the early years of Soviet rule.
— Daniel P. Todes, The Johns Hopkins University
From the Publisher
Sirotkina presents a comprehensive overview of the various approaches to madness found from the end of the Imperial period through to the establishment of Stalinist hegemony. Her approach is unique; her material quite exhaustive; and her insights, into the history of medicine, history of literature, and the cultural history of Russia, extraordinary.—Sander L. Gilman, University of Illinois at Chicago
Irina Sirotkina has written a fascinating history of the evolution of the profession of psychiatry in Russia between the 1880s and 1930 by focusing on the borderland where medicine and literature intersect. Examining the psychiatric pathographies of Russia's most celebrated writers, the author offers a new interpretation of Russian intellectual history in the transitional era before and after the revolution.—Martin A. Miller, Duke University
As Irina Sirotkina points out, the Russian intelligentsia has always granted an exalted role to literature and literati. By exploring Russian psychiatrists' changing diagnoses of the country's most famous literary figures—particularly Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy—she offers an engaging and instructive look at their changing ideas about mental illness, genius, and creativity, and embeds those ideas convincingly in Russia's turbulent social, political, and cultural history from the mid-nineteenth century through the early years of Soviet rule.—Daniel P. Todes, The Johns Hopkins University
