Racial Psychiatry and the Russian Imperial Dilemma of the “Savage Within

Bibliographic Data

ID6185556
AuthorsMarina Mogilner (University of Illinois Chicago, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume43
Issue1-2
Pages99-133
Publication date2016-09-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEast Central Europe (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-3037 • E-ISSN: 1876-3308
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/18763308-04302003
OpenAlexW2524241792
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited13

The article tells the story of racial psychiatry in the Russian Empire. The context in which it has developed is analyzed in epistemological as well as political terms, and the discussion of such scholarly categories as “savagery,” “atavism”, or “survivals” and the language of race in ethnography, race science, and psychiatry is complemented with the discussion of rising mass politics. These two threads of analysis are connected within a broader context of the Russian imperial situation of the turn of the century, marked by human, cultural and administrative heterogeneity and the asynchronous social and cultural dynamics of different peoples, classes, and regions. The article explores in details how the Russian psychiatric profession made sense of the Russian imperial situation, and why a group of highly influential psychiatrists turned to the concept of race and the method of inter-imperial comparison as a solution to this situation’s complexities and ambiguities

Ancient history · Archaeology · Context (archaeology) · Dilemma · Empire · Epistemology · Ethnography · Modern history · Political science · Politics · Race (biology) · Social science · Sociology · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · History · History of Emotions Research · Law · Philosophy

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