Authors
Chechesh Kudachinova1; 1 Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies , Discussion
The paper seeks to explore an elusive phenomenon that can be brought under the umbrella term ‘Siberian hysteria’. Its symptoms were variable tending to include screaming, disordered talking, compulsive imitation, making terrifying noises, fleeing, self-harmful acts, violent fits, etc. The disorder achieved the prominence in the imperial literature in the period that witnessed an explosion of interest in the problems and disorders of mind, perception, and behavior.
‘Siberian hysteria’ was fairly prevalent among the indigenous and non-indigenous women; sometimes it was observed among native and Russian men. Multiple indigenous notions (menerik, ämürakh, tarymta, irer) as well as the hybrid terms and alternative spellings (menrier, minairia, miariachestvo, meiachit’, imiriachenie, meneriachit’, shamanichit’) were circulated in the literature and colonial discourses (Seroshevsky 1896; Bogoraz 1901; Vitashevsky 1911).
Was ‘Siberian hysteria’ a product of individual or group psychology? What factors might be involved in outbreak of the disease? What sorts of problems may be encountered in investigating the illness? Did it form ethnic variants of universal patterns of human aberration?
The paper will not resolve the issue of bizarre behaviors exhibited by Siberian inhabitants after a lapse of a century. It seeks to contribute toward a clearer understanding of the historical construction of the disease. It seems timely to revisit the scene of writing on ‘Siberian hysteria’in the Russian and the Anglophone literature in the period. The paper also aims to illuminate a set of suggested etiologies for ‘Siberian hysteria’ that observers advanced to explain this set of culture-bound mental and emotional disorders.
