Presentations by Streams

This panel explores medical, scientific and cultural approaches to mental trauma, neurosis and hysteria in Russia and the Soviet Union from the 1880s to the late Stalin period. The papers bring to light the distinct understandings of the traumatic mind that emerged in late Imperial Russia and the USSR, examining how social and cultural contexts shape understandings of mental disorder and treatment. The three papers will discuss: the historical construction of traumatic symptoms such as the diagnosis of ‘Siberian hysteria’ in late Imperial Russia; the lived experience of psychological trauma in specific medical institutions (e.g. the Ukrainian Republican Neurosurgical and Neuropsychiatric Hospital); and finally, the dialogue between Soviet filmmakers and medical professionals in representing neurotic conditions on the screen.