Political Abuse of Psychiatry in The Soviet Union - Memoirs

Memoirs

The widely known sources including published and written memoirs of victims of psychiatric arbitrariness convey moral and physical sufferings experienced by victims of psychiatric arbitrariness in special psychiatric hospitals of the USSR. In 1965, Valery Tarsis published in the West his book Ward 7: An Autobiographical Novel based upon his own experiences in 1963–1964 when he was detained in the Moscow Kashchenko psychiatric hospital for political reasons. The book was a first literary work to deal with the Soviet authorities' abuse of psychiatry. In 1968, the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky wrote Gorbunov and Gorchakov, a forty-page long poem in thirteen cantos consisting of lengthy conversations between two patients in a Soviet psychiatric prison as well as between each of them separately and the interrogating psychiatrists. The topics vary from the taste of the cabbage served for supper to the meaning of life and Russia's destiny. The poem was translated into English by Harry Thomas. The experience underlying Gorbunov and Gorchakov was formed by two stints of Brodsky at psychiatric establishments. In 1970, the book Red Square at Noon by Natalya Gorbanevskaya was published in Russian and English. Some parts of the book describe special psychiatric hospitals and psychiatric examinations of dissidents. In 1971, Zhores Medvedev and Roy Medvedev published their joint book A Question of Madness: Repression by Psychiatry in the Soviet Union describing the hospitalization of Zhores Medvedev for political purposes and the Soviet practice of diagnosing political oppositionists as the mentally ill. In 1976, Viktor Nekipelov published in samizdat his book Institute of Fools: Notes on the Serbsky Institute documenting his personal experience at Psychiatric Hospital of the Serbsky Institute. In 1980, the book was translated and published in English. Only in 2005, the book was published in Russia. In 1977, British playwright Tom Stoppard wrote the play Every Good Boy Deserves Favour that criticized the Soviet practice of treating political dissidence as a form of mental illness. The play is dedicated to Viktor Fainberg and Vladimir Bukovsky, two Soviet dissidents expelled to the West. In 1978, the book To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter by Vladimir Bukovsky, describing dissident movement, their struggle or freedom, practices of dealing with dissenters, and dozen years spent by Bukovsky in Soviet labor camps, prisons and psychiatric hospitals, was published and later translated into English. In 1979, Leonid Plyushch published his book History's Carnival: A Dissident's Autobiography in which he described how he and other dissidents were committed to psychiatric hospitals. At the same year, the book was translated into English. In 1981, Pyotr Grigorenko published his memoirs V Podpolye Mozhno Vstretit Tolko Krys (In Underground One Can Meet Only Rats) that included story of his psychiatric examinations and hospitalizations. In 1982, the book was translated into English under the title Memoirs. In 1983, Yevgeniy Nikolaev’s book Predavshie Gippokrata (The betrayal of Hippocrates), when translated from Russian into German under the title Gehirnwäsche in Moskau, was first published in München and told about psychiatric detention of its author for political reasons. In 1984, the book under its original title was first published in Russian that the book had originally been written in. In the 1983 novel Firefox Down by Craig Thomas, captured American pilot Mitchell Gant is imprisoned in a KGB psychiatric clinic "associated with the Serbsky Institute", where he is drugged and interrogated to force him to reveal the location of the Firefox aircraft, which he has stolen and flown out of Russia. In 1987, Robert van Voren published his book Koryagin: A man Struggling for Human Dignity telling about psychiatrist Anatoly Koryagin who resisted political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union. In 1988, Reportazh iz Niotkuda (Reportage from Nowhere) by Viktor Rafalsky was published. In the publication, he described his confinement in Soviet psychiatric hospitals. In 1993, Valeria Novodvorskaya published her collection of writings Po Tu Storonu Otchayaniya (Beyond Despair) in which her experience in the prison psychiatric hospital in Kazan was described. In 1996, Vladimir Bukovsky published his book Judgement in Moscow containing an account of developing the punitive psychiatry based on documents that were being submitted to and considered by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The book was translated into English in 1999. In 2001, Nikolay Kupriyanov published his book GULAG-2-SN which has the foreword by Anatoly Sobchak, covers repressive psychiatry in Soviet Army, and tells about humiliations Kupriyanov underwent in the psychiatric departments of the Northern Fleet hospital and the Kirov Military Medical Academy. In 2002, St. Petersburg forensic psychiatrist Vladimir Pshizov published his book Sindrom Zamknutogo Prostranstva (Syndrome of Closed Space) describing hospitalization of Viktor Fainberg. 2003 saw the book Moyа Sudba i Borba protiv Psikhiatrov (My Destiny and Struggle against Psychiatrists) by Anatoly Serov who worked as a lead design engineer before he was committed to a psychiatric hospital. In 2010, Alexander Shatravka published his book Pobeg iz Raya (The Escape from Paradise) in which he described how he and his companions were caught after they illegally crossed the border between Finland and the Soviet Union to escape from the latter country and, as a result, were confined to Soviet psychiatric hospitals and prisons. In his book, he also described methods of brutal treatment of prisoners in the institutions.

The use of psychiatry for political purposes in the USSR was discussed in two television documentaries: They Chose Freedom produced by Vladimir V. Kara-Murza in 2005 and Prison Psychiatry produced by Anatoly Yaroshevsky of NTV in the same year.