Bibliographical notes about Tatiana Rosenthal:

(1) S. Neidisch, <<Dr. Tatiana Rosenthal. Petersburg>>, Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse, VII, 1921, pp. 384-85. This is T. Rosenthal's Obituary, written by Sara Neiditsch,  included in the  same number of the "Int.Zeitschr. Psychoanal." in which S . Neiditsch gave her account of contemporary russian psychoanalysis: S. Neiditsch, "Die Psychoanalyse in Russland wärend der letzen Jahre", Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, VII, 1921, pagg. 381-84. Click here to read it in russian version

2) S. Neiditsch and N. Ossipow, (1922), “Psychoanalysis in Russia” published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 1922, 3: 513-520. 

(3) A. Carotenuto, Diario di una segreta simmetria, Roma, Astrolabio, 1980.

(4) H. Nunberg, E. Federn (eds.), Protokolle der Wiener Psychoanalitischen Vereinigung, vol. IV, Frankfurt a/m, S. Fischer, 1978. In the "Protokolle" of the Wiener Psychoanalytic Society Tatiana Rosenthal is mentioned in the following  sessions: on January, 24, 1912 and on February, 7, 1912, whereas on  January, 31, 1912 and on February, 14, 1912 she made some remarks to Paul Federn' s report regarding "Flying sensations in dream".

(5) A. Angelini, La psicoanalisi in Russia, Napoli, Liguori, 1988.

(6) J. Marti,  La psychanalyse en Russie, in "Critique", Tome XXXII, n.346, mars 1976. [Italian translation  <<La psicoanalisi in Russia e nell'Unione Sovietica dal 1909 al 1930>>, in AA.VV., Critica e storia dell'istituzione psicoanalitica, Roma, Il Pensiero Scientifico Editore, 1978.]

(7) T. Rosenthal, <<Karin Michaelis: "Das gefährliche Alter" im Lichte der Psychoanalyse>>, in  Zentalblatt fur Psychoanalyse, 1911, p. 277.  Russian version: "Опасный возраст" Карин Михаэлис в свете психоанализа // Психотерапия, 1911, № 4-5, с. 189-94; № 6, с. 273-89. This article is available in this web site clicking here

(8) T. Rosenthal, (1920)"Sofferenza e creazione in Dostojevskij. Analisi psicogenetica", italian translation by Patrizia Sechi, published in Giornale Storico di Psicologia Dinamica, Vol. XIII gennaio 1989 fascicolo 25, page 33. See also in the same number, A.M. Accerboni, <<Tatjana Rosenthal. Una breve stagione analitica>>, page  6 1. Original Russian version : Страдание и творчество Достоевского: психогенетическое исследование / Вопросы изучения и воспитания личности. (Woprosi psychologiu litschnosty/ Problems of individual psychology) Пг., 1920.

9) Miller, M. (1998) Freud and the Bolsheviks: Psychoanalysis in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. By Martin Miller. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. (See below in this page the review by George E. Snow "Freud vs. Marx: The Rise and Fall of Psychoanalysis in the SovietUnion", in H-Russia, September, 1999, URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=30104937594746

See also Jeffrey Brooks' review of this book - below in this page it is available the abstract.

See also Hans Pols' review of this book, appeared in Left History 7 (2001)2:108-114 ( available below in this page)

10) Etkind, A. (1993) Eros nevozmozhnogo. Istoria psychoanaliza v Rossii. S-Pb.“Meduza” (In English: (1995) Eros of the Impossible. The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia). (Review in hungarian by  Katalin Szoke - see below in this page)

11) V. Bechterev, Das Verbrechertum im Lichte der objectiven Psychologie, Wiesbaden, Bergmann, 1914. Translated from russian by Tatiana Rosenthal.

12) Luria A.R.. "Die psychoanalyse in Russland", in Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 11, 1925, pp. 395-398.

13) Rice J. L., (1993) Freud's Russia, Transaction Publisher. Some reference to Tatiana Rosenthal are mentioned in this web site - LINKS click here

14) Badou G., (2000) Histoires secrčtes de la psychanalyse, Paris: Albin Michel.

15) Goldsmith G. N., (2002) Between certainty and uncertainty – observations on psychoanalysis in Russia, Journal of Analytical Psychology, Volume 47 Issue 2 Page 203 - April 2002 . (For Abstract - see below in this page)

16) Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham, 1907-1925( edited by  Ernst Falzeder ), Karnak Books,  2002. Two letters mention Tatiana Rosenthal and they are available in this web site - LINKS click here

17) Kadyrov I. M., Analytical space and work in Russia: Some remarks on past and present, in International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 86, Number 2/April 2005, pp. 467-482. (See below in this page the Abstract)

18) Rescetnikov M., "Periodo di illusioni e di speranze", in Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, fasc. 3, 2002. (For the Abstract: see below in this page)

19) Spielrein S., "Russische Literatur", in Bericht über  die Fortschritte der Psychoanalyse 1914-1919, 3. Beiheft der Int. Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Leipzig, Wien, Zürich, 1921. Italian translation: "Letteratura russa", in Angelini A., "La psicoanalisi in Russia", Napoli, Liguori, 1988.

20)  Wulff M. "Zur Stellung der Psychoanalyse in der Sowjetunion", Die psychoanalytische Bewegung,.Internationaler , Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Wien. - II. - 1930. - C. 70-75.   russian varsion available clicking here 

21) Neumann D. "Studentinnen aus dem russischen Reich in der Schweiz (1867-1914)", Verlag Hans Rohr, Zürich, 1987 . The notes concerning Tatiana Rosenthal are the following: <<Tatjana Rosenthal begann mit 17 Jahren das Medizinstudium in Zürich, Sie liess sich gleichzeitig bei C. G. Jung zur Psychoanalytikerin ausbilden, kehrte 1911 nach St. Petersburg zurück, um dort die Lehren Sigmund Freuds zu verbreiten. Später nahm sie sich dort das Leben >> (source: http://jlg.ch/luchot/archiv/maerz06.html )
 

We report also the following bibliography, concerning the history of russian psychoanalysis,  from Larissa Sazanovitch's degree thesis "La Psicoanalisi in Russia: nascita, sviluppo e oblio". Titolo:   La Psicoanalisi in Russia: nascita, sviluppo e oblio   Anno: Universitŕ: Relatore: 2001-02 Universitŕ Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano Mauro Fornaro Area: Facoltŕ: Corso:   Psicologia Psicologia

Angelini A., La psicoanalisi in Russia, Liguori, 1988.

Angelini A., ''Inconscio e teorie psicoanalitiche nella Russia contemporanea. Il ritorno del rimosso'', Rivista di psicoanalisi, XLVIII,1,gennaio-marzo2002.

Bassan F., ''Sabina Spielrein e la pulsione di morte'', Rivista di Psicologia Analitica, vol. 14 (27), marzo 1983.

Bertrand M. (a cura di), Psychanalyse en Russie, Harmattan, Paris, 1992

Bem A., Dosužkov F., Losskij N., La vita e la morte, Praga, 1935.

Carotenuto A., Diario di una segreta simmetria. Sabina Spielrein tra Jung e Freud, Astrolabio, Roma, 1980.

Carotenuto A., ''Ancora su Sabina Spielrein'', Rivista di Psicologia Analitica, vol. 14 (28), ottobre 1983.

Corsa R., ''Lady Lazarus e altre storie. Il contributo di Sabina Spielrein alla comprensione della schizofrenia'', Giornale storico di Psicologia Dinamica, vol. 24 (48), gennaio 2000.

Cremerius J., ''Sabine Spielrein - ein frühes Obfer der psychoanalytischen Berufspolitik'', Forum der Psychoanalyse, 1987, vol. 3, pp.127-142; tr.ru. ''Sabina Špil'rejn - odna iz pervych žertv psichoanalitičeskoj prof-politiki'' , sito internet: http://psychoanalyse.narod.ru , rubrica ''Читальный зал ''.

Ellenberger H.F., The discovery of the Unconscious, New York, 1970; trad.it. La scoperta dell'inconscio, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 1976.

Ermakov I.D., Psichoanaliz literatury. Pusckin. Gogol. Dostoevskij. Novoe literaturnoie obozrenie, Moskva, 1999,

Etkind A., Eros nevozmožnogo. Istoria psichoanaliza v Rossii ([Eros dell'impossibile. Storia della psicoanalisi in Russia], Medusa, Sankt-Peterburg, 1993.

Etkind A., ''How Psychoanalysis was received in Russia 1906-1936'', Journal of Analytical Psychology, 1994, n.39.

Etkind A., ''The Reception of Psychoanalysis in Russia until the Perestrojka'', Psychoanalysis international: a guide of psychoanalysis throughout the world, (Kutter P., ed.), Stuttgart- Bad Cannstatt, v.2, 1995.

Freud S., Opere, Boringhieri, Torino,1977.

Frumkina P., ''Kul'turno-istoričeskaja psichologhija Vygotskogo-Lurija'' [La psicologia storico - culturale di Vygotskij e Lurija], Čelovek [L'uomo], n. 3, 1999.

Jaroscevskij M.G., ''Vozvrascenie Frejda'' [Ritorno di Freud], in Psichologhiceskij z'urnal, v.9, 1988.

Jaroscevskij M.G., L.S. Vygotskij: v poiskach novoj psichologii. [L.Vygotskij: alla ricerca della nuova psicologia], SPb, 1993.

Jaroscevskij M.G., ''Kogda L.S.Vygotskij i ego škola pojavilis' v psichologhii?''[Quando L.S.Vygotskij e la sua scuola sono comparsi nella psicologia?], Voprosy psichologhii [Questioni di psicologia], n.5, 1995.

Jones E., The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1955.

Kaplan-Solms K. & Solms M., Clinical Studies in Neuro-Psychoanalysis, 2000; tr.it. Neuropsicanalisi Cortina, Milano, 2002.

Kerr J. Un metodo molto pericoloso, Frassinelli, Milano, 1996.

Kress-Rosen N., La passione di Sabina, La Tartaruga Ed., Milano, 1997.

Lejbin V.M., Sigmund Freud, psichoanaliz i russkaja mysl' [Sigmund Freud, la psicoanalisi ed il pensiero russo], Respublica, Moskva., 1994.

Lejbin V. M. (a cura di), Otečestvennyj psichoanaliz [Psicoanalisi nazionale], Piter, Sankt-Peterburg, 2001.

Lurija A.R., ''Die Psychoanalyse in Russland'', Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse,, 3, 1925.

Lurija A.R., ''Die moderne russische Physiologie un die Psychoanalyse'', Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse,, 3, 1926, . Tr.it.''La moderna fisiologia in Russia e la psicoanalisi'' in Giornale Storico di Psicologia Dinamica, Napoli, n.6/79.

Marti J., ''La psychanalyse en Russie et en Union Soviétique de 1909 a 1930'', Critique, tome XXXII, n.346, Mars 1976.

McGuire W. (a cura di), Lettere tra Freud e Jung, Paolo Boringhieri, Torino, 1974.

Mecacci L., L'inconscio nella psicologia sovietica, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1972.

Mecacci L. (a cura di), La psicologia sovietica 1917-1936, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1976.

Mecacci L., Storia della psicologia del Novecento, Ed. Laterza, 1992.

Mecacci L., ''Casa Rjabušinskij'', Psicologia contemporanea, n.147, 1998.

Mecacci L., Il caso Marilyn M. e altri disastri della psicoanalisi, Ed.Laterza, 2000.

Miller M.,''Freudian Theory under Bolshevic Rule'', Slavic Review, winter 1985.

Neiditsch S., ''Psychoanalysis in Russia'', International Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol. 3, 1922.

Ovcharenko V., ''Sud'ba Sabiny Špil'rejn'' [Il destino di Sabine Spielrein], Rossijskij psichoanalitičeskij vestnik, 1992, n.2.

Ovcharenko V., ''Love, psychoanalysis and destruction'', Journal of Analythical Psychology, vol. 44 (3), Jul. 1999.

Pfeiffer E. (a cura di), Triangolo di lettere : carteggio di Friedrich Nietzsche, Lou von Salomé e Paul Rée, Adelphi, Milano, 1999

Read C., Culture and Power in Revolutionary Russia, Macmillan, London, 1990.

Rejsner M.A., Frejd i ego škola o relighii [Freud e la sua scuola sulla religione], 1924; Sotsial'naja psikhologhija i učenije Frejda [La psicologia sociale e la dottrina di Freud], 1925; tr.it. Un giurista sovietico e Freud, La Salamandra, Milano, 1979.

Reich W. (1929); tr.ru., ''Zametki o poezdke, osuščestvlennoj dlj izučenija položenija v Rossii''[Appunti sul viaggio condotto al fine di valutare la situazione in Russia], sito internet: http://psychoanalyse.narod.ru , rubrica ''Читальный зал'' ; cfr. Die psychoanalytische Bewegung, Intern. Psychoan. Verlag, Wien, 1929.

Reich W. Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf, 1936; trad. it. La rivoluzione sessuale, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1984.

Rosenthal T.K., ''Stradanie i tvorcestvo Dostoevskogo. (Psichogheneticeskoje issledovanije )'' [Il tormento e l'opera di Dostoevskij (ricerca psicogenetica)], Voprosy izučenija i vospitanija ličnosti [Questioni sullo studio e sull'educazione della personalitŕ], I, 1919, Petrograd.

Schimdt V., Psychoanalytische Erziehung in Sowietrussland. Bericht über das Moskauer Kinderheim-Laboratorium [L'educazione psicoanalitica nella Russia Sovietica. Rapporto sulla Casa d'Infanzia-laboratorio], Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Wien, 1924; tr.it. L'Asilo Psicoanalitico di Mosca, Emme Ed., Milano, 1972.

Spielrein S., Comprensione della schizofrenia e altri scritti, Liguori, Napoli, 1986.

Trotskij L., Letteratura e rivoluzione, Einaudi, Torino, 1973.

Trotskij L., ''Pis'mo academiku I.P.Pavlovu'', Socinienia [''La lettera all'accademico I.P.Pavlov'', Opere], v.XXI, 1927.

Vološinov D.N., Frejdizm. Kritičeskij očerk., Gosizdat, Moskva, 1927; tr.it. Freudismo, Dedalo, Bari, 1977.

Vygotskij L.S., Psichologija iskusstva,, (1925); Iskusstvo Moskva, 1965, II ed. 1968; tr.it. Psicologia dell'arte, Ed.Riuniti, Roma, 1972.

Vygotskij L.S., ''Psichika, soznanie i bessoznatel'noe'' [Lo psichico, la coscienza e l'inconscio] in Elementy obščej psichologii [Elementi di psicologia generale], B.Z.O., Moskva, 1930.

Wulff M., ''Zur Stellung der Psychoanalyse in der Sowjetunion'', Die psychoanalytische Bewegung, II, 1930; ''O položenii psichoanaliza v Sovetskom Sojuze. Otklik na stat'u Rajcha'', sito internet: http://psychoanalyse.narod.ru , rubrica ''Читальный зал''.

Zalkind A., Polovoj vopros v uslovijach sovietskoj obščestvennosti [La questione sessuale nelle condizioni della societŕ sovietica], Leningrad, 1926.
 

The following references come from some web pages:

 

SZŐKE KATALIN

PSZICHOANALÍZIS KELET-EURÓPÁBAN AZ OROSZ SZÁZADELŐ KULTÚRTÖRTÉNETE ÉS A PSZICHOANALÍZIS

BEVEZETÉS A. ETKIND TANULMÁNYÁHOZ

  Alekszandr Etkind, a szentpétervári kultúrtörténész és pszichológus könyve, a Lehetetlen Erósza. A pszichoanalízis története Oroszországban (1. kiad.: 1993, 2. kiad.: 1994) igazi bestsellerré vált az orosz könyvpiacon. Etkind könyve ugyanis jó példa arra, hogyan lehet ideológiai elfogultságok nélkül izgalmas tanulmánykötetet írni az orosz mentalitásról, melynek történetében a XX. század első két évtizedében a pszichoanalízis jelentős szerepet játszott. Etkind könyvében párhuzamosan vizsgálja az irodalom, tudomány és a politika jelenségeit, szemléletének átfogó jellegét a Lehetetlen Erosza előszavában a következőképp indokolja: Az orosz hagyományban ismeretlen volt és mind a mai napig ismeretlen a szakterületek nyugaton szokásos egymástól való elszigeteltsége: a tudományt és a művészeteket egy és ugyanazon szellemi áramlatok és politikai eszmék táplálták és forrasztották egységbe. A pszichoanalízis történetének Oroszországban nem csak orvosok és pszichológusok voltak a résztvevői, hanem hozzájuk hasonló mértékben a dekadens költők, a vallásfilozófusok és a hivatásos forradalmárok."
  A Lehetetlen Erószában Etkind tehát nem csak az oroszországi pszichoanalízis történetét vázolja fel, hanem bemutatja annak tág, kulturális környezetét, a szimbolista költőktől kezdve a bolsevik kísérleteken át M. Bahtyin és M. Bulgakov munkásságáig. Természetesen, figyelme középpontjában a nemzetközi pszichoanalitikus mozgalom oroszországi résztvevői állnak, legyenek azok analitikusok, illetve betegek. Freud híres esettanulmányának, a Farkasember hősének, Szergej Pankejevnek az élettörténete is szorosan kapcsolódik a századelő kultúrtörténetéhez, az Ezüstkor (így nevezik Oroszországban a XX. század első évtizedét, amikor addig soha nem látott szellemi izzás jellemezte az orosz intellektuális életet) mentalitástörténetéhez. A könyvben Pankejev sorsán kívül megismerkedhetünk a szintén orosz származású Lou Andreas-Salome életével és munkásságával két világ és korszak határán", akiről köztudott, hogy nagy szerepet játszott Nietzsche és Freud életében. A tehetséges analitikusnő, Szabina Spielrein tragikus élettörténete, Junggal és Freuddal való kapcsolata, szovjetunióbeli sorsa az immáron orosz archívumokból nemrég előkerült dokumentumok fényében kap új értelmezést. Kultúrtörténeti szempontból különösen érdekes Etkind tanulmánya az orosz szimbolizmus és a freudizmus kapcsolatáról: az orosz modernizmus népszerű, nietzschei eredetű mitologémáját, Dionüszoszt a freudi Ödipusszal konfrontálva olyan új következtetésekre jut, melyek differenciáltabb megközelítést tesznek lehetővé Andrej Belij és Vjacseszlav Ivanov művei motívumrendszerét illetően.
  Vitathatatlan tény, hogy az 1910-től a harmincas évek végéig az orosz intellektuális élet egyik legfontosabb összetevője volt a freudizmus. Oroszországban a freudizmus befogadását alig kísérte ellenállás, sőt az első világháború után népszerűbb volt, mint akár Franciaországban vagy Németországban. A tízes és húszas években alakult ki az orosz analitikus iskola, melynek olyan képviselői voltak, mint Ny. Oszipov, Tatjana Rozental, Mojszej Vulf, Leonyid Droznesz és mások. A bolsevikok kezdetben, voltaképpen Trockij bukásáig - ahogy Etkind könyve bemutatja, Trockij viszonylag közeli kapcsolatba került az analízissel -, támogatták az orosz analitikusokat, felhasználva őket saját utópisztikus eszményeik megvalósítására. Az új ember" nevelésében, s a specifikusan szovjet tudomány, a pedológia megteremtésében az analitikusok tevékeny részt vállaltak. Az 1920-as években jelentős hatással volt az analízis a későbbi kiemelkedő szovjet pszichológusnemzedékre: A. Lurijára, L. Vigotszkijra, P. Blonszkijra. 1930-tól egészen a nyolcvanas évekig a Szovjetunióban, mint közismert, a pszichoanalízis tiltott tudomány volt. Lényegében A. Etkind könyve az első hazai" tanulmánykötet - az orosz analízis történetét eddig külföldön írták - e fontos mozgalomról.

Between certainty and uncertainty – observations on psychoanalysis in Russia

• Gary N. Goldsmith

'Diversity', the theme of our conference, carries a subversive sub-text in totalitarian societies. This is one of the themes presented as the current revival of psychoanalysis in the more democratic post-Communist Russia is explored. The history of psychoanalysis in Russia is summarized with a focus on its politicization, which led to initial interest in its theory (by way of a misapprehension of its tenets), and then to ultimate suppression of psychoanalytic thinking as an ideology deemed antagonistic to the totalitarian regime. In contrast, features of psychoanalysis and democracy are explored for their mutual affinities. The background of the resourceful new generation of analytic therapists is discussed, especially in regard to their experience of the parallel meanings of the word 'repression' (political, psychological). There is a persistence of some traits in patients and practitioners alike that are referable to past repression, such as the newness of verbal treatments, the inhibition of psychological curiosity, the ambivalent lure of certainty, and the pressure of authoritarian introjects. It is noted that psychoanalysis has its own history of a posture opposed to pluralism and diversity, which deepens the dialogue on the mutual engagement between psychoanalysis and the vicissitudes of its history in Russian culture.

Mikhail Rescetnikov, "Periodo di illusioni e di speranze", in PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE, fasc. 3, 2002.

The Pursuit of Psychoanalysis under Conditions of Communism

Review of: Martin A. Miller. Freud and the Bolsheviks: Psychoanalysis in imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.

Hans Pols

E-mail: h.pols@scifac.usyd.edu.au
Home Page

Appeared in: Left History 7 (2001)2: 108-114.

Martin Miller's Freud and the Bolsheviks provides a concise history of the vicissitudes of the psychoanalytic movement in Russia. He relates how the psychoanalytic movement started in tsarist Russia, how it adapted and further developed under Communism before it was outlawed, and how it blossomed again since the 1960s. Initially, Russia's cosmopolitan culture proved particularly receptive to psychoanalytic ideas. A number of works by Sigmund Freud had been translated before 1917 and two psychoanalytic societies had been founded. Initially, the new Communist regime allowed a relative freedom in intellectual exploration; some psychoanalysts were eager to demonstrate how their ideas could contribute to construction of the New Man for the new, Communist, society. During the late 1920s, however, debates around the nature of psychoanalysis and the compatibility of Freud and Marx became increasingly strident. Psychoanalysis came under fire for being bourgeois, idealist, biologistic, and pessimistic; critics charged that it was inherently tied to its bourgeois roots and, as a suspect capitalist ideology, had no place in Soviet society. In the 1930s, psychoanalysis disappeared in Soviet Russia. During the next few decades, interest in psychoanalysis in the Soviet Union was limited to a few individuals who secretly kept the writings of Freud and discussed them in private. From the early 1960s on, slowly a new openness to psychoanalysis emerged; as the grip of the Communist party on society loosened, psychoanalytic topics were discussed more freely.

Miller has provided an extremely readable and comprehensive overview of the history of psychoanalysis in Russia and the Soviet Union. By presenting the most important parameters in that history, his book serves as a superb introduction to the topic. The first two parts of Miller's overview, dealing with psychoanalysis in pre-revolutionary Russia and under Communism until 1936, present information available in a wide variety of disparate sources; Miller [ - 108 - ] conveniently presents the whole story in accessible form. The third part of the book, dealing with psychoanalysis in the Soviet Union after 1960, is based on new research and describes developments not discussed elsewhere. Miller's research is mostly based on published sources; he presents the history of psychoanalysis by summarizing a wide variety of publications dealing with psychoanalytic topics and placing them in their contexts.

The first question one can ask of any book dealing with the history of psychoanalysis written in recent years is why one should focus on the history of psychoanalysis in the first place. Up until the 1960s, when psychoanalysis reigned supreme in the United States, one did not need to provide a justification for writing a historical account of its development. Accounts written at that time, of which Gregory Zilboorg's History of Medical Psychology (New York: Norton, 1941) is the most well-known, generally contrasted the ignorance of the past with the enlightened present and sought to analyze why it took such a long time for the psychiatric profession or society at large to accept the obviously true, valid, and scientific insights of psychoanalysis. Today, psychoanalysis has been largely discredited within the helping professions (although it seems to enjoy great popularity in literary, cultural, and film studies). One historian of psychiatry, Edward Shorter, presented it as a hiatus in the growth of an ever-more powerful somatic psychiatry. ⁽¹⁾ If psychoanalysis appears to be discredited in the Western world, one could wonder why an entire book to its development elsewhere should be written. Unfortunately, Miller does not tell us why it is important to tell the story of psychoanalysis in Russia.

A second problem for the historian who sets out to investigate the history of psychoanalysis is that the object of his interest has changed considerably over time. When the psychoanalytic movement started, relatively few ideas had been spelled out and there was considerable freedom to develop new ideas. Probably reflecting this earlier openness within the psychoanalytic movement, Miller states that, in his book, "psychoanalysis" stands for the work of Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Alfred Adler, and others who had at one time or another some connection to psychoanalysis; all in all, they were a rather diverse group of clinicians and theoreticians. In the first decade of the twentieth century, "psychoanalysis" covered a wide variety of ideas. Interested individuals had great leeway to formulate their own approach. It was, after all, not easy to gain an accurate understanding of Sigmund Freud's ideas when one did not read German; Freud's works appeared in translation rather slowly. Because of these reasons, what were actually understood to be essential tenets of psychoanalysis could vary widely among individuals and nations. It would have been helpful if Miller had elaborated what elements of this wide body of ideas were espoused by the Russians and which ones were neglected.

To make the situation even more complicated, "psychoanalysis" was, for a long time, short-hand for a movement which attracted all kinds of individuals who were interested in developing a mental approach to human nature. This [ - 109 - ]movement was dominated by the approaches developed by three individuals, two of whom are not considered psychoanalysts by today's standards: Pierre Janet, Paul Dubois, and Sigmund Freud. From the 1890s on, Janet had developed his dynamic psychology of alternate mental states to explain phenomena such as multiple personality and the remarkable ability of hypnosis to uncover forgotten memories, ranging from those of traumatic events to rather mundane and unimportant details of life. Hypnosis could provide access to the subliminal consciousness, which was much broader in scope than our everyday consciousness. Not surprisingly, hypnosis became the prime psychotherapeutic method for Janet. Paul Dubois, a Swiss psychiatrist, had developed his rational psychotherapy to deal with neurotic complaints. Through reasoning, suggestion, and persuasion, Dubois challenged his patients to develop a rational perspective on their situation, which would aid them in acting decisively to address the issues that made them unhappy. He was opposed to the use of hypnosis since it would subvert the power of the person to act and paralyzed the will. Freud's theories, developed somewhat later, incorporated elements of both theorists. In the beginning, individuals interested in the mental aspects of life did not feel a strong need to differentiate between these three. The historian of psychoanalysis, or, as I would prefer to put it, the historian of psychological approaches to human nature, has to investigate the relative importance of each of these three approaches in specific historical contexts. Miller mentions that Osipov, one of the first Russian psychoanalysts, was influenced by Dubois and published some of his articles in the journal of the Russian Psychoanalytic Society. Unfortunately, he does not analyze the relative importance of Dubois's approach in Russian psychoanalysis.

Earlier histories of psychoanalysis generally sketched its growth as originating in the works of Sigmund Freud, after which they sketch the dissemination of his ideas. Contemporary historical research on the history of psychoanalysis in North America has become increasingly sophisticated and analyzes a great number of cultural and social factors which made North America receptive to psychoanalytic ideas. ⁽²⁾ American historians interested in the growth of psychological or mental approaches to human nature have elaborated on the importance of the mind-cure movement, North American religiosity, American individualism, the existing self-help culture, and several other factors to explain the popularity of psychoanalysis at this side of the Atlantic. One wishes that Miller had provided similar explanations for the seeming popularity in Russia. His overview of the crisis in somatic psychiatry which led to an interest in psychoanalysis could have been expanded to include a wide variety of other factors.

During the first decades of the twentieth century, one could become interested in psychoanalysis for a variety of reasons. This would, not surprisingly, influence what specific individuals took away from Freud. Miller mentions Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria as early Russian enthusiasts for [ - 110 - ] psychoanalysis. One could wonder, however, what their interests in psychoanalysis consisted of. Neither one remained interested in it for a long time. However, both men developed radically innovative and interesting approaches to the study of the human mind. Vygotsky developed a highly original theory of the socialization of children which incorporated social and cultural factors to a much greater extent than orthodox psychoanalysis did. Luria became famous for his later studies in brain physiology. Miller's study would have profited from a description of approaches to the study of the human mind that existed when psychoanalysis became known in Russia, and which alternative approaches to the mind developed later on. This would place psychoanalysis in its proper intellectual context and acquaint readers with fascinating bodies of thought that are not particularly well-known in the Western world.

The high point of the book consists of the descriptions of the infighting and expulsion of individuals and political groups within the Politburo, the Communist Party, and several state-controlled academic institutions, as well as the consequences of these highly charged political struggles for psychoanalysis as well as any form of psychology. In the decade after the Revolution, a relative freedom reigned in which intellectuals developed a wide variety of ideas on how a Communist society could best be realized. Active debates about how psychoanalysis and Marxism could be combined in the building of the new Soviet society took place. During the late 1920s, following Stalin's political ascendence, this freedom became increasingly restricted. When the political faction which had supported psychoanalysis fell from favor and was ousted from all influential political bodies, the fate of psychoanalysis in the Soviet Union was sealed. In a number of highly visible public discussions, the bourgeois roots of psychoanalysis were decried and exposed as a poison for the true revolutionary spirit. Psychoanalysis had, after all, come into being as a treatment method for the worried well-off and thereby functioned as a panacea for the neuroses in the wealthy, the class responsible for the exploitative social structure of capitalism. At the 1930 Congress on Human Behavior, organized by the Society of Materialist Psychoneurologists of the Communist Academy of Sciences, psychoanalysis was widely condemned as a system of thought incompatible with Marxism. Several intellectuals claimed that earlier attempts to combine Freud and Marx were inherently fallacious and would have to be abandoned. Aaron Zalkind, an earlier enthusiast for Freud's theories, had read the writing on the wall and declared himself as the most ardent opponent of any form of psychologism and idealism in psychiatry and psychology; his speech at the Congress was designed to be the death knell for the Soviet Freudians (despite all this, Zalkind was not able to rescue his career). In 1936, the Central Committee of the Communist Party banned psychoanalysis and related idealist, bourgeois ideas from academic and public life.

Miller reports on this debate in a matter-of-fact way, but does not provide his own perspective on the developments. Were the Soviets afraid of the [ - 111 - ] unconscious and therefore repressed psychoanalysis? Or were they right in their condemnation of a sick ideology? The first problem for the Soviets with psychoanalysis was that the latter deals with the problem of the imaginary. Psychoanalysis deals with fantasies and desires-the imagination-and pays less attention to actual life experiences and the social and cultural origins of these life conditions. For psychoanalysts, personality development was based on desire and sexual conflict, not on the class structure or economic reality. ⁽³⁾ Soviet intellectuals were, on the contrary, interested on the social determinants of behavior and thought, in particular how the economic foundations of specific societies influences the personality. Psychoanalysis was not particularly useful for gaining insight into such factors. The question of the relative importance of economic, social, and cultural factors on personality development has absorbed the interests of a great number of neo-Freudians, among them Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm, and Erik Erikson, who also felt that classical psychoanalysis did not take these factors into account sufficiently. These authors did their most creative work in accommodating social and cultural factors in a psychoanalytic framework. Second, in the Western world, psychoanalysis provided an expensive cure for the wealthy, leisurely classes and thereby unwittingly kept class distinctions alive. It never was available for the masses (although some initiatives were undertaken in Berlin and Vienna to provide psychoanalysis to individuals who could not afford it).

Unfortunately, the 1930 Congress and the 1936 decree ended a period of fruitful dialogue between a limited number of Marxists and a limited number of psychoanalysis (most of whom considered Bolshevism inspired by neurotic desires or as a symptom of deeper-laying psychoses). Attempts to combine insights from both have inspired intellectuals for a long time. However, attempts to come up with a synthesis have often been difficult. Louis Althusser, for example, stated in a moment of exasperation about the relationship between ideology and the Unconscious: "I have said that there must be some relation there, but ... I can only reply that I don't see it." ⁽⁴⁾ In other words, the debate about the relationship between Marxism and psychoanalysis, although fruitful and intellectually invigorating for all the decades it has been conducted, has not been particularly conclusive. It is therefore not surprising that Soviet intellectuals found it difficult to fit both ideologies within the same system.

Between 1930 and 1960, hardly anything on psychoanalysis was published in the Soviet Union. Surprisingly, in the 1960s, a whole new trend of Soviet criticism of Freud appeared. In these critiques, psychoanalysis is never dismissed out of hand; instead, detailed critique is given, some of which anticipated arguments later articulated in the West. It appears that these critiques provided an acceptable "code" to discuss psychoanalytic topics publicly; those interested in psychoanalysis needed to earn a reputation as critics to gain access to Freud's writings. In the 1980s, psychoanalysis was more openly discussed in the Soviet Union; in 1979, the famous Tbilisi conference on psychoanalysis was [ - 112 - ] held, which had a lot of Western participants. During glasnost and perestroika, psychoanalytic matters were discussed widely, as they are today in an attempt to make sense of a post-Communist Russia. One could wonder whether the renewed interest in psychoanalysis was based on a liking of everything the Communist regime disliked or whether it was due to other factors; unfortunately, Miller does not provide an explanation.

At some points, Miller reflects on the status of psychoanalysis in widely-read Russian novels, some of which clearly reflect psychoanalytic ideas but were politically savvy enough not to make this too obvious. Here, Miller misses an important chance to analyze the importance of psychiatric and psychological analyses of characters in Russian novels as well as the authors of these novels. In Russia, it appears that psychoanalytic ideas were applied to analyze literature, the arts, and politics before they were used in psychotherapeutic practice. Miller mentions the applications of psychoanalysis to literature of Nikolai Osipov on Lev Tolstoy and the writings of Tatiana Rosenthal, among them an extensive analysis of the author Fiodor Dostoyewski. Russian psychiatrists spent ample time on such analyses; seen the importance of the Russian literary tradition, they could make the importance of their discipline clear to the public by providing new perspectives on well-known literary characters. Of course, it was helpful that many Russian novels contain elaborate descriptions of the mental life of its characters who suffer from wide variety of psychological disturbances (one only has to think of Dostoyewksi's The Double, The Idiot, and his Notes from the Underground, and Gogol's Diary of a Madman). This specifically Russian tradition has hardly been studied historically and constitutes, in my opinion, one of the most interesting culturally-specific applications of psychiatric and psychoanalytic theory in Russia and the Soviet Union.

As I said before, Freud and the Bolsheviks provides a superb overview of the history of psychoanalysis in Russia and the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, the author does not make clear why the reader should care about the topic of his book. It is not clear, for example, whether the author intends to use the history of psychoanalysis to shed light on developments within Russia and the Soviet Union or whether he intended to do the reverse and use the history of Russia and the Soviet Union to shed light on psychoanalysis. On the first page of his book, Miller states that his book is principally concerned with, among other things, the consequences of the establishment of a psychoanalytic presence in Russia and the Soviet Union (p. ix). This, however, is the last we hear about this potentially highly interesting topic. In the last pages, he seeks to answer the question why psychoanalysis has been fought, debunked, and discredited with an apparently endless vigor in the Soviet Union (pp. 161-8). After provocatively stating that "psychoanalysis became a powerful symbol of a deep problem endemic to the Soviet system itself" (p. 164), he fails to follow up by informing the reader about the nature of that deep problem. He mentions the psychoanalytic emphasis on individualist concerns, which, understandably, was opposed to Soviet [ - 113 - ] collectivist values, but this hardly explains the deep enmity the Soviets felt for Freud. It could be, for example, that discrediting Freud became a propedeutic effort for any Soviet intellectual to develop his or her ideological teeth in the same way we ask college students today to write critical essays on any non-controversial topic. Be that as it may, Miller's book leaves a number of rather difficult questions unanswered which will occupy historians of psychoanalysis and historians of Communism for the next few years.

Moreover, one could reflect on why the late 1920s and 1930s were the most prominent years for Freud-bashing in the Soviet Union, while the 1990s proved to be the same in supposedly highly individualistic North America. Were the same factors at work? Were they highly divergent? Or has Freud, for reasons that are not entirely clear, always been an interesting figure-head whom everybody loves to hate and who can easily be criticized in any cultural context when, really, quite different points are being made? Such questions are inevitably part of a broader cultural history of psychoanalysis which transcends an analysis of the dissemination of a specific and, over time, highly codified body of ideas. [ - 114 - ]

Notes

1. Edward Shorter, A history of psychiatry: From the era of the asylum to the age of Prozac (New York: John Wiley, 1997), chapter 5, "The Psychoanalytic Hiatus."

2. See, for example, Nathan G. Hale, Freud and the Americans: The beginnings of psychoanalysis in the United States, 1876-1917 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971); Freud and the Americans, 1917-1985: The rise and crisis of psychoanalysis in the United States (New York: Oxford Univ Press, 1995).

3. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, in their Anti-oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1983 (or. 1972)) attempt to develop a psychoanalytic theory of the unconscious in which desire is understood to be directly connected to the material conditions of existence. See, in particular, chapter 1.4, "A materialistic psychiatry."

4. Louis Althusser, Writings on psychoanalysis: Freud and Lacan. Translated by Jeffrey Mehlmann, edited by Olivier Corpet and François Matheron (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 5.