The institutionalization of Psychiatry in the Russian Empire: the case of the Kazan District Hospital as a Trasnational Study

Dissertationsprojekt von Ruslan Mitrofanov

Betreuer: Prof. Dr. Andreas Renner

In contemporary Russia—and particularly in Soviet Russia, where psychiatry often operated as a closed-loop institution and a ‘suppressor of dissent’—deinstitutionalization never took place. Many issues related to the humanization of psychiatric care and the improvement of patients’ psychological and physical conditions in hospitals remain unresolved.

Against this historical backdrop, my research project argues that in the case of the Kazan District Hospital, the rise of Russian Imperial psychiatry was not confined to regional or national boundaries. Rather, it was embedded in a broader, transnational context influenced by German, French, British, and other European models of psychiatric institutions in the early 20th century.

Drawing on reports from the Kazan District Hospital and other secondary sources, my research seeks to develop a new analytical framework for understanding Russian practices of psychiatric institutionalization as inherently non-national and cross-border. It is crucial to explore how the establishment and development of psychiatric institutions in imperial Russia unfolded, as their legacy persists in contemporary Russian psychiatric hospitals.

I am the author of the “Her Language Must Be the Language of Figures”. Medical
Statistics of the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia: A Comparative Perspective. In: Quaestio
Rossica, 2023, 11(2), 489–505; The Politics of Russian Psychiatry: Origins of the Kazan District
Hospital's Security Division (late 19th
–early 20th century). In: Ableidinger C., Becker P. (Hrsg.) Im
Büro des Herrschers. Neue Perspektiven der historischen Politikfeldanalyse. Vandenhoeck und
Ruprecht Verlag, 2022, S. 179–194; Alexander Frese and the Establishment of Psychiatry in the
Russian Empire. In: History of Psychiatry, 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2, pp. 194–207; Russian Psychiatry
beyond Foucault: Violence, Humanism, and Psychiatric Power in the Russian Empire at the End of
the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century. In: Borgos A. et al. (eds.) Psychology and Politics:
Intersections of Science and Ideology in the History of Psy-Sciences, New-York – Budapest: CEU
Press, 2019. 271–292;