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The Economy of Nerves: Health, Commercial Culture, and the Self in Late Imperial Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Susan K. Morrissey
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Abstract

In early twentieth-century Russia, personal health became a commodity in a rapidly expanding commercial culture. As medical services and products (patent medicines, gadgets, self-help books) became widely available, new advertising strategies played upon both the threat of disease and the promise of health and well-being. This marketplace helped to feed new ideas about individual and social health, including such modern concepts as life-style choices. It also promoted competing models of the modern self: images of the weak and enervated victim of modern life were countered by visions of a healthy, strong, and controlled subject, able to master life forces. Focusing upon the disease construct of neurasthenia, Susan K. Morrissey explores how “nervousness” became a mass diagnosis and an emblem of the modern era—both its illnesses and its potential for regeneration. The making of a modern social sphere, Morrissey argues, depended not just on (professional) claims to specialized knowledge and broader political forces but also on commercial culture itself.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 69 , Issue 3 , Fall 2010 , pp. 645 - 675
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2010

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References

I would like to thank my anonymous reviewers as well as numerous colleagues for their helpful comments, especially Daniel Beer, Alex Oberlander, Simon Pawley, Jan Plamper, Kristin Roth-Ey, and Claudia Verhoeven.

1 Peterburgskii listok, 7 December 1906, 8.

2 For the quotation, a brief discussion of this phenomenon with other examples, and a broader discussion of advertisement in this period, see Sally West, “The Material Promised Land: Advertising's Modern Agenda in Late Imperial Russia,” Russian Review 57, no. 3 (July 1998): 362.

3 For a useful overview, see Porter, Roy, “Nervousness, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Style: From Luxury to Labour,” in Gijswijt-Hofstra, Marijke and Porter, Roy, eds., Cultures of Neurasthenia: From Beard to the First World War (Amsterdam, 2001).Google Scholar With its long history and prominence in Freudianism, hysteria has probably received the most scholarly attention to date. See, e.g., Showalter, Elaine, The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York, 1985);Google Scholar Micale, Mark S. Approaching Hysteria: Disease and Its Interpretations (Princeton, 1995);Google Scholar Lerner, Paul Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930 (Ithaca, 2003);Google Scholar and Micale, Mark S. Hysterical Men: The Hidden History of Male Nervous Illness (Cambridge, Mass., 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Beard was not the first person to use the term neurasthenia, but he was the primary force behind its popularization. See his “Neurasthenia, or Nervous Exhaustion,” in Boston Medical and Surgical fournal, no. 3 (1869); A Practical Treatise on Nervous Exhaustion (Neur-asthenia) (New York, 1880); and American Nervousness: Its Causes and Consequences (1881; New York, 1972).

5 On the history of neurasthenia in the United States, see especially Lutz, Tom, American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal History (Ithaca, 1991);Google Scholar and Campbell, Brad, “The Making of ‘American’: Race and Nation in Neurasthenic Discourse,” History of Psychiatry 18, no. 2 (June 2007): 157–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 On the European confrontation with degeneration theory, see Pick, Daniel Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder, 1848–1918 (Cambridge, Eng., 1989);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Nye, Robert Crime, Madness, and Politics in Modern France: The Medical Concept of National Decline (Princeton, 1984);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Beer, Daniel Renovating Russia: The Human Sciences and the Fate of Liberal Moder-nity, 1880–1930 (Ithaca, 2008).Google Scholar

7 As it evolved over space and through time, the disease construct adapted to various medical-scientific and sociocultural contexts, including the deluge of nervous disorders that accompanied World War I. Scholars disagree on the timing of neurasthenia's decline. On the history of neurasthenia in Europe, see Gijswijt-Hofstra, and Porter, , eds. Cultures of Neurasthenia; Rabinbach, Anson The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity (New York, 1990), esp. 19–44, 153–63;Google Scholar Radkau, Joachim Das ZeitalterderNervositat: Deutschland zwischen Bismarck und Hitler (Munich, 1998);Google Scholar Killen, Andreas Berlin Electropolis: Shock, Nerves, and German Modernity (Berkeley, 2006);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Cowan, Michael Cult of the Will: Nervousness and German Modernity (University Park, 2008).Google Scholar

8 I agree with Jacqueline Lee Friedlander that no single diagnostic entity dominated medical attention, which focused rather on a more generalized “disrupted equilibrium of the nervous system.” Jacqueline Lee Friedlander, “Psychiatrists and Crisis in Russia, 1880–1917” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2007), 13–14. Neurasthenia often overlapped with other illnesses, including in medical discussions and diagnoses. Similarly, both specialists and laypeople referred to a generic “nervousness,” which was often used interchangeably with neurasthenia but in any case encompassed neurasthenia with its connotations of modernity, weakness, and exhaustion.

9 For the most recent contributions, see Beer Renovating Russia; Beer, Daniel, “‘Microbes of the Mind’: Moral Contagion in Late Imperial Russia,” Journal of Modern History 79, no. 3 (September 2007): 531–71;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Plamper, Jan, “Fear: Soldiers and Emotion in Early Twentieth-Century Russian Military Psychology,” Slavic Review 68, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 259–83;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Phillips, Laura L., “Gendered Dis/ability: Perspectives from the Treatment of Psychiatric Casualties in Russia's Early Twentieth-Century Wars,” Social History of Medicine 20, no. 2 (August 2007): 333–50;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Friedlander, , “Psychiatrists and Crisis”; and Sirotkina, Irina Diagnosing Literary Genius: A Cultural History of Psychiatry in Russia, 1880–1930 (Baltimore, 2002).Google Scholar See also Engelstein, Laura The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in Fin-de-Siecle Russia (Ithaca, 1992), chap. 5;Google Scholar Hutchinson, John F. Politics and Public Health in Revolutionary Russia, 1890–1918 (Baltimore, 1990);Google Scholar Brown, Julie V., “Revolution and Psychosis: The Mixing of Science and Politics in Russian Psychiatric Medicine, 1905–1913,” Russian Review 46, no. 3 (July 1987): 283–302;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Frieden, Nancy, Russian Physicians in an Era of Reform and Revolution, 1856–1905 (Princeton, 1981);Google Scholar and Miller, Martin Freud and the Bolsheviks: Psychoanalysis in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union (New Haven, 1998).Google Scholar

10 The “medical marketplace” can refer to the provision of paid medical service and has implications for the doctor-patient relationship, but this article focuses instead on the particular role of mass commercial culture as one of its key dimensions.

11 The tensions between Russia's doctors and the tsarist government are well known, as are the dynamics of professionalization; both have a place in the history of nervousness. My emphasis, though, lies elsewhere.

12 As an illustration of this logic, Professor I. G. Orshanskii of Khar'kov University admonished his readers as follows: “Correct sleep has a vital significance in the economy of our nerves… . Every hour that we curtail our sleep lays a heavy and dangerous burden upon the budget of our nerves… . And, by the way, how strongly do cultured and educated people sin in this fashion.” See Orshanskii, , “Sovremennaia slabonervnost',” Vestnik vospitaniia, 1906, no. 4: 86 Google Scholar.

13 On the development of the specialization of neurology and psychiatry, see Friedlander, “Psychiatrists and Crisis,” chap. 1.

14 On the significance of degeneration theory in Russia, see Beer Renovating Russia;Engelstein Keys to Happiness; and Morrissey, Susan K. Suicide and the Body Politic in Imperial Russia (Cambridge, Eng., 2006), 186–202.Google Scholar

15 He saw the Great Reforms as a medical turning point in this process. See Kovalevskii, P. I. Obshchaiapsikhopatologiia (Khar'kov, 1886), 181, 184–85.Google Scholar

16 See, e.g., Kovalevskii, P. I. Vyrozhdenie i vozrozhdenie (St. Petersburg, 1903).Google Scholar

17 Merzheevskii, I. P., “Ob usloviiakh, blagopriatstvuiushchikh razvitiiu dushevnykh i nervnykh boleznei v Rossii i o merakh, napravlennykh k ikh umen'sheniiu,” Trudy pervogo s“ezda otechestvennykh psikhiatrov (St. Petersburg, 1887), 19–20.Google Scholar

18 Although most specialists, following Beard, considered neurasthenia to be a so-matic condition of the nerve force, the prominence of prophylactic measures such as these points to latent psychosomatic dynamics as well. See Sikorskii, I. A., “Zadachi nervno-psikhicheskoi gigieny i profilaktiki,” Trudy pervogo s“ezda otechestvennykh psikhiatrov (St. Ptersburg, 1887), 1055–56,1059.Google Scholar

19 Goering focuses on the medical reception in die 1880s and 1890s and suggests that serious neurological research reached its height in the 1880s and then declined. As I show below, medical and popular interest continued to expand during and after the 1890s. Goering, Laura, “‘Russian Nervousness’: Neurasthenia and National Identity in Nineteenth-Century Russia,” Medical History 47, no. 1 (January 2003): 23–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Killen likewise emphasizes the doubled modern and antimodern tenor of neuras-thenia. See Killen BerlinElectropolis, 36–41 . In contrast to the German case, however, Russian doctors had a more antagonistic relationship to the state, which helped to politicize medical issues in a different way. See also Morrissey, Suicide and the Body Politic ,190, 201–3;Google Scholar and Brown, “Revolution and Psychosis.”

21 At the very end of her article, Goering acknowledges that neurasthenia was also invoked by left-leaning doctors and shaped twentieth-century cultural images, but she does not develop these points nor does she consider their implicadons for her story of conservative national politics. Goering, “‘Russian Nervousness,’” 45–46.

22 Two flagship journals Russkaia shkola and Vestnik vospitaniia, gave readers access to modern theories of pedagogy as well as medical perspectives. On the interplay between doctors and educators, see Andy Byford, “Professional Cross-Dressing: Doctors in Education in Late Imperial Russia (1881–1917),” Russian Review 65, no. 4 (October 2006): 586–616; and Byford, “Turning Pedagogy into a Science: Teachers and Psychologists in Late Imperial Russia (1897–1917),” Osiris, 23 no. 1 (2008): 50–81 .

23 Public criticism of the secondary school system began in earnest in the 1870s and grew stronger during the 1890s and after. In addition to numerous articles in Russkaia shkola and Vestnik vospitaniia, see, e.g., Lavrichenko, K. G. Roditeliam i uchiteliam: Voprosy vospitanie (1877; St. Petersburg, 1894);Google Scholar Nesterov, Dr. V. G., “Sovremennaia shkola i zdorov'e,” Meditsinskoe obozrenie, 1887, no. 4;Google Scholar and “Vnuuennee obozrenie,” Russkaia mysl', 1892, no. 11.

24 See, e.g., the typical springtime report in “Vnutrennee obozrenie,” Russkaia mysl', 1900, no. 4: 254. Over the next years, critical commentary on examinations would proliferate in many journals each spring, and empirical studies also sought to find physical evidence of the harm. See A. Briukhonenko, “Vliianie ekzamenov i uchebnykh zaniatii na ves uchashchikhsia,” Vestnik vospitaniia, 1908, no. 8.

25 For discussion and a chart on average daily hours of study (ranging from 9.53 to 10.19), see Kapterev, P. F. Novaia russkaia pedagogiia, ee glavneishie idei, napravleniia i deiateli (St. Petersburg, 1898), 131–43.Google Scholar See also Sikorskii, Ivan, “Ob umstvennom i nravstvennom razvitii uchashchikhsia v srednei shkole v sviazi s zdravookhraniem,” Voprosy nervno-psikhicheskoi meditsiny, 1901, no. 1: 104.Google Scholar

26 Rakhmanov, V., “Svobodnoe vospitanie s tochki zreniia psikhologii,” Vestnih vospitaniia, 1907, no. 1: 46–69.Google Scholar Similar points were made by Sledov, L., “Iunosha; psikhologiia i pedagogika ego vozrasta,” Vestnik vospitaniia, 1910, nos. 8, 9.Google Scholar See also Virenius, A. S., “Nervnost' detei,” Russkaia shkola, 1905, nos. 1, 2;Google Scholar and Troshin, G., “Razvitie voli u detei,” Vestnik vospitaniia, 1909, no. 8.Google Scholar Exhaustion and nervousness were likewise discussed at conferences; see, e.g., “Vtoroi Vserossiiskii s"ezd po pedagogicheskoi psikhologii,” Svobodnoe vospitanie, 1908–09, no. 1; and “Pervoi vserossiiskii s“ezd po ekspirimental'noi pedagogike,” Vestnik vospitaniia, 1911, no. 3.

27 See Kapterev Novaia russkaia pedagogiia, 131–32.

28 As one political commentator would ponder in the politicized world of 1908, “A school is harmful when it does not give knowledge, but what can be said about a school in which children and youth perish both spiritually and physically?” See Iordanskii, Nikolai, “Voprosy tekushchei zhizni: Tragediia detskoi dushi,” Sovremennyi mir, no. 5 (1908): 85.Google Scholar A movement for “free education” further sought to end “coercion” in schools and to foster an ordered, complete personality—mind, body, and soul. See the left-leaning journal, Svobodnoe vospitanie (1907–18). Such concerns ultimately culminated in the paedology movement, the “science of the child,” which was supposed to unite medical, psychological, and pedagogical knowledge and which reached its heyday in the 1920s (in part due to the cohort of prerevolutionary specialists) but was suppressed under Iosif Stalin. On educational theories more broadly in this period, see Kelly, Catriona Children's World: Growing Up in Russia, 1890-1991 (New Haven, 2007), 29–40, 66–70, 95–96.Google Scholar

29 Rozenbakh, Pavel, “Nevrasteniia,” Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' (St. Petersburg, 1897), 40: 804–7.Google Scholar See also Rozenbakh, , “O nevrastenii,” Vestnik klinicheskoi i sudebnoi psikhiatrii i nevropatologii, 1888–89, no. 6.Google Scholar

30 See, e.g., Bulatov, P. N. and Stepanov, N. I. Kratkii uchebnik nervnykh i dushevnykh boleznei, 4th ed. (St. Petersburg, 1912), 72–73.Google Scholar

31 Belitskii, Iu. Nevrasteniia: Ee sushchnost', prichiny, simptomy, vidy i lechenie (St. Petersburg, 1906), esp. 42–64.Google Scholar

32 Petrovskii used registration data from a range of Kiev institutions, including a free clinic, a military hospital, a private hospital, and his own private practice, for varying periods between 1899 and 1910. One chart was provided, which (despite mathematical errors) shows over 16,000 cases of nervous illness, including a breakdown by sex, a diagnosis of neurasthenia or hysteria (amounting to just under half of the total number of nervous illnesses), and site of diagnosis (but not the year of diagnosis or social background). My own work with the data suggests some interesting patterns. First, relative rates of neuras-thenia and hysteria varied, with 34.42 percent of men and 23.05 percent of women diagnosed with neurasthenia and 5.79 percent of men and 22.77 percent of women diagnosed with hysteria. (The remaining diagnoses were not specified.) This suggests that women were being diagnosed with neurasthenia, albeit at lower rates than men, but that hysteria remained a more female diagnosis. Second, both male and female patients in the private practice and male patients in the private hospital had higher rates of neurasthenia both overall and in relation to hysteria. This suggests a social bias to the diagnosis in favor of elites and those paying for medical help. Finally, the highest number of male hysterics was found in the military, especially among the lower ranks where 11.7 percent were diagnosed with hysteria (and 30.65 percent with neurasthenia), but also among officers (10.34 percent hysteria and 40.2 percent neurasthenia). This suggests a social bias as well as a phenomenon specific to the military. See P. V. Petrovskii, “K voprosu o zabolevaemosti (nevrasteniei i drugimi psikhonevrozami) narodnykh mass v Rossii,” in Bulatov, P. N., ed., Trudy XI Pirogovskogo s“ezda (St. Petersburg, 1911–1913), 3: 187.Google Scholar As Lerner discusses, the diagnosis of hysteria among soldiers occurred in Germany, especially in World War I. See Lerner, Hysterical Men.

33 See also the debate around this paper, which was generally politicized and supportive of Petrovskii's position. The session concluded with a decision to devote special attention to the spread of psychoneuroses at the next Pirogov Congress and to sponsor further research into the problem. Petrovskii, “K voprosu,” 185–86, 188–89.

34 Ia. Rozenbakh, P., “O prichinakh sovremennoi nervnosti i samoubiistv,” Novoe slovo, 1909, no. 11: 41–47 Google Scholar.

35 These included an 1887 report of a school doctor who had found steadily rising rates of nervous illness the longer pupils studied, from 8 percent in the preparatory classes to 44 percent in year six to 69 percent in year eight; an 1898 survey showed 57 percent of Warsaw students were suffering from various nervous illnesses; a 1905 study that found 75 percent of surveyed pupils in Ekaterinoslav had signs of degeneration; a 1909 staterun study of Moscow pupils that showed 21 percent were suffering from nervous illnesses; and the Moscow student survey discussed below. Gordon did not make a point of distinguishing between different kinds of nervous illness. Gordon, G., “Samoubiistva molodezhi i ee nervno-psikhicheskaia neustoichivost',” Novyi zhurnal dtia vsekh, 1912, no.9: 109–10.Google Scholar

36 There are several examples of the questions promoting particular associations from the neurasthenia construct, and respondents seeming to respond to them. Almost three times as many respondents (36.3 percent) thus reported getting tired from mental work as opposed to (supposedly healthier) physical labor (12.5 percent); similarly, masturbation caused a “fall in energy” (21.6 percent) and apathy (16 percent). See Chlenov, M. A. Polovaia perepis' Moskovskogo studenchestva i ee obshchestvennoe znachenie (Moscow, 1909), 17, 30, 63, 76.Google Scholar For the Petersburg survey, see Radin, E. P. Dushevnoe nastroenie sovremennoi uchashcheisia molodezhi (St. Petersburg, 1913), 88–89.Google Scholar

37 Chizh dismissed neurasthenia due to a lack of etiological rigor and consistency, and his initial critique is often cogent. But he also identified a “true” neurasthenia caused exclusively by hereditary factors as well as a whole series of new disease constructs under the heading “pseudo neurastheniac,” all with nonhereditary causes, such as rail spine coitus reservatus (which was especially harmful to women over the age of 30 seeking a form of contraception), and so on. See Chizh, V. F., “Kucheniiu o nevrastenii,” Vrachebnaia gazeta, 1910, no. 1–5, esp. no. 2: 53–54.Google Scholar

38 As Friedlander observes, the medical marketplace is not yet well developed in the historiography of Russian medicine. See Friedlander, “Psychiatrists and Crisis,” 86.

39 According to Frieden, the number of physicians in private practice doubled between 1889 and 1903, with 6,873 or 33.3 percent so employed in 1903. She emphasizes problems of underemployment and financial insecurity, but her analysis stops in 1905, a period of expansion in both the universities and the commercial world of healthcare. Frieden Russian Physicians, 210–21; see also Friedlander, “Psychiatrists and Crisis,” 85–91.

40 Medical advice literature and the public health movement covered a wide range of illnesses, with cholera notably prominent. In addition to self-help manuals and popular literature, doctors were also publishing more erudite articles in thickjournals about neurasthenia, nervousness, and their various symptoms, manifestations, and therapies. See, e.g., Koropchevskii, D., “Slabost' voli, kak priznak vremeni,” Mirboihii, 1894, no. 3: 32–51;Google Scholar Vecheslov, M., “O nekotorykh zakonakh psikhicheskogo utomleniia,” Obrazovanie, 1898, no. 11: 33–55;Google Scholar and Minor, L., “Uspekhi nervnoi terapii v kontse XIX veka i ee blizhaishie zadachi,” Russkaia mysl', 1901, no. 3: 116–27.Google Scholar

41 Kovalevskii, P. I. Nervnye boleini nashego obshcheslva (Khar'kov, 1894), 2.Google Scholar

42 Due to women's innate nervous impressionability and unsteadiness, restrictions on women's education were also advocated. Dr.Cullerre, Gigiena nervnykh i neiropatov (nervnost' i neirazy), ed. Kovalevskii, P. I. and trans. Kovalevskaia, K. N. (Khar'kov, 1888), esp. 1–2, 180 Google Scholar (a translation of his Nervosisme el neuroses: Hygiene des enerves el des nevropathes [Paris, 1887]). Another translation appeared in 1893. For a Russian translation of a German work, see Kornig, T. G. Nervnyi vek i nervnoe pokotenie (Odessa, 1894).Google Scholar On advice literature more generally, see Kelly, Catriona Refining Russia: Advice Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin (Oxford, 2001).Google Scholar

43 This was strikingly similar to Cullerre's. See Kovalevskii, P. I. Gigiena i leclienie nervnykh liudei (St. Petersburg, 1898).Google Scholar

44 Litinskii, I. A. Bolezn' veka —nevrasteniia (St. Petersburg, 1903).Google Scholar At least two other volumes appeared in this series, one on anemia and the other on consumption.

45 Ibid., 7–10.

46 An advertisement in Zdravie sem'i, no. 1 (1910): inside back cover.

47 The supplements in Nov' were titled “Domashnyi vrach” (1906–12) and “Vospitanie i zhizn'” (1906–07). Gazeta kopeika published “Zdorovaia zhizn'” (1910–12) and “Biblioteka zdorovoi zhizni” (1912). Moscow Kopeika also published Zdorov'e i sila (1912).

48 “Ot redaktsii,” Zdravie sem'i, no. 1 (1902): 1; no. 12 (1908): 1; no. 12 (1911): 1; and no. 12 (1912): 134. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate circulation figures for these or other health serials.

49 SeePopuliarnyiUteraturno-meditsinskiizhurnalDoktoraOksa (1898–1916);Domashnii doktor (1907–16); Sputnik zdorov'ia (1898 –1905); Bud'te zdorovy! Populiarnyi semeinyi zhurnal d-ra I. Zarubina (1894–1912); Zdorov'e: Zhurnal dlia vsekh (1900–01); Zdorov'e: Populiarnyi gigienicheskii zhurnal dra I. Zanibina (1913–14); and Zdorov'e: Zhurnal populiarnoi medilsiny i gigieny (1905).

50 See esp. the following titles published within the series Poleznaia biblioteka: Bezplatnoe prilozhnie k zhurnalu “Sputnika zdorov'ia” za 1903:Dr. G. I. Gordon Nevrasteniia i isleriia u detei (no. 15); Dr. E. Suvorovskii Obraz zhizni nevrastenikov (no. 18); and Suvorovskii, Gigienicheskii obraz zhizni nevrastenika (no. 19).

51 “Nervnaia gigiena vbol'shikh gorodakh,” Zdravie sem!i, no. 7 (1902): 51. See also, e.g., “Nervnaia slabost', kak narodnaia bolezn',” Zdravie sem'i, no. 8 (1903).

52 “Ot redaktsii,” Sputnik zdorov'ia: Obshchedostupnyi zhurnal, no. 1 (5 November 1898): 1.

53 “Ot redaktsii,” Zdravie sem'i, no. 1 (1902): 1.

54 “Nervnye deti,” Zdravie sem'i, no. 10 (1902): 78.

55 It advised readers that those wanting to protect children from nervousness must in fact be led by the particularities of each child's character. “Oshibki v vospitanii detei kak prichiny ikh nervnosti,” Zdravie setri'i, no. 5 (1910): 56. See also “Nervnost' zhenshchiny i detei,” Zdravie sem'i, no. 4 (1902): 25.

56 “Nervnoe ditia,” Zdravie sem'i, no. 18 (1905): 142.

57 Advice literature for parents had also appeared earlier, but the focus increasingly shifted to the maintenance of a healthy nervous system. The conservative psychiatrist Ivan Sikorskii emphasized the importance of “nervous-psychic hygiene” from birth onwards. In his view, even infants of one to three months should be protected from strong and prolonged impressions, for these could lead to the “exhaustion of the nervous system.” See Sikorskii, Dusha rebenka (Kiev, 1909), 56–57.Google Scholar Furthermore, as Byford shows, doctors likewise attempted to influence schools and pedagogy more broadly. See Byford, “Professional Cross-Dressing.”

58 Following well-established medical convention, Gippius identified two main causes of childhood nervousness—hereditary predispositions and “deformed” upbringing. Whereas the former required therapeutic intervention to strengthen the child's weakened constitution, the latter necessitated a range of measures connected to the two primary danger zones, the secondary school and sexuality (especially masturbation, which “depleted” the nervous system). Gippius, A. E. Vrach, kak vospitatel' (Moscow, 1909), esp. 172–73, 194–201, 251–57.Google Scholar For further discussion of masturbation and children, see Engelstein Keys to Happiness, chap. 6.

59 The following “symptoms” were listed for younger children, for example: extreme liveliness and an inability to sit still; impressionability and sensitivity; frights and poor sleep habits; stammering, shyness, and timidity; and a strong tendency to contradict adults. Ibid., 61,168–75,194–201, 248–69.

60 Numerous repeated advertisements related to nervousness appeared in the following publications: Peterburgskii listok; Peterlnirgskaia gazeta; Rus'; Russkoe slovo; RecK; Satirikon; Budil'nik; Vsemirnaia panorama; Russkii sport; Kinoteatr i zhizn'; and the health-related publications discussed above. Engelstein has reproduced relevant advertisements for four patent medicines from the period, including those promising cures for sexual neurasthenia and related conditions. See Engelstein Keys to Happiness, 361–64.

61 For examples, see Peterburgskaia gazeta, 15 February 1906, 8; Peterburgskii listok, 15 February 1907, 8; and Russkoe slovo, 22 August 1906, 5.

62 Budil'nik, 1909, no. 49: 12 (emphasis in the original).

63 I have not established whether these were real physicians. For a range of examples, see Satirikon, 1909, nos. 39, 41, 43, 44; and 1911, nos. 47, 51; Budil'nik, 1909, no. 12: 10. Another ad invoked medical authority pictorially: it depicted a professional-looking man (presumably a doctor) admonishing an unseen audience under the caption: “It is necessary to give one tablet of ‘Ara’ to schoolchildren and children in general from time to time, so they will always have a splendid appetite and correct digestion, which is the first condition of health.” See Peterburgskii listok, 11 June 1906, 8.

64 Peterburgskaia gazeta, 6 June 1908 (emphasis in the original). See also another advertisement for this medicine that cites several doctors and claims to correspond with current science Peterburgskii listok, 12 April 1907, 1.

65 Readers were likewise warned not to take medicines without doctor's advice. See, e.g., “Muzhskoe bessilie,” Zdravie sern'i, no. 9 (1909): 103; D. Zr, “Braun-Sekarovskaia amul'siia i spermin pelia,” Zdraviesem'i, no. 12 (1909): 137–40; E. L., “Nervnaia slabost' i ee lechenie,” Zdravie sem'i, no. 4 (1911): 38.

66 “Nevrasteniia,” Zdravie sem'i, no. 12 (1907): 91.

67 E. L., “Nervnaia slabost' i ee lechenie,” 37.

68 “Nervnoe rasstroistvo,” Zdraviesem'i, no. 8 (1910): 90.

69 For one booklet that claimed to provide medical advice but was really an advertising ploy for a phosphorus preparation, see Leman, R. G. Nervy, ikh zhiznedeiatel'nost', bolexni i ratsional'noe lechenie: Populiarnyi ocherk (Iur'ev, 1910).Google Scholar

70 For further discussion of sexual neurasthenia, see Dr. Sletov, N. V. Polovaia nevras-teniia, eeprichiny i lechenie (Moscow, 1908).Google Scholar

71 Peterbivrgskii listolt, 5 December 1906, 1.

72 Two competing products, both from Germany, were advertised widely. See, e.g., Peterburgskaia gazeta, 2 May 1906, and Rus', 1 November 1906. West also describes ads for the “Rejuvinator” electrical belt, which promised to be a “savior of mankind” in a “nervous and sickly age.” West, “Material Promised Land,” 326.

73 Rus', 24 December 1906, 5. Spermin was a widely advertised product derived from the testicles of bulls and stallions in a “delicate procedure” to produce crystals. See Kn. Tarkhanov, I. R., “Nervnyi vek,” Populiarnyi literaturno-meditsinskii zhurnalDoktora Oksa, 1906, no. 2: 20–23.Google Scholar In 1910, die Medical Council decided to allow its sale without a prescription. See Vrachebnaia gazeta, 1910, no. 28: 852–53.

74 Russkoe slovo, 3 September 1906, 5.

75 See the ads in Russkoe slovo, 10 September 1906, 7, and 2 July 1906, 6.

76 See the advertisement addressed to weak and nervous women, offering to send out 3,000 free packets of a medicine called Al'bukola Satirikon, 1912, no. 5.

77 The mass development of health tourism, including spas and sanatoria, is a related topic, much discussed in health magazines. Dr. Litinskii, the author of the self-help guide for neurasthenics discussed above, also authored a health guide to Odessa: Odessa, kak kurort: htoriko-geograficheskii, klimaticheskii, i gigienicheskii ocherk (Odessa, 1907). For an overview of tourism more generally in this period, see McReynolds, Louise Russia at Play: Leisure Activities at the End of the Tsarist Era (Ithaca, 2003), esp. 171–82.Google Scholar

78 On the novel and the controversy, see Boele, Otto, “Introduction,” Artsybashev, Mikhail Sanin: A Novel, trans. Katz, Michael R. (Ithaca, 2001);Google Scholar Boele, Otto Erotic Nihilism in Late Imperial Russia: The Case of Mikhail Artsybashev's Sanin (Madison, 2009);Google Scholar Mogil'ner, Marina Mifologiia “podpol'nogo cheloveka”: Radikal'nyi mikrokosm v Rossii nachala XX veka kak predmet semioticheskogo analiza (Moscow, 1999), 121–32;Google Scholar and Engelstein Keys to Happiness, chap. 10.

79 I. [Elena] Koltonovskaia, “'Sanin' i problema pola,” in Danilin, Ia., ed. Sanin v sveterusskoi kritiki (Moscow, 1909), 59–60.Google Scholar

80 Both heroes meet cliched destinies: Sanin goes off to meet the dawn of a new day, and Iurii kills himself. Doctors, family members, and school directors frequently linked neurasthenia and suicide. For excerpts from the medical and school records from the Odessa school district (May 1908–October 1910), see Popov, N. M. Sovremennaia epidemiia shkol'nykh samoubiistv v Rossii (Kazan', 1911), esp. 9, 12, 16, 93.Google ScholarArchival files from the Ministry of Education include reports citing neurasthenia-related causes for suicide attempts: See Rossiiskii gosudarstvennii istoricheskii arkhiv (RGIA), f. 733, op. 199, d. 141, 11. 354–55 and RGIA, f. 733, op. 199, d. 142,11. 37–44 (“an attack of neuasthenia”); RGIA, f. 333, op. 199, d. 94, 1. 145 (”a serious form of psychic neurasthenia upon the basis of heredity”); RGIA, f. 333, op. 199, d. 268,1. 440 (“an extreme nervous strain”); and RGIA, f. 333, op. 199, d. 185, 11. 79, 85 (“neurasthenia cerebralis e masturbatione”). On suicide more generally in this period, see Morrissey Suicide and the Body Politic, chap. 11.

81 In addition to the articles compiled in Danilin Sanin v svete russkoi kriliki, see Dr. Omel'chenko, A. P. Geroi nezdorovogo tvorchestva (St. Petersburg, 1908).Google Scholar He too analyzed the healthy Sanin and the ill Iurii, diagnosing die latter as neurasthenic.

82 Rybakov, F. E. Sovremennyepisateliibol'nyenervy (Moscow, 1908), esp. 43–47.Google Scholar Sirotkina and Beer discuss the relationship between psychiatry and literature in much more depdi than is possible here. See Sirotkina Diagnosing Literary Genius; and Beer, “'Microbes of the Mind.'” For furdier examples, see esp. the article by Dr. Vladimir Muratov, who saw literature's preoccupadon with “psychoasthenic types” as an expression of modern life, including the “extreme strain of competition,” extreme individualism, and the pursuit of material goods over higher principles. See his “Dushevnaia slabost' i ee znachenie v obshchestvennoi zhizni i khodozhestvennom tvorchestve,” Russkaia mysl', 1901, no.7: esp. 26; G. I. Rossolimo, “Iskusstvo, bol'nye nervy, i vospitanie,” Russkaia mysl', 1901, no. 2; and Dr.Radin, E. P. Problema pola v sovremennoi literature i bol'nye nervy (St. Petersburg, 1910).Google Scholar

83 See his column “Izdaleka” in Zaprosy zhizni, 1912, no. 11.

84 R. G., “Khronika: Iz zhizni srednei shkoly,” Vestnik vospitaniia, 1908, no. 1: 116–17.

85 Quoted in Radin Dushevnoe nastroenie, 44.

86 McReynolds Russia at Play, 87–95.

87 See, e.g., “Gimnastika nervov,” Russkii sport, 1909, no. 26: 4.

88 Trunn, “Mens sana in corpore sano,” Sila i zdorov'e, 1909, no. 1: 3.

89 Ross, B., “Sila,” Sila i zdorov'e, 1909, no. 1: 5–9;Google Scholar Man, Young, “Gigiena sporta,” Sila i zdorov'e, 1910, no. 2: 49–51.Google Scholar

90 This is probably Nikolai Volochugin. For further discussion and photos of cyclists from this era (including Volochugin), see Miatiev, Andrei, “Velosipednaia Moskva,” Veloks iped, 2005, no. 50.Google Scholar For a link to this PDF, see “Gazetnye / zhurnal'nye zametki ili stat'i” at ontheroad.maglan.ru/Fajjly#h86–6 (last accessed 3June 2010).

91 Mak, A., “Nasha anketa,” Kinoteatrizhizn', 1913, no. 5: 18.Google Scholar

92 It should likewise be noted that Russian writers had developed a rich array of images about nervous and mental disorders since the midnineteenth century, and Anton Chekhov likewise popularized the image of the neurasthenic in particular. For further discussion, see Goering, , “‘Russian Nervousness,’” 38–42, 45;Google Scholarand Sirotkina Diagnosing Literary Genius, 124–25.

93 See, for example, Zinger-Tal', L. M. Nervy (Iumoristicheskiekuplety) (Odessa, 1910);Google Scholar “Nervy,” Satirikon, 1909, no. 39: 7–8; “Kproekty gorodskogo naloga na bolezni,” Peterburgskaia gazeta, 26 January 1907, 2.

94 “Samoubiistvo nervnogo intelligenta,” Satirikon, 1909, no. 44: back cover.

95 The narrative of personal failure was perhaps more common. See, for example, the “autobiography” of a student—his long and detailed response to a questionnaire, in which his life story is denned by stock tropes of nervousness and his inability to transcend them; quoted in Radin Dushevnoe nastroenie, 84–87. Linkages could likewise be made to the motif of personal weakness and failure found in many suicide notes of the era. See Morrissey Suicide and the Body Politic, chap. 11.

96 “Kommissiia po bor'be so shkolnymi samoubiistvami,” Zhurnal russkogo obshchestva okhraneniia narodnogo zdraviia, 1911, no. 3: 53–54.

97 For similar examples linking physical to nervous health, see the anonymous responses of students to a questionnaire as quoted in Radin Dushevnoe nastroenie, 112–14.

98 See also Morrissey Suicide and the Body Politic, chap. 11; and Steinberg, Mark, “Melancholy and Modernity: Emotions and Social Life in Russia between the Revolutions,” Journal of Social History 41, no. 4 (Summer 2008): 813–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

99 A good example is the essay by A. S. Izgoev, “On Educated Youth: Notes on Its Life and Sentiments,” which details the degeneracy of modern youth and advances a model of self-restraint and moderation. See Shatz, Marshall S. and Zimmerman, Judith E., eds. and trans. Landmarks: A Collection of Articles about the Russian Intelligentsia (Armonk, N.Y., 1994).Google Scholar For further discussion of the liberal vision of subjectivity, see also Engelstein Keys to Happiness.

100 On the discursive construct of the proletariat in Marxist ideology, including its virility and physical superiority over an effeminate intelligentsia, see Halfin, Igal From Darkness to Light: Class, Consciousness, and Salvation in Revolutionary Russia (Pittsburgh, 2000), esp. chap. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

101 On the positive hero and its qualities of character, see Clark, Katerina The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (1981,1985; Chicago, 2000);Google Scholar on the overcoming of physical deficits, see Kaganovsky, Lilya, “How the Soviet Man Was (Un)Made,” Slavic Review 63, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 577–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

102 See, e.g., Hirsch, Francine Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Ithaca, 2005);Google Scholar Hoffmann, David and Kotsonis, Yanni, eds. Russian Modernity: Politics, Knowledge, Practices (London, 2000);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Pinnow, Kenneth M. Lost to the Collective: Suicide and the Promise of Soviet Socialism, 1921–1929 (Ithaca, 2010).Google Scholar

103 Dr. E. P. Radin's publications are too numerous to list here. See, e.g. Beregile detei: Okhrana zdorov'ia detei i podrostkov. Dostupnoe izlozhenie dlia krestian i rebochikh (Moscow, 1923); Zdorov'e —v tvoikh rukakh cherez fizicheskuiu kul'turu, 2d ed. (1922; Moscow, 1925).

104 In addition to Kelly Children's World, see also Gorsuch, Anne Youth in Revolutionary Russia: Enthusiasts, Bohemians, Delinquents (Bloomington, 2001);Google Scholar Kirschenbaum, Lisa, Small Comrades: Revolutionizing Childhood in Soviet Russia, 1917–1932 (New York, 2001);Google Scholar and Kuhr-Korolev, Corinna, Plaggenborg, Stefan, and Wellmann, Monica, eds. Sowjetjugend 1917–1941: Generation zwischen Revolution und Resignation (Essen, 2001).Google Scholar

105 Bernstein, Frances L., “Panic, Potency, and the Crisis of Nervousness in the 1920s,” in Kiaer, Christina and Naiman, Eric, eds. Everyday Life inEarly Soviet Russia: Taking the Revolution Inside (Bloomington, 2006).Google Scholar