February 8, 2002

'Diagnosing Literary Genius: A Cultural History of Psychiatry in Russia, 1880-1930'

By NINA C. AYOUB

Pity the writers of 19th-century Russia. Already hounded by critics and censors, they faced another dogged source of scrutiny: psychiatrists. This new audience of mind readers not only sought case material from authors' lives and works, but professional legitimacy, argues Irina Sirotkina in Diagnosing Literary Genius: A Cultural History of Psychiatry in Russia, 1880-1930 (Johns Hopkins University Press). Because of literature's standing among Russians, literary analyses and analogies lent