[In Process Citation].
While the history of Soviet forensic psychiatry remains a subject of continuing interest in the ,,politics of remembrance," there is a conspicuous dearth of historiographic studies in this area. Drawing on newly accessible source material, this study addresses this gap in the literature, delineating issues of key concern to the topic. The paper first explores specific interrelationships between legal and nosological points of view in the theories of forensic psychiatry that prevailed in the USSR. On this basis, it then reconstructs the functional characteristics of the "diagnosis factory" run under the auspices of Andrej V. Sneshnewski, illuminating the role of this school of psychiatry in the context of the history of medicine. In the third section of the paper, the discussion turns to institutional conditions, political factors, ideological implications, and socio-cultural contexts related to how hegemonic actors in Soviet forensic psychiatry dealt with non-conformers. In this context, a focus is placed on instances of resistance and dissidence within Soviet psychiatry. In particular, the paper discusses how polemics that relied on values and norms were of central importance to the political misuse of psychiatry as a nucleus and catalyst of democratic self-reflection during the reform era that took place under Mikhail Gorbachev.
Igor J
IJ
Polianski
D034462:Dissent and Disputes; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry; D006663:Historiography; D011057:Politics; D011570:Psychiatry