Title: Blueprints for Change: The Human Sciences and the Coercive Transformation of Deviants in Russia, 1890–1930
Abstract: Drawing on the writings of criminologists and psychiatrists in the late imperial and early Soviet periods, the article argues that Soviet biopsychological constructions of the socially deviant have their origins in the efforts of tsarist liberals to identify and contain the crime and social disorder that accompanied Russia’s modernization. While the historiography has traditionally portrayed the Bolshevik Revolution as a tragic overthrow of liberal ideas and values, the article points to important continuities that span the 1917 divide. In the late imperial period, the human sciences began to categorize individuals who posed a biopsychological threat, a “social danger,” to the social order. In the wake of the revolution, these ideas became radicalized under the impact of Soviet Marxism to generate indictments of entire social groups and classes.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 8
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