Suicide and the Body Politic in Imperial Russia

"This book is filled with interesting and important insights about Russian culture and society, about modernity in Russia and Europe, and about modern subjectivity. Its treatment of sources is penetrating and, at times, fascinating. The book stakes its own claim to its own peculiarity by treating the subject differently than previous treatments of self-killing from merely sociological, psychological, and literary perspectives, and in so doing firmly establishes itself as an important historical perspective on suicide and the body politic in Imperial Russia. It is worth the energy of a close reading."
John P. Farrell, Canadian Journal of History

"The breadth of this undertaking is admirable and Morrissey's thesis is a sound one that enriches the field of Russian History. She challenges accepted paradigms and periodizations and, in the process, demonstrates that modernity itself is a hugely fraught process..."
Abby M. Schrader, The Russian Review

'This is cultural history at its best and deserves a readership beyond Russian specialists. Indeed, a short review cannot do justice to its wide scope, rich material and multiple levels of argument. The historical study of suicide, in Morrissey's hands, both deepens and begins to chip away at our notions of the past."
-Kenneth Pinnow, Social History

"...informative glimpses into some of the institutional fighting that erupted when the church, the autocracy, and the professions competed for control over the Russian body, literally and metaphorically...I applaud her enterprise: to find new categories of analysis that prove innovative ways of thinking about Russia."
Louise McReynolds, Slavic Review

"Susan Morrissey's study of the Russian encounter with suicide from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century is an exemplary model of social-historical scholarship—extensively researched, situated in both comparative and particular historical contexts, interpretively wide-ranging." -Mark Steinberg, Journal of Social History

"Morrissey dissects the act of self-destruction in Russia from the eighteent through the twentieth century with finesse...Based largely on archival materials and printed primary sources, the book displays a firm command of recent scholarship about related studies treating Russia and Europe." -Patricia Herlihy, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Suicide and the Body Politic represents a valuable contribution both to the historiography of Imperial Russia in general and to our understanding of its culture in particular. It should prove to be of interest to both historians and to students of Russia's literature and culture." -Dunja Popovic, Slavic and European Journal

"Morrissey is at her best in providing vignettes and teasing out individual meanings from her dizzying array of examples." -Christine D. Worobec, American Historical Review

"...Morrissey has composed an analysis of suicide in Imperial Russia that will be required reading for anyone interested in the social and political pathology of this period. One of the benchmarks for defining a very good book is whether it must be consulted when searching for evidence on a specific subject. This is clearly such a study." -Martin A. Miller, Journal of Modern History