Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Suicide and the Body Politic in Imperial Russia
  • Cited by 16
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      18 July 2009
      04 January 2007
      ISBN:
      9780511496806
      9780521865456
      9780521349581
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511496806
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      1.025kg, 402 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.54kg, 402 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Social and Population History, Area Studies, British History: General Interest, European History: General Interest, European History after 1450, History, European Studies
      Series:
      Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories (9)
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Social and Population History, Area Studies, British History: General Interest, European History: General Interest, European History after 1450, History, European Studies
    Series:
    Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories (9)
    Information

    Book description

    In early twentieth-century Russia, suicide became a public act and a social phenomenon of exceptional scale, a disquieting emblem of Russia's encounter with modernity. This book draws on an extensive range of sources, from judicial records to the popular press, to examine the forms, meanings, and regulation of suicide from the seventeenth century to 1914, placing developments into a pan-European context. It argues against narratives of secularization that read the history of suicide as a trajectory from sin to insanity, crime to social problem, and instead focuses upon the cultural politics of self-destruction. Suicide - the act, the body, the socio-medical problem - became the site on which diverse authorities were established and contested, not just the priest or the doctor but also the sovereign, the public, and the individual. This panoramic history of modern Russia, told through the prism of suicide, rethinks the interaction between cultural forms, individual agency, and systems of governance.

    Reviews

    Review of the hardback:'… by placing Russian suicide in a pan-European context, she adds to the ongoing discussion of Russia and the west. In the process, she offers more innovative insights into Russia than I have read in years.'

    Louise McReynolds Source: Slavic Review

    Review of the hardback:'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 Source: Canadian Journal of History

    Review of the hardback:'… 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.'

    Source: Social History

    Review of the hardback:'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 Source: The Russian Review

    Review of the hardback:'This lucid and subtly textured book … should be read by all historians of modernity - medical, cultural, social, and political.'

    Dan Healey Source: Medical History

    Review of the hardback:'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 Source: Journal of Social History

    Review of the hardback:'… an important contribution to the field, offering original and highly suggestive insights into the cultural and social significance of suicide in late Imperial Russia's autocratic regime.'

    Source: Seer

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.