Andrei Snezhnevsky ( rus, Андре́й Влади́мирович Снежне́вский, p=sʲnʲɪˈʐnʲefskʲɪj; ,
Kostroma
Kostroma ( rus, Кострома́, p=kəstrɐˈma) is a historic types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Kostroma Oblast, Russia. A part of the Golden Ring of Russia, Golden Ring of Russian cities, it is lo ...
– 12 July 1987,
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
) was a Soviet psychiatrist whose name was lent to the unbridled broadening of the diagnostic borders of
schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social wit ...
in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
,
the key architect of the Soviet concept of
sluggish schizophrenia
Sluggish schizophrenia or slow progressive schizophrenia (russian: вялотеку́щая шизофрени́я, translit=vyalotekushchaya shizofreniya) was a diagnostic category used in the Soviet Union to describe what was claimed to be a for ...
,
the inventor of the term "sluggish schizophrenia",
an embodier of history of repressive psychiatry, and a direct participant in psychiatric repression against dissidents.
He was an academician of the
USSR Academy of Medical Sciences The USSR Academy of Medical Sciences (russian: Акаде́мия медици́нских нау́к СССР) was the highest scientific and medical organization founded in the Soviet Union founded in 1944.
Its successor is the Russian Academy of ...
,
the director of the
Serbsky Institute for Forensic Psychiatry (1950–1951),
the director of the Institute of Psychiatry of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences (1962–1987),
and the director of the All-Union Mental Health Research Center of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences (1982–1987).
Sluggish schizophrenia
At the height of his power, Snezhnevsky dominated the whole of Soviet psychiatry. He forced the psychiatric community in the USSR and in many of its Eastern European satellites to adopt the diagnosis of sluggish schizophrenia as dogma.
[ Starting in the early 1950s, Snezhnevsky opposed the concept of "soft" schizophrenia but later promoted the same idea under a different title: "slow-flowing", or "sluggish."][ The term "sluggish schizophrenia" was invented by Snezhnevsky][ and became widespread by the 1960s.][ The prevalence of Snezhnevsky's theories directly led to a broadening of the boundaries of disease such that even the mildest behavioral change could be interpreted as indication of mental disorder.] Despite his power and virtual monopolies on textbooks and conferences, some prominent Soviet doctors were unwilling to accept Snezhnevsky's methods, such as Iosif Polishchuk in Kiev, and Fyodor Detengof in Dushanbe
Dushanbe ( tg, Душанбе, ; ; russian: Душанбе) is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. , Dushanbe had a population of 863,400 and that population was largely Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe (ru ...
.[
]
Political abuse of psychiatry
Snezhnevsky was long attacked in the West as an exemplar of political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union
There was systematic political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, based on the interpretation of political opposition or dissent as a psychiatric problem. It was called "psychopathological mechanisms" of dissent.
During the leadership ...
. He was charged with cynically developing a system of diagnosis which could be bent for political purposes and, in dozens of cases, he personally signed a commission decision on legal insanity of mentally healthy dissidents including Vladimir Bukovsky
Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (russian: link=no, Влади́мир Константи́нович Буко́вский; 30 December 1942 – 27 October 2019) was a Russian-born British human rights activist and writer. From the late 195 ...
, Natalya Gorbanevskaya
Natalya Yevgenyevna Gorbanevskaya ( rus, Ната́лья Евге́ньевна Горбане́вская, p=nɐˈtalʲjə jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvnə ɡərbɐˈnʲefskəjə, a=Natal'ya Yevgen'yevna Gorbanyevskaya.ru.vorb.oga; 26 May 1936 – 29 Nove ...
, Leonid Plyushch
Leonid Ivanovych Plyushch ( uk, Леоні́д Іва́нович Плющ, ; 26 April 1938, Naryn, Kirghiz SSR – 4 June 2015, Bessèges, France) was a Ukrainian mathematician and Soviet dissident.
Although he was employed to work on Soviet ...
, Mikola Plakhotnyuk,[ ]Pyotr Grigorenko
Petro Grigorenko or Petro Hryhorovych Hryhorenko ( uk, Петро́ Григо́рович Григоре́нко, russian: Пётр Григо́рьевич Григоре́нко, link=no, – 21 February 1987) was a high-ranking Soviet Army ...
. Some of Snezhnevsky's employees say that one day in a selected auditorium, when discussing the situation in the country, he also gave the diagnosis of sluggish schizophrenia to Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for n ...
in absentia.[ Also in absentia, he diagnosed Joseph Brodsky with the same disease and concluded that he was "not a valuable person at all".] As Oleh Wolansky noted, professor Snezhnevsky did not hesitate to act against principles of the Hippocratic Oath. On the covert orders of the KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
, thousands of social and political reformers—Soviet "dissidents"—were incarcerated in mental hospitals after being labelled with diagnoses of "sluggish schizophrenia", a disease fabricated by Snezhnevsky and "Moscow school" of psychiatry. The belief that career development depended on loyalty to the Party and that the Party and its interests were cardinal can partly explain why Snezhnevsky, who earnestly defended the rights of his patients at the frontline hospital during the massive destruction of World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, also employed his scientific regalia and academic title to legitimate the psychiatric confinement of dissenters. However, Alexander Tiganov, a pupil of Snezhnevsky and full member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences The USSR Academy of Medical Sciences (russian: Акаде́мия медици́нских нау́к СССР) was the highest scientific and medical organization founded in the Soviet Union founded in 1944.
Its successor is the Russian Academy of ...
, believes his teacher was honest in his diagnosing dissenters. In 2011, Tiganov said it was rumored that Snezhnevsky took pity on dissenters and gave them a diagnosis required for placing in a special hospital to save them from a prison, but it was not true, he honestly did his medical duty. The same ideas are voiced in the 2014 interview by Anatoly Smulevich, a pupil of Snezhnevsky, full member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences; he says what was attributed to Snesnevsky was that he recognized the healthy as the ill, it did not happen and is pure slander, it is completely ruled out for him to give a diagnosis to a healthy person.
Discredit at the Royal College
In 1980, the Special Committee on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry, established by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1978, charged Snezhnevsky with involvement in the abuse and recommended that Snezhnevsky, who had been honoured as a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, be invited to attend the college's Court of Electors to answer criticisms because he was responsible for the compulsory detention of celebrated dissident, Leonid Plyushch
Leonid Ivanovych Plyushch ( uk, Леоні́д Іва́нович Плющ, ; 26 April 1938, Naryn, Kirghiz SSR – 4 June 2015, Bessèges, France) was a Ukrainian mathematician and Soviet dissident.
Although he was employed to work on Soviet ...
. Instead Snezhnevsky chose to resign his Fellowship.
Snezhevsky wrote the letter to the president of the Royal College:
The college's Committee on Abuse passed the following judgment:
Other contributions to psychiatry
In 1968, Snezhnevsky wrote of a distinction between the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, a concept long attributed to Snezhnevky but in fact introduced by John Hughlings Jackson and John Russell Reynolds. The concept came to be increasingly used in schizophrenia research and classification since the 1970s, citing his colleague I.F. Ovchinnikov that the symptoms appear to exist "as if on two levels".[Snezhnevsky AV. The symptomatology, clinical forms and nosology of schizophrenia, in Modern perspectives in World Psychiatry. Edited by Howells JG. Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, 1968, pp 425–447]
The American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 37,000 members are involv ...
at its annual meeting held in San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
in 1970 honored Snezhnevsky by naming him a "distinguished fellow" for his "outstanding contribution to psychiatry and related sciences."
Snezhnevsky created his own school in psychiatry. The disciples of his school are Ruben Nadzharov, Taksiarkhis Papadopulos, Gregory Rotstein, Moisey Vrono, Marat Vartanyan, Nikolay Zharikov, Anatoly Anufriev, Nikolay Shumsky, Alexander Tiganov, Irina Shakhmatova-Pavlova, Anatoly Smulevich.[ Snezhnevsky worked together with Smulevich every day for 20 years.] In the Soviet Union, Snezhnevsky's school alone had the exclusive right to truth and held key positions in psychiatry.[ Russian text: ] Doctors who wished to gain more knowledge were unable to do so, because all textbooks and handbooks on psychiatry described only the views of Snezhnevsky's school.
Estimations
According to the psychiatrist Marina Voikhanskaya, Academician Snezhnevsky and his "school" have debased, reduced Russian psychiatry to a semi-amateur level and single doctrine about schizophrenia, in the terms of which alcoholic psychoses and alcoholism are considered schizophrenia; congenial idiocy in the children of alcoholics is considered premature schizophrenia; and dissent is considered schizophrenia with delusions of reform.
As reported by the psychiatrist Boris Zoubok, who worked at the Kashchenko hospital under Snezhnevsky and afterwards settled in the US, Snezhnevsky and his colleagues genuinely believed in their concept of dissent as mental disease and in the method of diagnosis.
According to Moscow psychiatrist Mikhail Buyanov, Snezhnevsky discovered nothing; he muddled everything he attempted, could not find anything.
According to Moscow psychiatrist Alexander Danilin, the so-called "nosological" approach in the Moscow psychiatric school established by Snezhnevsky boiled down to the ability to make a single diagnosis, schizophrenia.
Such psychiatry, said Danilin, is not science but a system of opinions to which people by the thousands fell victim. Millions of lives were disabled by virtue of the concept "sluggish schizophrenia" introduced by Snezhnevsky, whom Danilin called a state criminal. However, the founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group
The Moscow Helsinki Group (also known as the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, russian: link=no, Московская Хельсинкская группа) is today one of Russia's leading human rights organisations. It was originally set up in 1976 ...
Yuri Orlov
Yuri Fyodorovich Orlov (russian: Ю́рий Фёдорович Орло́в, 13 August 1924 – 27 September 2020) was a particle accelerator physicist, human rights activist, Soviet dissident, founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a founding ...
has the opinion that Snezhnevsky did not willingly participate in the political abuse of psychiatry, and that the real criminal was Georgy Morozov, the director of the Serbsky Institute, who collaborated with the KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
since his students days.[ Russian text: ]
St Petersburg academic psychiatrist professor Yuri Nuller notes that the concept of Snezhnevsky's school allowed psychiatrists to consider, for example, schizoid psychopathy and even schizoid character traits as early, delayed in their development, stages of the inevitable progredient process, rather than as personality traits inherent to the individual, the dynamics of which might depend on various external factors. The same also applied to a number of other personality disorders. It entailed the extremely broadened diagnostics of sluggish (neurosis-like, psychopathy-like) schizophrenia. Despite a number of its controversial premises and in line with the traditions of then Soviet science, Snezhnevsky's hypothesis has immediately acquired the status of dogma which was later overcome in other disciplines but firmly stuck in psychiatry. Snezhnevsky's concept, with its dogmatism, proved to be psychologically comfortable for many psychiatrists, relieving them from doubt when making a diagnosis. That carried a great danger: any deviation from a norm evaluated by a doctor could be regarded as an early phase of schizophrenia, with all ensuing consequences. It resulted in the broad opportunity for voluntary and involuntary abuses of psychiatry. But Snezhnevsky did not take civil and scientific courage to reconsider his concept which clearly reached a deadlock.
In his article of 2002, a former president of the American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 37,000 members are involv ...
Alan A. Stone, who as a member of team had examined Soviet dissident Pyotr Grigorenko
Petro Grigorenko or Petro Hryhorovych Hryhorenko ( uk, Петро́ Григо́рович Григоре́нко, russian: Пётр Григо́рьевич Григоре́нко, link=no, – 21 February 1987) was a high-ranking Soviet Army ...
and found him mentally healthy in 1979, disregarded the findings of the World Psychiatric Association
The World Psychiatric Association is an international umbrella organisation of psychiatric societies.
Objectives and goals
Originally created to produce world psychiatric congresses, it has evolved to hold regional meetings, to promote profess ...
and the later avowal of Soviet psychiatrists themselves and instead claimed that there were no political abuses of psychiatry in the Soviet Union. He asserted that Snezhnevsky was wrongly condemned by critics and argued that it was time for psychiatry in the Western countries to reconsider the accounts of political abuse of psychiatry in the USSR in the hope of discovering that Soviet psychiatrists were more deserving of sympathy than condemnation.
Helen Lavretsky supposes that a totalitarian regime, the lack of a democratic tradition in Russia, and oppression and "extermination" of the best psychiatrists during the 1930–50 period prepared the ground for the abuse of psychiatry and Russian-Soviet concept of schizophrenia.
Awards
He was honored with the title of a Hero of Socialist Labour, two Orders of Lenin
The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration b ...
, four Orders of the Red Star, and the USSR State Prize
The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, Gosudarstvennaya premiya SSSR) was the Soviet Union's state honor. It was established on 9 September 1966. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, t ...
.
Death
Having learnt of his diagnosis of lung cancer and facing his death within a few years, Snezhnevsky started lamenting over his making a lot of blunders at the Pavlovian session and departed from his indisputable tone as to his own concept.[ He died on 12 July 1987 in Moscow and was buried in the ]Kuntsevo Cemetery
The Kuntsevo Cemetery (russian: Ку́нцевское кла́дбище, kúntsevkoye kládbishche) is a cemetery servicing Kuntsevo, Moscow. It is located on the bank of the Setun River, to the south of the Mozhaisk Highway (the continuation ...
.
Interesting facts
Sneznesky examined Andriy Slyusarchuk as a child, was kind to him and presented him the book ''Your Abilities, Man'' used by Slyusarchuk to be taught in the field.
See also
*Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union
There was systematic political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, based on the interpretation of political opposition or dissent as a psychiatric problem. It was called "psychopathological mechanisms" of dissent.
During the leadership ...
* Andriy Slyusarchuk
References
External links
*
*
*
The letter
Tatiana Zhitnikova, Leonid Plyushch
Leonid Ivanovych Plyushch ( uk, Леоні́д Іва́нович Плющ, ; 26 April 1938, Naryn, Kirghiz SSR – 4 June 2015, Bessèges, France) was a Ukrainian mathematician and Soviet dissident.
Although he was employed to work on Soviet ...
's wife, wrote to Sneshnevsky on 14 February 1973 and published in
{{DEFAULTSORT:Snezhnevsky, Andrei
1904 births
1987 deaths
People from Kostroma
Writers from Kostroma Oblast
People from Kostromskoy Uyezd
Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
Soviet psychiatrists
Russian psychiatrists
Schizophrenia researchers
Kazan Federal University alumni
Academicians of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences
Fellows of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union
Soviet people of World War II
Russian people of World War II
Heroes of Socialist Labour
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Recipients of the USSR State Prize
Deaths from lung cancer
Deaths from cancer in the Soviet Union
Deaths from cancer in Russia
Burials at Kuntsevo Cemetery