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[A FAREWELL TO ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE SOVIET FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY] Professoru N.P. Brukhanskomu (20 let psikhiatrich. raboty). Problemy psikhiatrii i psikhopatologii: Sb. statey [i.e. To the Professor N.P. Brukhansky (20 Years of Psychiatric Work). Problems of Psychiatry and Psychopathology: A Collection of Articles]

Moscow: Biomedgiz, 1935. Item #871

XVI, 728pp., a portrait and a table: ill., tables. 23.1x16cm. In original full cloth with gilt lettering on the front cover and the spine. Private library stamp: “Doctor V. E. Iashvili” on the title-page and the pp. 89, 513, occasional pen/pencil markings. Otherwise very good.

First edition. Scarce. Title-page, table of contents and introductory letter in Russian and German.

Published only a year before the arrest of Nikolay Brukhansky (1893-1948), this book can be viewed as an inadvertent farewell to one of the greatest psychiatrists in the history of the Soviet Union. A son of the famous Russian psychiatrist Pavel Brukhansky (1868-1930), Nikolay graduated from the medical faculty of the Moscow Imperial University in 1916. Soon after finishing his studies, Brukhansky was appointed a role of the county doctor at Mikhailovsky district of the Ryazan province. From 1923 Brukhansky worked in the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry. He went on to publish numerous scientific works dedicated to the topics of personality disorders, psychopathologies (including schizophrenia), and correlation between crimes/suicides and socio-economic factors (“Materialy po seksual’noy psikhopatologii: Psikhiatricheskiye ekspertizy” [i.e.Materials on Sexual Psychopathology: Psychiatric Examination], 1927; “Samoubiytsy” [i.e. Suiciders], 1927; “Ocherki po
sotsial’noy psikhopatologii” [i.e. Sketches on Social Psychopathology], 1928, etc). In 1928, Brukhansky printed a book “Sudebnaya psikhiatriya” [i.e. Forensic Psychiatry] which forever cemented his name as a founder of the Soviet forensic psychiatry. In the edition, the author paid particular attention to psychiatric disorders and their forensic psychiatric assessment. Even despite his outstanding achievements in the development of the Soviet psychiatry, Brukhansky was accused of counter-revolutionary activity after his suggestion at the II Congress of Psychiatrists and Neuropathologists (1936) to exempt psychopathic persons from criminal responsibility. He was arrested and sent into exile in 1945 (where he died in 1948). For decades Brukhansky’s name obliterated from the common memory: his books were seized from public libraries and vigorously destroyed as works of the “Soviet enemy”.

“Problems of Psychiatry and Psychopathology” was published on the occasion of Nikolay Brukhansky’s 20 years of psychiatric work. The edition includes an introduction by the famous Russian scientist and founder of clinical neurogenetics, Sergey Davidenkov (1880-1961). The book features over 50 articles written by some of the best representatives of both Soviet and foreign psychiatry: Evgeniy Shevelev (1878-1946), Arthur Kronfeld (1886-1941), Nikolay Bogolepov (1900-1980), Vladimir Shostakovich (1898-?), Dmitriy Amenitsky, etc. “Involvement of the prominent Western European psychiatrists in the production of the collection underlines the interest that Brukhansky’s research aroused outside of our union”- stated Davidenkov. The authors (many of whom, in accordance to Davidenkov, where Brukhansky’s students) focus on the different fields of psychiatry and examine topics such as a process-psychosis, alcoholism and schizophrenia, treatment of various forms of psychiatric disorders, suicide in children, etc.

Worldcat locates a copy at Bavarian State Library.

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