UNDER DOCTORS’ EYES: PRIVATE LIFE IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Ekaterina Neklyudova December 2012 © 2012 by Ekaterina Neklyudova. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/xk765sg1658 ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Gabriella Safran, Primary Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Gregory Freidin I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Monika Greenleaf Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives. iii Abstract My dissertation deals with the figure of the doctor in early Russian nineteenth- century prose, which manifests a shift in the way literature depicts human physicality and the characters’ everyday life. My major source is 1820s-1840s prose, mostly published in the literary and cultural journals Biblioteka dlia Chtenia, Syn Otechestva, and others. My sources reflect the impressive expansion in Russian literature and medicine in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Using documentary and literary sources, I demonstrate that the artistic representation of physicians in Romantic and Realist prose contributes to the introduction of previously unknown themes into literature: medical perspectives on physical suffering, the private everyday lives of ordinary people, and even the mystical view of other worlds. The combination of medical and mystical discourses in the vocabulary of real doctors in the first half of the nineteenth century gave them the authority to judge human bodies, lives, and, they believed, souls: they seemed to observe from inside and outside at the same time. By including a doctor among their characters, fiction writers thus could use a powerful instrument that let them introduce new topics. As I show, through the mid nineteenth century, the fictional doctors situated at the margin of literary plots performed the role of an important textual device: they served as go-betweens among other characters, mediating, connecting or splitting them. They affected the relationship between characters, the plot's trajectory, and the readers' perception. The situation shifts in mid century; with the gradual separation of doctor from his instrumental function, this character moves to the center of the plot and loses his structural power. iv Acknowledgements I would like to start by expressing my deepest gratitude to my academic advisor Gabriella Safran, whose patient and steady guidance and support has helped me immensely on this journey, from when I was first admitted as a student to the present time. Thank you so much for reading and advising, supporting and mentoring. I am deeply grateful to Monika Greenleaf, who kindly agreed to be the reader of my dissertation. Thank you so much for all your wonderful and inspiring courses, and for all our conversations, especially those about our beloved Fomenko Theatre! Many thanks to Grisha Freidin, for serving as a reader, for the most interesting workshops and lectures, and for all the kindness and support during my time at Stanford. I would like to thank Lazar Fleishman for all of the poetry classes, and especially for the summertime mini-seminar on Pasternak. I will never forget our readings of “Sestra moia zhizn.” I am grateful to Zhenya Khassina and Rima Greenhill for giving me the exciting opportunity of teaching Russian. I will always remember the lessons you taught me; for me, you are the models par excellence of Russian instructors. Greatest thanks also to all the professors whose lectures and seminars I was fortunate to attend – Oksana Bulgakowa, Amir Eshel, Steve Zipperstein, Helen Brooks, Sepp Gumbrecht, Victor Zhivov, and Alan Timberlake. I am grateful to Dr. Larry Zaroff, whose class on Medicine and the Arts gave me unique insight into the medical aspect of my research, and allowed me to spend some time with medical students and participate in their experience. v The years that I spent at Stanford were indeed happy ones, and I really enjoyed the company of my fellow students. Thank you, my dear friends, for being with me and for creating a warm and happy atmosphere – Josh, Natalie, Alex, Tom, Dustin, Irina, Bill, and Luke. Thanks to Stanford University for accepting me, and to the whole Stanford community, where I spent several great years, not only studying but also raising my kids. I cannot imagine a better place to attend graduate school. I will always remember the Main Quad and Green Library, the Moon Beams and many, many other places. It was good to be there, to study and to live, and I was especially happy to return in 2008, after three years in Europe. I am deeply thankful to my colleagues at the Research Collection of McMaster University of Hamilton – Noah Shenker, Rick Stapleton, Bev Bayzat, and Wade Wykoff. I am very lucky to work there, and am delighted to continue next year. I am thankful to my friends in the medical profession, the doctors and nurses whose professional opinions proved so important in my studies of their fictional peers. Thanks to all of my teachers and friends back in Moscow, where I first began to be interested in fictional doctors. Thanks especially to Dmitry Bak, my first academic advisor at RSUH, whose seminars on nineteenth-century Russian journalism made me fall in love with this epoch. I will always remember Galina Belaia, the chair of our department, whose passing is still so hard to accept. And I am deeply thankful to Alexander Ospovat for reading my thesis, and for setting me on the right track. I would like to say a couple of words about those closest friends who guided and supported me throughout my time in graduate school. Thank you, Ria and Eric, vi Rob and Miriam, Emmanuel and Raymond, for making our life in the Netherlands warmer and better. Thanks to my friend and mentor Lena, who was the reason why I started doing Holocaust research, my other major field of study. I am deeply thankful to our dearest friend Nola, who was always with us, listening and reading, and many times helping me with my English texts. This dissertation has benefitted greatly from the invaluable help of my best friend Nastya, with whom I am now collaborating on new research. Thanks to all of our friends who we are so fortunate to have here in Canada – Anya, Sergei, Masha, Kostya, John, Lily, Kolya, Katya, Olga, Fulvia and Ivona. Thanks to my San Diego family for their support and encouragement – Victoria, Max, Zhanna, and Marinka. I am deeply thankful to Branson for doing a great job of reading, editing and proofreading this text. My interest in doctors as represented in literature originated from one conversation with my father, and this was one of our many, many conversations that formed me both as a person and as a scholar. Thanks to my Moscow family – my mom Valentina, for your bravery and love, my dad Sergei, for all our evening conversations, and my sister Masha, for your constant support and trust. And my dearest babushka Ira, I know how proud you would have been of me if you were with us today. And I would by no means be here, at the point of finishing this work, without my beloved family and their support and care. My kids, Boris and Joseph, were born during my time at Stanford, and I will always remember that. Thank you, my sweet boys, for being with me. And to Victor I send all my love; without you I would not have come this far. Thank you, my dear. vii Table of Contents Title Page……………………………………………………………………………. i Copyright Page……………………………………………………………………… ii Signature Page………………………………………………………………………. iii Abstract……………………………………………………………………………... iv Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………. v Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………… viii Introduction………………………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter 1: Doctor, Priest, Midwife, and Gravedigger: The Common Roots……………………………………………………….. 31 Chapter 2: Quacks, Sorcerers, or Prophets: Mesmerists and Magnetizers in the Russian Literature of the 1820s-1850s………………… 43 Chapter 3: Imposed Clairvoyance: The Russian Romantics and Hoffmann……………………………………………… 67 Chapter 4: Harrison / Garrison / Warren: A Fictional Doctor-diarist and the Birth of Medical Fiction……………………………………. 87 Chapter 5: The Sick Writer: The First Public Case Reports and the Birth of Medical Biography…………………………………………. 104 Chapter 6: The Doctor Acquires His Own Voice: First-Person Narratives…………………………………….. 123 Chapter 7: Attentive and Inactive: the Types of Doctors in Russian Literature………………………………………….. 137 viii Chapter 8: Unmasking Society: Observer, Mediator and Messenger………………………………………………….. 144 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………… 162 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………. 176 ix Introduction In one of Chekhov’s short stories, a man awakens with a hangover and finds that his head, arms, and legs are bandaged. His wife and a doctor are standing by his bedside: Проснувшись на другой день в полдень, Романсов увидел нечто необычайное. Голова, руки и ноги его были в повязках. Около кровати стояли заплаканная жена и озабоченный доктор.1 Even without knowing what took place before this character woke up, we see that the plot will conclude within the private space of this man’s bedroom, accessible only to his family and the doctor.