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Moscow Serbsky Institute for Social and Forensic Psychiatry (Russian: Центр социальной и судебной психиатрии им. В.П.Сербского) is a psychiatric hospital and the main center for the forensic psychiatry of the Soviet Union and Russia. The hospital got a lot of negative publicity because many Soviet dissidents were incarcerated and tortured there. Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... A psychiatric hospital (also called at various places and times, mental hospital, mental ward, sanitarium or asylum) is a hospital specializing in the treatment of persons with mental illness. ... Forensic psychiatry is a subspeciality of psychiatry. ... Soviet dissidents were citizens of the Soviet Union (1917 — 1991) who disagreed with the policies and actions of their nation, and at the same time actively protested against these measures through non-violent means. ... A prison is a place in which people are confined and deprived of a range of liberties. ... Aspects of torture Incrimination of innocent people One well documented effect of torture is that with rare exceptions people will say or do anything to escape the situation, including untrue confessions and implication of others without genuine knowledge, who may well then be tortured in turn. ...

Institute

The Institute was organized in 1921. The institute is named after Russian psychiatrist Vladimir Serbsky. One of the main stated purpose of the institute is forensic psychiatry for the criminal courts. Moscow Serbsky Institute conducts more than 2,500 court-ordered evaluations per year ^[1]. Vladimir Petrovich Serbskiy (Russian: , February 26 [O.S. February 14] 1858, Bogorodsk—April 18 [O.S. April 14] 1917, Moscow) was one of the founders of the forensic psychiatry in Russia. ...

The Institute also claimed leadership in studying different types of psychosis, brain trauma, alcoholism and drug addiction. Among the celebrities treated there of addictions was Vladimir Vysotsky ^[2]. The current director of the Institute is Tatyana Dmitrieva ^[3] Psychosis is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a loss of contact with reality. Stedmans Medical Dictionary defines psychosis as a severe mental disorder, with or without organic damage, characterized by derangement of personality and loss of contact with reality and causing deterioration... Alcoholism is the consumption of, or preoccupation with, alcoholic beverages to the extent that this behavior interferes with the drinkers normal personal, family, social, or work life, and may lead to physical or mental harm. ... Drug addiction, or dependency is the compulsive use of drugs, to the point where the user has no effective choice but to continue use. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Instrument of psychiatric repressions

In the Soviet Union, psychiatric hospitals were often used by the authorities as prisons in order to isolate political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally. The official explanation was that "no sane person would declaim against Soviet government and communism". Such hospitals were called Psikhushkas (a Russian colloquialism). A political prisoner is someone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because their ideas or image are deemed by a government to either challenge or threaten the authority of the state. ... Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production. ... Psikhushka (Russian: ) is a Russian colloquialism for psychiatric hospital. ... Look up Colloquialism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Alexander Esenin-Volpin, Viktor Nekipelov, and Zviad Gamsakhurdia [1] were among the prisoners of Sebsky Institute. Gen. Pyotr Grigorenko was determined as insane in the Serbsky Institute because he "was unshakably convinced of the rightness of his actions" and twisted by "reformist ideas." ^[4] Alexander Sergeyevich Esenin-Volpin (Russian: Александр Сергеевич Есенин-Вольпин; born on May 12, 1924) is a prominent Russian American mathematician. ... Viktor Nekipelov (1928 - 1989) was a Russian poet, translator, human rights activist and dissident. ... Zviad Konstantines dze Gamsakhurdia[1] (Georgian: ზვიად კონსტანტინეს ძე გამსახურდია, IPA: ) (March 31, 1939 — December 31, 1993) was a dissident, scientist and writer, who became the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era. ... Pyotr Grigoryevich Grigorenko, alternative Petro Grigorenko (Russian: Петр Григоренко) (1907-1987) is a former Major General in the Soviet Army and prominent Soviet human right activist, a dissident and a writer. ...

The official Soviet psychiatric science also came up with the definition of "sluggishly progressing schizophrenia", a special form of the illness that supposedly affects only the person's social behavior, with no trace on other traits: "most frequently, ideas about a struggle for truth and justice are formed by personalities with a paranoid structure," according to the Serbsky Institute professors (a quote ^[5] from Vladimir Bukovsky's archives). Some of them had high rank in the MVD, such as the infamous Danil Luntz, who was characterized by Viktor Nekipelov as "no better than the criminal doctors who performed inhuman experiments on the prisoners in Nazi concentration camps". This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... For other senses of this word, see paranoia (disambiguation). ... Vladimir Bukovsky early photo Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (Russian: ; b. ... Modern emblem of Russian MVD Russian Gendarme officers in the 1860s The Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del (MVD) (Министерство внутренних дел) was the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the imperial Russia, later USSR, and still bears the same name in the Russian Federation. ... Viktor Nekipelov (1928 - 1989) was a Russian poet, translator, human rights activist and dissident. ... National Socialism redirects here. ... It has been suggested that Internment be merged into this article or section. ...

Recent years

According to the Institute director Tatyana Dmitrieva the Institute is completely changed now and is not used for the repressive psychiatry anymore. The rooms there Soviet dissidents were prisoned are used only to treat alcohol and drug addicts now^[2].

Many psychiatric trials were pursued in order to confirm the unability to understand and to will of many high-rank official in cases of rapes and murders, as occurred in Chechnya by Yuri Budanov (he was eventually charged for his crimes, after more than three years of trials). The Chechen Republic (IPA: ; Russian: , Chechenskaya Respublika; Chechen: , Noxçiyn Respublika), or, informally, Chechnya (; Russian: ; Chechen: , Noxçiyçö), sometimes referred to as Ichkeria, Chechnia, Chechenia or Noxçiyn, is a federal subject of Russia. ... In December of 2002, a Russian court tried Russian Colonel Yuri Budanov on war crimes charges. ...

On the other hand, Yuri Savenko, head of the Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia alleges that "practically nothing has changed. They have no shame at the institute about their role with the Communists. They are the same people, and they do not want to apologize for all their actions in the past" ^[4]. Attorney Karen Nersisyan agrees: "If they didn’t tell me it’s the Russian Federation now, I wouldn’t know there was any difference at Serbsky Institute from Soviet times. Serbsky is not an organ of medicine. It’s an organ of power." ^[4]

Recent controversies

Moscow Serbsky Institute conducts many court-ordered evaluations. Results of some of them are hotly disputed

• When war criminal Yuri Budanov was tested there in 2002, the panel conducting the inquiry was led by Tamara Pechernikova, who condemned poet Natalya Gorbanevskaya. Budanov was found not guilty by reason of "temporary insanity". Ater public outrage, he was found sane by another panel that included Georgi Morozov, the former Serbsky director who declared many dissidents insane in the past. ^[4]

• Serbsky Institute also made an evaluation of the alleged mass poisoning of hundreds of Chechen school children ^[6] Panel found that the disease was caused simply the "psycho-emotional tension". ^{[7] [8]}

• There are numerous cases when people "inconvenient" for Russian authorities are imprisoned in psychiatric institutions in 2000s. ^{[9] [10] [11]}. Some of the these people were diagnosed at the Serbsky Institute.

In December of 2002, a Russian court tried Russian Colonel Yuri Budanov on war crimes charges. ... Gorbanevskaya at the balcony of the library Russian abroad, Moscow, 19. ...

References

Newsru [1] is an online Russian news web site. ...

See also

• Psikhushka
• Psychiatric imprisonment
• Human rights
• Gulag
• Tamara Pec'ernikova

Psikhushka (Russian: ) is a Russian colloquialism for psychiatric hospital. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ... Gulag ( , Russian: ) was the government body responsible for administering prison camps across the former Soviet Union. ...

Bibliography

• Antébi, Elizabeth (1977). Droit d'asiles en Union Soviétique. Paris: Julliard. ISBN 2260000657. 
• Applebaum, Anne (2003). Gulag: A History. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-7679-0056-1. 
• Boulet, Marc (2001). Dans la peau d'un.... Paris: Seuil. ISBN 2-02-038072-2. 
• Fireside, Harvey. Soviet Psychoprisons. 

The Juilliard School is a performing arts conservatory in New York City, informally but definitively identified as simply Juilliard, and most famous for its musically-trained alumni. ...

External links

• Official Information (Russian)