Psychiatry, like most professional fields in Russia, gained its legitimacy from its ability to serve the Tsar and later the Bolshevik party. The militarised nature of these governments meant that psychiatry would have to prove its worth to the military. This study will cover Russian/Soviet military psychiatry from its first practical experience during the Russo-Japanese war to its greatest test during the Great Patriotic War 1941-45. Throughout this study, the continuity between Russian and Soviet military psychiatry will be emphasised. For example, psychiatry's materialist school dominated throughout this period and that Russia's acceptance that psychiatric casualties will occur allowed them to focus their resources on treatment rather than prevention.

Psychiatry, like most professional fields in Russia, gained its legitimacy from its ability to serve the Tsar and later the Bolshevik party. The militarised nature of these governments meant that psychiatry would have to prove its worth to the military. This study will cover Russian/Soviet military psychiatry from its first practical experience during the Russo-Japanese war to its greatest test during the Great Patriotic War 1941-45. Throughout this study, the continuity between Russian and Soviet military psychiatry will be emphasised. For example, psychiatry's materialist school dominated throughout this period and that Russia's acceptance that psychiatric casualties will occur allowed them to focus their resources on treatment rather than prevention.

This book investigates the demobilization and post-war readjustment of Red Army veterans in Leningrad and its environs after the Great Patriotic War. Over 300,000 soldiers were stood down in this war-ravaged region between July 1945 and 1948. They found the transition to civilian life more challenging than many could ever have imagined. For civilian Leningraders, reintegrating the rapid influx of former soldiers represented an enormous political, economic, social and cultural challenge. In this book, Robert Dale reveals how these former soldiers became civilians in a society devastated and traumatized by total warfare. Dale discusses how, and how successfully, veterans became ordinary citizens. Based on extensive original research in local and national archives, oral history interviews and the examination of various newspaper collections, Demobilized Veterans in Late Stalinist Leningrad peels back the myths woven around demobilization, to reveal a darker history repressed by society and concealed from historiography. While propaganda celebrated this disarmament as a smooth process which reunited veterans with their families, reintegrated them into the workforce and facilitated upward social mobility, the reality was rarely straightforward. Many veterans were caught up in the scramble for work, housing, healthcare and state hand-outs. Others drifted to the social margins, criminality or became the victims of post-war political repression. Demobilized Veterans in Late Stalinist Leningrad tells the story of both the failure of local representatives to support returning Soviet soldiers, and the remarkable resilience and creativity of veterans in solving the problems created by their return to society. It is a vital study for all scholars and students of post-war Soviet history and the impact of war in the modern era.

The psychological toll of war is vast, and the social costs of war’s psychiatric casualties extend even further. Yet military mental health care suffers from extensive waiting lists, organizational scandals, spikes in veteran suicide, narcotic overprescription, shortages of mental health professionals, and inadequate treatment. The prevalence of conditions such as post–traumatic stress disorder is often underestimated, and there remains entrenched stigma and fear of being diagnosed. Even more alarming is how the military dismisses or conceals the significance and extent of the mental health crisis. The trauma experts Mark C. Russell and Charles Figley offer an impassioned and meticulous critique of the systemic failures in military mental health care in the United States. They examine the persistent disconnect between war culture, which valorizes an appearance of strength and seeks to purge weakness, and the science and treatment of trauma. Instead of reckoning with the mental health crisis, the military has neglected the needs of service members. It has discharged, prosecuted, and incarcerated a large number of people struggling with the psychological realities of war, and it has inflicted humiliation, ridicule, and shame on many more. Through a far-reaching historical account, Russell and Figley detail how the military has perpetuated a self-inflicted crisis. The book concludes with actionable prescriptions for change and a comprehensive approach to significantly improving military mental health.

For more than 200 years the United States and Russia have shared a multi-faceted relationship. Because of the rise of power the two countries enjoyed in the late 19th and through the 20th century, Russian-American relations have dominated much of recent world history. Prior to World War II the two countries had relatively friendly contacts in culture, commerce, and diplomacy, however, as they contested for supremacy during the Cold War relations turned hostile and competitive. With the apparent end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Union and of communism in 1991, the relationship continues to evolve and the future looks uncertain but promising. The Historical Dictionary of United States-Russian/Soviet Relations identifies the key issues, individuals, and events in the history of U.S.-Russian/Soviet relations and places them in the context of the complex and dynamic regional strategic, political, and economic processes that have fashioned the American relationship with Russia. This is done through a chronology, a bibliography, an introductory essay, and several hundred cross-referenced dictionary entries on key persons, places, events, institutions, and organizations.

The Second World War in Eastern Europe is far from a neglected topic, especially since social, cultural, and diplomatic historians have entered a field previously dominated by operational histories, and produced a cornucopia of new scholarship offering a more nuanced picture from both sides of the front. However, until now, the story has still been disjointed and specialized, whereby military, social, economic, and diplomatic histories continue to give their own separate accounts. This collection of essays attempts to bring these themes into a more cohesive whole that tells a complex, multifaceted story of war on the Eastern Front as it truly was. This is one of the few critical examinations that includes both perspectives and looks at the war as a multi‐front effort. It also reveals how myths are created around military conflicts and have direct relevance to current developments in Europe, linking them to a broader discussion of the Second World War, its impact and utility today. It gives a historical dimension to pressing issues and will be of interest and relevance to history students, policymakers, political scientists, diplomats, and foreign policy experts. The Eastern Front will be a useful reference source, since some chapters rely on extensive new archival research and materials, ego sources, as well as extensive findings of non‐Western scholars, thereby bringing their work to the attention of a broader audience.

This collection investigates the social and cultural history of trauma to offer a comparative analysis of its individual, communal, and political effects in the twentieth century. Particular attention is given to witness testimony, to procedures of personal memory and collective commemoration, and to visual sources as they illuminate the changing historical nature of trauma. The essays draw on diverse methodologies, including oral history, and use varied sources such as literature, film and the broadcast media. The contributions discuss imaginative, communal and political responses, as well as the ways in which the later welfare of traumatized individuals is shaped by medical, military, and civilian institutions. Incorporating innovative methodologies and offering a thorough evaluation of current research, the book shows new directions in historical trauma studies.