International Eugenics and the Russian Medical Community, 1900-1917
This essay examines the ‘infiltration’ of eugenics into Russian medical discourse during the formation of the eugenics movement in Western Europe and North America in 1900-1917. It describes the efforts of two Russian physicians, bacteriologist and hygienist Nikolai Gamaleia (1859-1949) and psychiatrist Tikhon Iudin (1879-1949), to introduce eugenics to the Russian medical community, analyzing in detail what attracted these representatives of two different medical specialties to eugenic ideas, ideals, and policies advocated by their Western colleagues. On the basis of a close examination of the similarities and differences in Gamaleia’s and Iudin’s attitudes to eugenics, the essay argues that the lack of cohesiveness gave the early eugenics movement a unique strength. The loose mix of widely varying ideas, ideals, methods, policies, activities, and proposals covered by the umbrella of eugenics offered to a variety of educated professionals in Russia and elsewhere the possibility of choosing, adopting, and adapting its particular elements to their own national, professional, institutional, and disciplinary contexts, interests, and agendas.