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Russia as a patient for negative psychoanalysis

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Abstract

This paper brings together the late Freud’s concept of the death drive and Dostoevsky’s vision of primordial suffering in order to analyze anti-Ukrainian and pro-Ukrainian trends in today’s Russia. The paper encourages embracing the suffering that the death drive entails, instead of escaping it through the narrative of Russia’s ‘greatness’.

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References

  • Dostoevsky, Fyodor. 2014. Notes from the underground. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press.

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  • Freud, Sigmund. 1920. Beyond the pleasure principle. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. XVIII (1920–1922), 1–64. London: The Hogarth Press. 1955.

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  • McGowan, Todd. 2013. Enjoying what we don’t have: the political project of psychoanalysis. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.

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  • Radchenko, Sergey. 2022. Why Russia needs to be humiliated in Ukraine. The Spectator. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-Russia-needs-to-be-humiliated-in-Ukraine. Accessed 22 June 2022.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Julie Reshe

  2. University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Julie Reshe

  3. Institute of Psychoanalysis, The Global Center for Advanced Studies, Dublin, Ireland

    Julie Reshe

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  1. Julie Reshe
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Correspondence to Julie Reshe.

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This work did not involve human subjects or animals in its research.

The author declares that she has no known conflicts of interest in terms of competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have an influence or are relevant to the work reported in this paper.

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Reshe, J. Russia as a patient for negative psychoanalysis. Stud East Eur Thought 74, 601–604 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-022-09497-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-022-09497-8

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