The Insane in Russian Society in the 19th – early 20th centuries: Historical and Anthropological Analysis (Based on the Materials of the Yenisei Province)

This article represents a comprehensive historical-anthropological study of social practices and cultural mechanisms in the perception of mental illness in the Yenisei Province during the 19th and early 20th centuries.The primary focus is on the process of initial identification of mental disorders in the region, which was based on community diagnosis without the involvement of medical professionals.Special attention is given to the role of local community authorities in detecting cases of mental illness and their influence on the subsequent fate of the mentally ill.The research employs an interdisciplinary approach, combining principles of anthropological approach to history, "new social history", local history and microhistory.The source base consists of previously unpublished archival materials from the collections of the State Archive of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, including peasant verdicts, police reports, court case materials and correspondence of provincial institutions.All this made it possible to reconstruct institutional and everyday challenges in dealing with the mentally ill in society.During the studied period, interpretations of the causes of mental illness in the region were both social (such as alcoholism, physical injuries and postpartum complications cited as factors that contribute to the development of insanity) and ethnocultural (mystical explanations of madness among foreign population).Community diagnosis involved observing behavioral deviations and making collective decisions.The coexistence of traditional views on normality and pathology with bureaucratic practices reflected the incomplete modernization processes in the Yenisei Province during the imperial times.Society balanced between tolerance and isolation of the mentally ill, while decisions regarding treatment or maintenance were often based on economic feasibility and the level of danger posed by the afflicted.