There was no sex in the Soviet Union" is a common myth, which hides a much less known historical fact: in the early Soviet state, psychoanalysis experienced one of its most striking and paradoxical rises.
In this issue, Associate Professor Anton Barkatkov examines in detail the little-known history of Soviet psychoanalysis: from the pre-revolutionary fascination of the intelligentsia to the teaching of Sigmund Freud and the famous case of the "wolf man" to attempts to combine Marxism and Freudianism in the 1920s. How did Soviet scientists study the unconscious, why was psychoanalysis supported at the state level, and why did this early Soviet experiment fail?