Neurology in Russian Writers: Tolstoy and Turgenev

The personal and bibliographical histories of the two Russian writers, Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy and Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, are strictly connected to social and scientific developments in nineteenth century Russia. In particular, in the field of medicine and of neurology, these two authors had personal issues and interests, kindled by Russia's opening to Western European thought. Neurology at the beginning of the nineteenth century was not developed in Russia, and in the second half of the century the new generation of neurologists trained abroad, in particular in France, where Charcot was an eminent figure who also travelled to Russia to help establish the new "Russian neurology." The following generation of neuropsychiatrists, in turn, looked upon Russian writers, and in particular Tolstoy, as models of psychopathology both for their personal biography and for character depictions. Tolstoy experienced depression, which he overcame after a religious/philosophical conversion; his renewed views were expressed in his later works, and led to the coining of the term "Tolstoyism" in medical literature. Turgenev admired the works by Tolstoy, but his vision was more pragmatic and close to those of his European colleagues of the time. His best effort was in the description of physical illnesses, and this was recognized by physicians and psychiatrists reading and commenting on his works.