FRIAS Colloquium - Elena Vishlenkova

The Soviet man as a product of medical biopolitics

This paper will focus on the avant-garde intentions of the Soviet authorities to create a heroic "new man" and the design of the Soviet health care system as an instrument for the implementation of this plan. During the 70 years of the Soviet period, the visions of the Communist Party leaders of the "Soviet man" and how a new nation - the "Soviet people" - could be created changed considerably. At the same time, not least due to the restricted financial capacity of the state, the health care system was changing. My project looks not only at the realization of constructivist intentions, but also at the unpredictable mutations of the bio-constructs - the Soviet man and the Soviet people.  In contrast to publications by philologists and philosophers who have written about the phenomenon of Homo Soveticus particularly in the early Soviet period, the focus of this project is on the Cold War period and medical control.