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Russia in the Time of Cholera
Disease under Romanovs and Soviets
Introduction
As the nineteenth century drew to a close and epidemics in western Europe were waning, the deadly cholera vibrio continued to wreak havoc in Russia, outlasting the Romanovs. Scholars have since argued that cholera eventually fell prey to better sanitation and strict quarantine under the Soviets, citing as evidence imperial mismanagement, a backward tsarist medical system and physicians' anachronistic environmental interpretations of the disease.
Historical Analysis
Drawing on extensive archival research and the so-called material turn in historiography, however, John P. Davis here demonstrates that Romanov-era physicians' environmental approach to disease was not ill-grounded, nor a consequence of neo-liberal or populist political leanings, but born of pragmatic scientific considerations.
Physicians' Approach
The physicians confronted cholera in a broad and sophisticated way, essentially laying the foundations for the system of public health that the Soviets successfully used to defeat cholera during the New Economic Policy (1922-1928).
Conclusion
By focusing for the first time on the conclusion of the cholera epoch in Russia, Davis adds an indispensable layer of nuance to the existing conception of Romanov Russia and its complicated legacy in the Soviet period.
