Article ID: CBB001550888

Heroes and Hysterics: “Partisan Hysteria” and Communist State-Building in Yugoslavia after 1945 (2014)

unapi

This article investigates a novel type of war neurosis defined by Yugoslav psychiatrists in the aftermath of the Second World War. This uniquely Yugoslav war trauma---`partisan hysteria'---was diagnosed exclusively in Communist resistance soldiers---partisans---and did not manifest itself in the form of battle exhaustion or anxiety, as was the case in other armies. Rather, it demonstrated a heightened willingness to fight, and consisted of simulations of wartime battles. Yugoslav psychiatrists argued that `partisan hysteria' most frequently affected uneducated and immature partisans, who were given important political responsibilities but experienced severe trauma due to their own inadequacy. I argue that `partisan hysteria' served as an opportunity for upper-middle-class psychiatric professionals to criticise the increasing upward social mobility after the socialist revolution of 1945. Surprisingly, this touched upon an issue that had already provoked deep disquiet within the Communist Party, and resonated with the Party's own concerns regarding social mobility.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001550888/

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Authors & Contributors
Savelli, Mat
Matten, Marc Andre
Patrick Hyder Patterson
Ravasi, Davide
Vezzetti, Hugo
Schreiter, Katrin
Concepts
Communism
Cold War
Psychiatry
Mental disorders and diseases
Science and politics
Political activists and activism
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century
21st century
20th century, early
Places
Yugoslavia
United States
Hungary
China
South Asia
Eastern Europe
Institutions
Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau
Congress for Cultural Freedom
Special Operations Research Office
World Bank
United States. Central Intelligence Agency
United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
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