Stalin and Medicine: Untold Stories - Paperback

by Natalya Rapoport (Author)

The manuscript treats the relationship between the totalitarian regime and science in a series of stories that describe the lives and times of outstanding medical scientists who represented the top of the Soviet intellectual elite of the 20th century.

The narrations are based on first-hand accounts the author gained in conversations with her father, a world-renowned pathologist, and family friends, such as Nobel Prize physicist Lev Landau; a world-recognized physiologist Lina Stern; the pioneers of cancer biotherapy, Klyueva and Roskin; the "father" of the H-bomb, Andrey Sakharov; and the daughter of the Head of the Kremlin Hospital, Alexandra Kanel.

The author describes Stalin's fabrication of the "Doctors' Plot"; the cases of Stalin's revenge on his doctors; the dramatic history of the Moscow Brain Institute; the history of an anti-plague vaccine and plague outbreak in the center of Moscow; and other events of historical significance. Ironically, Stalin's persecution of medical scientists and doctors bounced back and accelerated his death (hence the title, "Boomerang").

The echo of Stalin's repression of medical doctors and scientists still resonates today, almost 70 years after Stalin's death, in the plight of medicine in current Russia.

The real stories described in the book are absorbing and captivating. The reader gets a glimpse of the destructive behind-the-scene events associated with the intervention of a totalitarian government in medicine and medical science.

Through the years, the BBC Witness program aired several interviews with the author's father and herself. Recently, The BBC News produced a short cartoon based on one of the author's stories, which enjoyed more than 250,000 viewers. David Remnick dedicated a chapter to Rapoport's family in his Pulitzer Prize awarded book, Lenin's Tomb.

In the US, one series of the PBS Red Empire program was dedicated to the "Doctors' Plot" and partly shot in the author's Moscow apartment. A number of documentaries were also shot in this apartment by various European TV and movie programs. However, none of the stories described in the manuscript (with the exception of the edited version of the chapter on the "Doctors' Plot") has ever been published in English.

Front Jacket

This manuscript offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into some extraordinary moments of 20th century Russia. In a series of entrancing stories, the book demonstrates the disastrous consequences of a totalitarian regime's intervention in medicine and medical science. The narration is based on first-hand accounts the author gathered in conversations with her father, a world-renowned pathologist, and family friends, members of the Soviet intellectual elite.

As one of the leading pathologists in the country, the author's father participated in many dramatic events that were hidden from the general public. The author describes Stalin's revenge on his doctors and the fabrication of the "Doctors' Plot"; the thrilling story of the Moscow Brain Institute; the mysterious circumstances of the death of Stalin's second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva; the outbreak of plague in the center of Moscow and the NKVD's approach to curbing an epidemic; the fraught drama associated with the death and autopsy of the "father" of the H-bomb, Andrey Sakharov; and the world's first attempt at cancer biotherapy.

In the Afterward entitled A Different Globe the author depicts the difficult and sometimes hilarious process of her family's adjustment to their new life in America.

A number of TV programs, documentaries, and movies were shot in the author's Moscow apartment by Russian, European, and American media and movie companies.