“Brutal, Unclean, and a Savage Nation:”

Anglo-American Perceptions of Cholera in Russia, 1892-93Researcher: John Biersack Mentor: Elizabeth Hachten, Ph.D.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s Undergraduate Research Program for funding my research. The staff of the Ebling Health Sciences Library, particularly Micaela Sullivan-Fowler, for support and access to fragile and rare materials. Most importantly, my mentor Elizabeth Hachten, Ph. D. has been a most influential, resourceful, and all-around helpful enlightener.

Elizabeth Hachten, Ph. D.John Biersack

Thesis:British and American newspapers and medical journals’ depiction of cholera epidemics in late 19th century Russia reinforced an image of Russia as an inferior civilization.

What is Cholera?Cholera now known to caused by a bacteria (Vibrio cholerae) that can live in water and fecal matter for up to weeks. Symptoms are ghastly and include severe headaches and diarrhea followed by dehydration and an eventual painful death for nearly half of those infected. The disease’s sudden onset and horrifying symptoms made cholera a terrifying disease all over the world.

The Stigma of Cholera Endemic to India, cholera began spreading westward in the 1820’s in five successive pandemic waves during the 19th century. This origin in Asia gave the disease an association with backwardness, filth, ignorance, and a general lack of civilization compared to the West.

ConclusionThis examination of Anglo-American medical and popular reactions to the Russian cholera epidemic of 1892-3 reveals an important historical continuity in the construction of the Western image of Russia as backward, despotic, and uncivilized -- a continuity that goes back at least as far as the 16th century. Both the disease of cholera and the country of Russia were framed in the late nineteenth century as distinctly “other” -- alien from the West, more Asian than European in nature.

FindingsThe framing of cholera in the Anglo-American press in the late nineteenth century contributed to the construction of the image of Russia in the public mind in two ways.

First, that Russia was an autocratic state whose government responded to cholera in a draconian fashion antithetical to Western liberty.

Secondly, that the Russian people were backward, uncivilized, fatalistic, and ignorant.

This dual message underlined to Western readers that “Asiatic cholera” was a threat primarily in uncivilized countries such as Russia – or if spread to the West by Russian immigrants.

The Russian Epidemic,1892-93 Culturally and geographically, Russia was considered between East and West. Each time cholera spread from Asia, it struck Russia on its way to Europe along trade routes by train or ship.

Western physicians and correspondents reporting in publications such as The New York Times and The British Medical Journal painted a grim and terrifying picture of the progress of cholera in Russia.

All Images from Bourdelais and Dodin, Visages Du Cholera (Paris: Editions Belin, 1987), except, “The Cholera in Russia: The Last Journey,: from Hays, The Burdens of Disease (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998), “It is Cholera to Blame” from abcgallery.com and “cholera victim” from eee.uci.edu and cartoon welcoming cholera from Asia from scienceclarified.com