GROSSMAN: EVERYTHING FLOWS: a workshop that employs the disabled

[Christine Worobec]

Dear Robert: It would appear that Grossman is describing what psychiatrists have 
termed an epidemic of hysteria. I would not assume that the first description is 
necessarily describing an epileptic fit. The connection to war suggests that all of 
these individuals had experienced trauma of one type or other, and that the 
manifestation of seizure/paralysis and its imitation in the workshop is akin to 
what sometimes occurs in confined spaces such as factories, schools, prisons. 
In the Russian situation in the late imperial period, epidemics of hysteria were 
most commonly associated with beliefs in "porcha" and witchcraft and often 
manifested themselves at rural weddings. In a more urban environment into 
the 1920s there were some reports of epidemics of hysteria associated 
with witchcraft and demonic possession, but also reports of such epidemics 
in factories and boarding schools (in the latter case, only for the pre- 
revolutionary period). In most of these cases women predominated over 
men as victims of the hysteria. In the case of epidemics of hysteria at 
weddings, men feared that they would become impotent as a result of 
the porcha. Emasculation of men was also a major fear in World War I. 
In the pre-revolutionary and early Soviet period, one of the places where 
the disabled would have sought help was at monastic shrines (saints' 
reliquaries), where they would have witnessed "pripadki" of a variety 
of sorts. It would appear then that Grossman is bringing together a 
number of factors here that would be understandable to a Russian 
audience. In the Russian sources, a description of an epileptic fit 
invariably mentions foaming at the mouth. 

I have written about the phenomenon as it connects to "porcha" in my 
Possessed: Women, Witches, and Demons in Imperial Russia (Northern 
Illinois University, 2001). For a discussion of Russian psychiatry and 
its concern with mass epidemics of hysteria and crowd psychology 
(including religious hysteria, revolutionary activities), see Daniel Beer, 
Renovating Russia: The Human Sciences and the Fate of LIberal 
Modernity, 1880-1930 (Cornell University Press, 2008). 

Best wishes, 
Christine Worobec 

Christine Worobec 
Board of Trustees Professor and 
Distinguished Research Professor 
Department of History 
Northern Illinois University 
DeKalb, IL 60115 
worobec at niu.edu/worobec at comcast.net 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Chandler" <kcf19 at DIAL.PIPEX.COM> 
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu 
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 12:53:02 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central 
Subject: [SEELANGS] GROSSMAN: EVERYTHING FLOWS: a workshop that employs the disabled 

Dear all, 

The hero of this work, set in the mid –1950s, gets himself taken on as a 
metal worker in a small workshop that employed the disabled. 

Среди рабочих были инвалиды Отечественной войны; были покалеченные на 
производстве либо на транспорте, имелись три старика, покалеченных еще в 
войну 1914 года. [...] 
Инвалиды в артели были по большей части люди веселые, склонные 
юмористически относиться к жизни; но иногда с кем-нибудь из них 
приключался припадок, и к грохоту молотков, визгу напильников примешивался 
крик припадочного, начинавшего биться на полу. 
У седоусого лудильщика Пташковского, военнопленного 1914 года (говорили, 
что он австриец, но выдает себя за поляка), вдруг цепенели руки, и он 
застывал на своем табуретике с поднятым молотком, лицо его становилось 
неподвижным, надменным. Надо было его тряхнуть за плечо, чтобы вывести из 
оцепенения. А однажды припадок, случившийся с одним инвалидом, заразил сразу 
многих, и в разных концах мастерской стали биться на полу, кричать молодые и 
старые люди. 

“The other workers included injured veterans from the Great Patriotic War, 
as well as men who had been crippled in accidents in factories or on the 
roads and railways; there were even three old men who had been crippled as 
long ago as the First World War. [...] 
The other workers were, for the main part, good-humoured people who 
preferred to look on the bright side of things. Now and again, however, one 
of them would have a fit, and his screams as he began to writhe on the floor 
would mingle with the banging of hammers and the squeal of files. 

Ptashkovsky, a tinsmith with a grey moustache, had been taken prisoner by 
the Russians during the First World War (people said he was Austrian, just 
pretending to be a Pole). Suddenly his arms would go completely numb and he 
would freeze there on his little stool, his hammer raised in the hair, his 
face immobile and haughty. Someone would have to shake him by the shoulder 
to bring him out of this paralysis. There was one occasion when one man had 
a fit and this set off a chain reaction; in different corners of the 
workshop young and old alike were writhing on the floor and screaming.” 

Does anyone understand just what is going on here? It seems like the first 
person has an epileptic fit, but epileptic fits are not, as far as I know, 
communicable in this way. 

Best Wishes, 

Robert 

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