Eros of the Impossible. The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia: Alexander Etkind, Translated by Noah and maria Rubins. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. 408 pp.

This book, which first appeared in Russian (1993) and subsequently in French, has been eagerly awaited. While high expectations might well threaten disappointment, Eros of the Impossible makes for an exciting if demanding read. Etkind is a sophisticated author who has produced a series of remarkable essays which succeed in fleshing out the story of the reception of Freud's work in Russia.

One chapter deals with Lou Andreas-Salomé, her psychoanalytic contributions as well as her relationship with her native land. The next deals with the symbolist movement and its similarities to psychoanalysis, helping to account for Russian responsiveness to Freud. The third chapter is devoted to the Wolf Man. The next section is on psychoanalytic activity before World War I, which was active enough to overshadow how Freud was being received in most other countries. Sabina Spielrein (Jung's first analytic patient) is important enough to justify a chapter of her own; Etkind succeeded in interviewing some of her surviving relatives.

In 1923 the thirty members of the Russian Society comprised an eighth of the membership of the IPA. An analytic pediatric facility (attended by Stalin's son) was attempted, and Etkind comes up with findings about not only how positively Trotsky viewed analysis, but the ways in which he encouraged the movement. Human nature was supposedly capable of being transformed, which partly explains why analysis flourished (until 1930) in the land of the Bolsheviks. The Russians tried to make a special study of childhood as part of applied education.