Stalin And Medicine: Untold Stories

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.