Mediterranean Madness: Orthodox Mysticism and Modern Psychiatry in the British Ionian Islands Protectorate 1809-1864
Lead Research Organisation:
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Department Name: Sch of European Languages, Culture & Soc
Abstract
In 1838 the British Empire established the first ever Greek Psychiatric hospital in Corfu, the colonial capital of the Ionian Islands, that had been under its 'protection' since the Congress of Vienna. This was run by the first Greeks to call themselves 'psychiatrists', Western-educated cosmopolitan nationalists who were avid followers of the 'fathers' of modern psychiatry, Philipe Pinel and Jean Esquirol.
Kefalonia, the largest island under British protection, had its own traditions for 'curing' mental illness: on the 16th of August (to this day), the body of the Patron Saint of the Island, Agios Gerasimos, protector of the 'spirit', is carried over the squirming bodies of the 'demonically possessed' who are exorcised in this communal act of catharsis.
My research will examine the entanglement between Orthodox Mysticism and Modern Psychiatry, as differing conceptions of God and Selfhood; of sanity and madness, met through the works of 'autochthonous' and Western-educated Greeks in this unique colonial context.
It will will analyse how the works of Kefalonian priests all utilised a shared lexicon for understanding the soul that borrowed directly from Plato's bifurcation of the 'psyche' into 'heart and nous', offering a cultural history of how the inner self was spoken of in everyday interactions, arguing that the testimonies of any person who has overcome suffering constitutes a theory of psychiatry that can be learnt from.
It will argue that the question of healing became inseparable from the question of modernity by highlighting how the sermons of Konstantinos Typaldos, one of the most celebrated figures from my hometown of Lixouri, Kefalonia, situated the question of communal catharsis within the politics of the 'Greek Language Question'. This was a debate over whether to speak in the 'purified', 'refined', 'cosmopolitan' language of Katharevousa, an artificial fusion of Greek and ancient Greek that no one spoke naturally, yet staked a claim to Greece's place within Western Modernity; or to speak in the everyday 'demotic' Greek of the peasantry. Typaldos saw 'demotic' Greek as the language of communal healing as it allowed people to naturally expose the sins of their inner soul to the community, as part of a culture of public catharsis.
Throughout it will grapple with how the conception of the inner self and of healing the soul became
an imperial frontier, as it examines how everyday people grappled with these communal and modern forms of subjectivity. It will zero-in on one case study of Konstantinos' nephew, Nikolas, who always insisted on writing in Katharevousa, except for one striking letter where he was overwhelmed by the shock of his dead uncle where he wrote: 'my heart and nous tremor', only this time in the demotic language that his uncle prescribed. It will argue that this letter offers a rich example of how everyday Greeks grappled with the question of modernity in the very act of grieving and making sense of suffering as they ordered the psyche.
From there it will study the works of Western educated 'doctors of the soul' and how they utilised Christian ontologies of the soul in their therapeutic practice, examining how cosmopolitan psychiatrists conceived of madness as they offered a less communal form of catharsis, while interestingly still utilising Orthodox concepts as they 'conspired against sins' of those they diagnosed as 'frenovlavis'. It will conclude by examining how the colonial state appropriated this term as it passed laws that allowed its subjects to imprison their unwell relatives. It will examine how Kefalonians conceived of madness in their testimonies to the colonial police, analysing how they negotiated differing conceptions of selfhood in the act of expunging an unwell relative from their family unit.
By giving a voice to past conceptions of the soul and madness, my research hopes to contingency, development and continuity with the past that can inform present therapeutic practices.
Kefalonia, the largest island under British protection, had its own traditions for 'curing' mental illness: on the 16th of August (to this day), the body of the Patron Saint of the Island, Agios Gerasimos, protector of the 'spirit', is carried over the squirming bodies of the 'demonically possessed' who are exorcised in this communal act of catharsis.
My research will examine the entanglement between Orthodox Mysticism and Modern Psychiatry, as differing conceptions of God and Selfhood; of sanity and madness, met through the works of 'autochthonous' and Western-educated Greeks in this unique colonial context.
It will will analyse how the works of Kefalonian priests all utilised a shared lexicon for understanding the soul that borrowed directly from Plato's bifurcation of the 'psyche' into 'heart and nous', offering a cultural history of how the inner self was spoken of in everyday interactions, arguing that the testimonies of any person who has overcome suffering constitutes a theory of psychiatry that can be learnt from.
It will argue that the question of healing became inseparable from the question of modernity by highlighting how the sermons of Konstantinos Typaldos, one of the most celebrated figures from my hometown of Lixouri, Kefalonia, situated the question of communal catharsis within the politics of the 'Greek Language Question'. This was a debate over whether to speak in the 'purified', 'refined', 'cosmopolitan' language of Katharevousa, an artificial fusion of Greek and ancient Greek that no one spoke naturally, yet staked a claim to Greece's place within Western Modernity; or to speak in the everyday 'demotic' Greek of the peasantry. Typaldos saw 'demotic' Greek as the language of communal healing as it allowed people to naturally expose the sins of their inner soul to the community, as part of a culture of public catharsis.
Throughout it will grapple with how the conception of the inner self and of healing the soul became
an imperial frontier, as it examines how everyday people grappled with these communal and modern forms of subjectivity. It will zero-in on one case study of Konstantinos' nephew, Nikolas, who always insisted on writing in Katharevousa, except for one striking letter where he was overwhelmed by the shock of his dead uncle where he wrote: 'my heart and nous tremor', only this time in the demotic language that his uncle prescribed. It will argue that this letter offers a rich example of how everyday Greeks grappled with the question of modernity in the very act of grieving and making sense of suffering as they ordered the psyche.
From there it will study the works of Western educated 'doctors of the soul' and how they utilised Christian ontologies of the soul in their therapeutic practice, examining how cosmopolitan psychiatrists conceived of madness as they offered a less communal form of catharsis, while interestingly still utilising Orthodox concepts as they 'conspired against sins' of those they diagnosed as 'frenovlavis'. It will conclude by examining how the colonial state appropriated this term as it passed laws that allowed its subjects to imprison their unwell relatives. It will examine how Kefalonians conceived of madness in their testimonies to the colonial police, analysing how they negotiated differing conceptions of selfhood in the act of expunging an unwell relative from their family unit.
By giving a voice to past conceptions of the soul and madness, my research hopes to contingency, development and continuity with the past that can inform present therapeutic practices.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Thiseas Stefanatos (Student) |