“Completely Useless”: Exiling the Disabled to Tsarist Siberia

Abstract: The ostracizing of mentally and physically disabled individuals is a cross-cultural phenomenon that amounts to what Henri-Jacques Stiker calls a “murderous system,” which does not kill such individuals outright, but instead indirectly. This as well as Foucault’s notions about the construction of madness and deviancy serve as a departure point for understanding tsarist Russi…