The Russian Patient

»I love him and I hate him.« The differences between C.G. Jung and his Russian patient Sabina Spielrein seem insurmountable; in desperation, she seeks help from Sigmund Freud. A drama from the early days of psychoanalysis that would have been long forgotten had not the accidental discovery of her diaries and letters in the mid-seventies made Spielrein a person of public interest. Who was she?

The narrator goes in search of clues, follows Sabina Spielrein to Zurich and Vienna, Berlin, Moscow and Rostov-on-Don where her story began in 1885 and ended in 1942. And while following the »woman between Jung and Freud«, she herself becomes part of the story. She finds documents and historical sources, contradictory claims and misleading information. The deeper she penetrates, the clearer Sabina Spielrein’s character becomes as a person searching in the conflicting poles of East and West, Jewish and Russian expectations of therapy, Marxism and psychoanalysis. Bäbel Reetz narrates the story of an unusual woman, who crossed boundaries, wanted to help realize the utopian creations of the past century, had the vision of the European mission of Judaism and hoped to change society through socialism – a hope that came to a brutal end with Stalin’s regime of terror, the Second World War and the Holocaust.