Marina Voikhanskaya

Marina Voikhanskaya studied medicine at the First Pavlov State Medical University in Leningrad and obtained her M.D. degree in 1960. Between 1962 and 1975 she worked in Leningrad’s Psychiatric Hospitals n. 2 (1962–1967) and n. 3 (1967–1975). In the late 1970s, after her emigration to the UK, Voikhanskaya worked as a junior doctor at Fulbourn Hospital in Cambridge and West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St. Edmunds. She later trained and practiced as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. == Engagement against the abuse of psychiatry in the USSR ==

Marina Voikhanskaya learned from the dissident Viktor Fainberg about psychiatric abuses in her hospital and in particular about the painter Yuri Evgenyevich Ivanov Voikhanskaya is cited as one of a very small group of Soviet psychiatrists, another being the Ukrainian Semyon Gluzman, who openly opposed the Soviet abuse of psychiatry while still in the USSR. In 1974 she was instrumental in the release of Viktor Fainberg from the psychiatric hospital, by blackmailing the doctor in charge of his ward. She told him that if Fainberg was to die because of his hunger strike, the news would be broadcast on western media and the doctor’s name would be known. In the UK, she collaborated with Amnesty International and the Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse (CAPA) to denounce the political abuse of psychiatry, also as a foreign member of the Working Commission To Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes. British psychiatrists relayed her plea for action by publishing a letter in the British Medical Journal. She also gave a speech at the World Congress of Psychiatry in Honolulu in August 1977, denouncing that between 700 and 1100 dissidents were detained in psychiatric hospitals of the USSR. Her case, together with other incidents, led to the condemnation of the Soviet Union at the same Congress, and prompted a reflection on abuses of psychiatry in the United States and other nations and on the ethics of maintaining professional relationships with colleagues abroad who were involved in abuses. == Campaign for the release of Misha ==

When Voikhanskaya left the Soviet Union for the UK in 1975 she was divorced and her 9-year old son Misha was her sole responsibility, but Misha was refused permission to emigrate because the authorities put pressure on Marina's former husband Yevgeny Voikhansky to claim the child, even though he gave consent to her plans and said he did not want the boy. A campaign for the release of Misha was organized by the Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse (CAPA), headed by Tom Stoppard, who went to visit Misha during his trip to the Soviet Union in February 1977, and including Yehudi Menhuin, Harold Pinter and Joan Baez. This campaign was successful and Misha together with Marina’s mother Leah Fridlender (alternatively spelled Friedlander) were finally allowed to emigrate to the UK in April 1979. == Environmental activism and charity work ==

Marina Voikhanskaya’s use of the bicycle as a means of transportation has received media attention. She has undertaken sponsored journeys and cycle challenges for the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) in 2006, and 2010. In 2016, her 650 km ride from England to Ménerbes was sponsored for the benefit of the hospital of Apt in Provence. == Documentary and fiction ==

In the Alan Clarke documentary “Bukovsky” Marina Voikhanskaya appears in London in the company of British campaigners and Soviet dissidents, including David Markham, his wife Olive Dehn, Lord Avery, Tom Stoppard, Victor Fainberg, and others, at demonstrations against psychiatric abuse in the Soviet Union, organized by the Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse (CAPA). The story of Marina Voikhanskaya is discussed in another documentary, "The Price of Freedom" (1978). The movie «Nina», also by Alan Clarke, is based on the character of Marina Voikhanskaya and fictionalizes her story. == Personal life ==

Marina Voikhanskaya was married to Yevgeny Voikhansky, the father of their son Mikhail (Misha) (born in 1966), until 1974, when they divorced. Allegedly, according to what Voikhanskaya says in a recorded interview, this was because "he shopped me to the KGB" . Later Voikhanskaya was married to Norman Cohn from 2004 until his death in 2007. In the BBC Radio Program "The Roots of Extremism", Voikhanskaya comments on Cohn's emotional response to antisemitism (min 6:38) and her own experience of antisemitism during childhood (min 20:31). The reported marriage by telephone to Viktor Fainberg was never registered. == References ==