The Usage of the Rorschach Test in the 20-30s in the USSR

The present article addresses and structures the history of the application of the Rorschach test during the period of 1923 to 1936 in the Soviet Union. Hermann Rorschach visited the Russian Empire three times and was familiar with Russian psychoanalysts. His test was published in 1921 in Switzerland. By 1923 was published I.N. Dyakov’s article with the description of the test. The Rorschach test was used with children with normal development, gifted children and those with various deviations in paedology, clinical psychology and psychiatry. It was used for studying the personality of a perpetrator and for examining individuals who had committed a crime. A.E. Petrova very well described the application of the test she used in studying a “primitive” psyche ofchildren and adult perpetrators, and of patients with schizophrenia and epilepsy. L.S. Vygotsky valued highly A.E. Petrova's works and cited them in his lectures. The Rorschach test was also included in the series of tests for studying a perpetrator's personality, it was employed in the psychiatric examination to study the personality of the offender and the crime, it was also used in Serbsky State Scientific Institute for Social and Forensic Psychiatry. In 1936, after the publication of the resolution of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union Communist Party on the paedological perversions in the system of the People's Commissariats for Education, the usage of the test discontinued.