Journalist ForumDaily released a novel about intelligence and punitive psychiatry during the Cold War

A large Ukrainian publishing house, Dukh i litera, published an artistic book “In the web of madness”Written by ForumDaily author Ksenia Kirillova. The novel takes place at the end of 60-x - the beginning of 70-s.

In the story, a young CIA officer Patrick Korn is sent on a dangerous task. He will have to meet under a false name with a leading Soviet military engineer, for his disagreement with the party line to a prisoner in one of the most terrible types of Soviet camps - a special closed psychology hospital under the Ministry of Internal Affairs (SPB), but who managed to transfer important documents to the West. To accomplish its mission, the scout resorts to the help of a young nurse Irina, who has long had remorse about her work. A girl falls in love with a foreigner, not even knowing who she is really dealing with ...

«I tried to convey as accurately as possible the details of the era - at least the essential details. For example, the realities of Soviet punitive psychiatry are described on the basis of the memories of people who went through this hell, my personal conversations and interviews with these people, and historical materials. It so happened that this book literally anticipated events. Human rights activists have been signaling a revival of punitive psychiatry in Russia for a couple of years, and just a few days ago, more than a year after completing the work on the book, Putin signed a decree allowing not only doctors but also prosecutors to sue forcible hospitalization. That is, the book was written about the past, but it turned out, alas, in something prophetic", - explained Ksenia in an interview with ForumDaily.

According to the author, despite the fictional plot, many details of the novel intersect with historical facts. So, in the military engineer Golubov, sometimes the features of the most valuable Soviet asset in the history of American intelligence are guessed. Adolf Tolkachev, and the evacuation plan of the engineer Golubov reflects the real CIA operation on the exfiltration of the former KGB major from the USSR Viktor Sheimova. The historical context of the events described in the novel is also sustained reliably: at the beginning of 70's, amid disarmament negotiations, a thermonuclear antimissile of the A-35 missile defense system was developed, the technical characteristics of which were accurately conveyed in the book.

Ksenia Kirillova

«But for me everything was important not only to convey the details of the Soviet way of life - I admit that in some particular moments they may not be completely accurate - how much to show the drama of hard choice between duty and conscience, freedom and necessity, the tragedy of how a good person can become an accomplice to the destructive system. But the main thing that I wanted to show is that always, even in the most terrible conditions, a person can choose", - summed up Kirillov.

An excerpt from the novel can be found. here.

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