8. Saburova Dacha, Kyrylivska Hospital, and Hlevakha

Kharkiv and Kyiv: Hospital, department, and research institute

Kharkiv's psychiatric hospital grew out of the municipal welfare system of the late eighteenth century. A special house for people with mental disorders appeared in 1796; general hospital services moved to the former Saburov estate in 1812, followed by psychiatric patients in 1820. In professional memory, the name "Saburova Dacha" gradually came to encompass a large hospital complex, clinical teaching, and research institutions. [175]

The university brought regular teaching and scientific publishing to this environment. In 1834, Petro Butkovskyi published the two-volume Mental Illnesses Explained According to the Principles of Current Psychiatric Teaching. Pavlo Kovalevskyi founded the Archive of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Forensic Psychopathology in 1883. In the 1920s, the hospital became a centre for psychoneurological institutes; the All-Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy was established in Kharkiv in 1932. A large patient population linked clinical teaching with research into psychopathology, physiology, and service organization. [175]

Kyiv's tradition began with a small ward for people with mental illness in Podil in the late eighteenth century and developed within the former St. Cyril's monastery complex. The Kyrylivska charitable institutions officially opened in 1806. The hospital at today's 103 Kyrylivska Street became an enduring clinical base for municipal psychiatry; in the twentieth century it was known as the Pavlov Hospital, and today as the "Psychiatry" hospital. [162, 176, 177]

In 1885, Ivan Sikorsky headed Kyiv University's independent department of psychiatry and nervous diseases. His work covered general psychopathology and child development; the journal he founded, Questions of Neuropsychiatric Medicine, began publication in 1895. After psychiatry and neurology separated in 1920, Yevhen Kopystynskyi and Valentyn Hakkebush developed the clinical school. In 1921, Kopystynskyi prohibited straitjackets and tying patients down in his clinic; in 1929, he published a Ukrainian psychiatry textbook for feldshers. [178]

Hakkebush combined university work with a psychotherapy polyclinic and the Kyiv State Psychoneurological Institute, established in 1927. He studied neuroses, psychopathological consequences of brain injuries, and child and forensic psychiatric questions. In 1928, he introduced a course in forensic psychopathology. Alongside the large inpatient hospital, outpatient psychotherapy, specialized assessment, and teaching based on clinical cases were taking shape. [178]

Scientific connections between cities

Viktor Protopopov worked on organizing psychoneurological science in Kharkiv and, in postwar Kyiv, developed research into psychiatry and pathology of higher nervous activity. His school considered mental state alongside autonomic, metabolic, and general physical changes. With Yosyp Polishchuk, he studied nitrogen metabolism in schizophrenia; Petro Biriukovych's work concerned biochemical mechanisms of affective disorders. Protopopov also worked on postgraduate medical training and the development of dispensary services and psychiatric wards in general hospitals. [179]

After Kyiv's psychoneurological institute closed in 1948, much research concentrated at the Pavlov Hospital and academic departments. Yakiv Frumkin developed clinical psychopathology and differential diagnosis; Liviia Bulakhova, child neuropsychiatry; and Vadym Bleikher, experimental psychological assessment of mental disorders. Bleikher's laboratory also trained psychologists. Semen Livshyts worked in forensic psychiatry, and Hryhorii Voronkov on the clinical features and classification of epilepsy. Detailed mental status descriptions, psychological experiments, biochemical laboratories, and expert assessments coexisted within the shared hospital environment. [180]

Occupation and the murder of patients

Nazi killings of patients occurred in waves. Olena Petrenko's archival research reconstructs the early segregation of Jewish patients: in early October 1941, 308 Jewish patients were shot at Kyiv's Pavlov Hospital. In Vinnytsia, 412 Jewish patients were killed during September and the first half of October. Further actions in late 1941 and throughout 1942 targeted the remaining patients. Hospitals lost people, staff, and the very possibility of continuing treatment. [181]

During the occupation, Oleksandr Oleksiiovych Ignatov remained chief physician and institute director at Saburova Dacha. According to his report reproduced in a 2012 publication, 470 patients were in the institution on December 18, 1941. That morning, they were taken away in trucks under the pretext of transfer to Poltava and murdered. Those removed also included patients with neurological and physical illnesses. In February 1943, during Kharkiv's brief liberation, Ignatov headed an evacuation hospital for 600 wounded in the institute building; five physicians worked with him. [182]¹²

His son Yurii survived the occupation as a teenager. Family memory preserves the decision to remain together in Kharkiv and Yurii's later wartime medical experience. Through the next generation, psychiatrist Mykhailo Yuriiovych Ignatov, this family history again became intertwined with the work of Saburova Dacha.¹³

Professional resistance to political abuse

Soviet punitive psychiatry used diagnosis, expert assessment, and special hospitals to isolate dissidents. The Dnipropetrovsk Special Psychiatric Hospital was one such place of imprisonment. In 1971, Semen Hluzman prepared an independent assessment of Petro Hryhorenko's case materials without examining him in person, substantiating his mental health. In 1972, Hluzman himself was arrested and sentenced to seven years in labour camps and three years in exile. His work restored clinical reasoning to the centre of a case in which the state opinion served political persecution. [183]

Intensive treatment of psychoses at Saburova Dacha

On July 21, 1975, Order No. 287 established an 80-bed department for exogenous psychoses at Kharkiv Hospital No. 15. It admitted people with acute alcohol-related and other exogenous psychoses and severe complications of alcoholism; planned stays were up to 21 days. In the early 1990s, 2,300 to 2,500 patients passed through annually, approximately one-tenth of hospital admissions. [184]

On December 30, 1992, Order No. 196 established a centre for intensive therapy and resuscitation in psychoses within the department. The centre provided round-the-clock clinical-biochemical and functional diagnostics, intensive care beds with a continuously present intensivist, and psychiatric and rehabilitation units. Placement reflected the required level of vital-function support. Treatments included psychopharmacotherapy and infusions, with hyperbaric oxygen, haemoperfusion, and controlled craniocerebral hypothermia also in the repertoire of the time. [184]

In a 1996 article, N. P. Yurchenko and Mykhailo Yuriiovych Ignatov summarized twenty years of work: over 36,000 people treated, four candidate-of-sciences dissertations, over one hundred publications, and over fifteen methodological recommendations. Clinical and neurophysiological data were recorded electronically. Over two to three years, the department developed and implemented a comprehensive approach to alcohol-related psychoses; the authors reported a 1.5- to 2-fold reduction in mortality. Rational psychopharmacotherapy and intensive treatment of physical complications were central to this work. [184]

The Kyiv regional hospital in Hlevakha

Regional Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 in Hlevakha began operating in 1957. In 1984, two of its departments formed a regional addiction dispensary; in 1998, the two institutions merged into the Kyiv Regional Psychiatric and Addiction Medical Association. Shared grounds and support services brought specialized psychiatric and addiction work together. [185]

The complex developed notable services in geriatric psychiatry, treatment of neuroses, care for patients with infectious diseases, intensive care, and forensic psychiatry. It became a base for internships and postgraduate education, cooperating with Bogomolets National Medical University and research institutions. For Kyiv region, this concentrated several functions requiring specialized teams and technical resources in one regional institution. [185]

Hospital continuity in the twenty-first century

Kharkiv National Medical University's course syllabus for the 2024/25 academic year lists Regional Clinical Psychiatric Hospital No. 3 among its clinical bases, alongside a military medical centre and research institute. In Kyiv, the "Psychiatry" hospital combines adult and child-adolescent inpatient services, physical and intensive care, outpatient services, and mobile teams; postgraduate teaching continues on site. [186, 177, 187]

Family participation is growing alongside hospital work. Kyiv's Psykhability initiative emerged from a group of relatives connected with medical-social rehabilitation at the hospital. Families support one another and help organize everyday life after hospitalization. [188]

On April 27, 2024, a Russian strike damaged Saburova Dacha's buildings. Suspilne documented destruction on the hospital grounds. Repairing premises, protecting people, and maintaining treatment during air-raid alerts were added to the clinic's usual responsibilities. [189]