Anatoly Koryagin
| Anatoly Ivanovich Koryagin | |
|---|---|
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| Native name | Анатолий Иванович Корягин |
| Born |
September 15, 1938 Kansk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Soviet Union |
| Citizenship |
 Soviet Union (1938–1991)→ Russia (1991–present) |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Institutions | the Kyzyl regional psychiatric hospital, the Kharkov regional psychiatric hospital, the Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes |
| Alma mater | the Krasnoyarsk Medical Institute |
| Known for | his participation in the Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes and struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union |
| Notable awards | honorary membership of the World Psychiatric Association and the American Psychiatric Association, fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science |
Anatoly Ivanovich Koryagin (Russian: Анато́лий Ива́нович Коря́гин, born 15 September 1938, Kansk, Krasnoyarsk Krai) is a psychiatrist and Soviet dissident. He holds a Candidate of Science degree (equivalent to PhD in the West). Along with others, he exposed political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union. He pointed out Russia constructed psychiatric prisons to punish dissidents.
Koryagin was born on 15 September 1938 in Kansk (Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia). After graduating from the Krasnoyarsk Medical Institute in 1963, Koryagin worked for 4 years as a psychiatrist in Abakan. In 1972 he successfully defended his doctoral thesis on apathetic aspects of schizophrenia, and in the same year he became deputy head doctor of the regional psychiatric hospital in Kyzyl. In 1978 he became a consultant at the Kharkov regional psychiatric clinic.
Koryagin served as chief psychiatrist to the underground Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes, which was formed in 1977. He and another psychiatrist examined 55 dissidents who had been released or were going to be involuntarily confined. They concluded that there was no medical justification for the confinement of these people, and then campaigned for the release of dissidents held in psychiatric facilities.
Koryagin was arrested in February 1981. In June that year he was sentenced to 7 years of hard labor, to be followed by 5 years of internal exile. The charge was anti-Soviet activities for having corresponded with the British medical journal The Lancet, which published an article by Koryagin critical of the Soviet government's use of involuntary psychiatric confinement for political reasons. Koryagin was stripped of Soviet citizenship after publishing his article in which he accused the Soviets of interning sane people to psychiatric hospitals. Koryagin documented the existence of 16 special hospitals for dissidents and 183 political prisoners that were confined in them. The transcripts of his trial, which were published by Amnesty International in 1982, record the following statement he made:
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