7 - Sciences of suicide

Summary

In the study of the causes of suicide, we would then approach the greatest possible ideal when we would know about the entire life of the suicide, his character, his nervous system, the hereditary characteristics of his nature, when we would have information about his parents and close relatives, [when we would] know about his surrounding environment.

I. O. Zubov, “Suicide in Lifliand Province,” 1902

A column on city life in a popular magazine from 1859 opened with the following observation: “By some strange chance, the last month was most abundant in suicides which are usually rather rare in Petersburg. And there were six cases.” After listing the names and social identities of the victims as well as the methods they used, the report went on to muse about the significance of numbers: “Statisticians would very likely extract some weighty speculation about the influence of the month of January on the resolution to take one's life, but statistical conclusions in our skeptical age – being just as hard to believe as official figures and official phrases – have lost their influence.”

Though its conclusion was premature, this mocking commentary foreshadowed important developments. From the late 1860s through the end of the imperial era, suicide was a standard component in the reporting of city life, and columns on everyday incidents and crime proved popular among the readers. Equally striking was the irresistible urge to quantify – to compile statistics based on these new public, rather than bureaucratic sources.