The claim that a group of people are “dying of broken hearts” is a challenge to fathom, let alone empirically prove. However, Masha Gessen tries to do so for the reader by using the language of scientific and cultural reasoning, though her conclusion becomes more like sensationalist journalism. She begins her piece on what appears to be a strong, ethnographic footing as she briefly describes her research, presents anecdotal evidence, and goes on to cite Michelle Parson’s anthropological work Dying Unneeded to discuss the merits and the limitations of it. These are two promising steps in her search for the “answer” to her opening quandary about high Russian mortality rates, since both focus on a kind of thick description, and particularly in the case of Parson’s work, a Geertzian method of deeply embedding oneself in the culture in question.
In my opinion, Gessen starts to stray when she switches to a strong reliance on statistical evidence which she uses to rule out causes like drinking, smoking, environmental issues, and economic upheavals as the cause of death. However, she lacks any empirical data supporting her “broken heart” theory. She concludes her piece by abandon the cultural and rational methods of study she attempted to employ earlier and delves head first into sensationalist journalism when she presents this unsubstantiated, broad-base claim that the reason that all Russians are dying so young and so frequently is attributable solely to “broken hearts.”
This piece lacks the plethora of evidence needed to convince any reader that the root cause is broken hearts. For a claim such as this, a cultural approach with support from rational-choice methodology, as Gessen started to present, seems best to study the problem at hand. However, unlike Gessen’s, the work should richer, more nuanced, and focus in on the people, similar to how Gressen describes Parson’s work.
I disagree that Parson’s work is useful in providing a “strong footing” to analyze Russia’s high mortality rate. Parson does attempt to engage in thick description, but Geertz’s style of analysis would necessitate examining the significance of a culture at the time in question. Parson’s retrospective interviewees are temporally separate from the events they are discussing, and their thoughts and feelings likely would have changed in the more than ten years elapsed, especially because that time period in Russia encompassed so much cultural change. Gessen even recognizes this weakness herself, noting that the subjects’ “memories have been transformed by the intervening years of social and economic upheaval.” The statistical evidence, in my opinion, is much more convincing than Parson’s anecdotal evidence. It’s interesting, for example, that the Russian fertility rate is 1.61, and that Russia’s mortality levels from CVD are 30% higher than all deaths in Western Europe. Although I agree that Gessen does not use it convincingly, she does have some empirical evidence which is more useful than retrospective interviews in examining a quantitative issue.