A survey of the key political, economic, social, and cultural developments in Russian women’s history from 900 to 2010, and their impact on the nation. Synthesizing several decades of scholarship by historians East and West, Barbara Evans Clements traces the major developments in the history of women in Russia and their impact on the history of the nation. Sketching lived experiences across the centuries, she demonstrates the key roles that women played in shaping Russia’s political, economic, social, and cultural development for over a millennium. The story Clements tells is one of hardship and endurance, but also one of achievement by women who, for example, promoted the conversion to Christianity, governed estates, created great art, rebelled against the government, established charities, built the tanks that rolled into Berlin in 1945, and flew the planes that strafed the retreating Wehrmacht. This daunting and complex history is presented in an engaging survey that integrates this scholarship into the field of Russian and post-Soviet history. “The product of a lifetime of engagement by one of the preeminent authorities on the history of Russian women, the book reflects the author’s deep expertise in primary sources as well as her familiarity with the secondary literature.” —Choi Chatterjee, California State University Los Angeles “A significant achievement in scholarship on Russian women and gender. . . . Among this text’s many strengths are its lucidity, readability, and engaging synthesis of a large number of both primary and secondary sources. . . . Its erudite contextualization of the history of Russian women within a larger European framework ensures its interest for and accessibility to a wide readership, especially those outside of the Slavic field.” —Slavic and East European Journal “Clements’s writing is engaging, clear, and jargon free, making this book easily accessible to a general audience. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice “This daunting and complex history is presented in an engaging survey that integrates this scholarship into the field of Russian and post-Soviet history.” —Journal of Turkish Weekly

This book looks at Russian women’s mobilization and agency during the two periods of transformation, the turn of the 19th-20th century and the 20th – 21st century. Bringing together the parallels between the two great transformations, it focuses on both the continuities and breaks and, importantly, it shows them from the grassroots point of view, emphasizing the local factor. Chapters show the international and transnational aspects of Russian women’s agency of different spheres and different historical periods. The book goes on to raise new research questions such as the evaluation and comparison of Soviet society and contemporary Russia from the point of view of gender and women’s possibilities in society.

This volume explores how different post-Soviet countries have reinterpreted and diverged from the Soviet gender roles and values. It synthesizes results from multiple empirical studies that attend to increasingly conservative features of political governance in the region, particularly the authoritarian regime in Russia. The authors consider diverse enactments of ideologies, policies and practices of gender equality and women’s rights in crucial areas, such as legislative institutions, media, and social activism. The volume contributes to understanding post-Soviet societal dynamics relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5, which emphasizes gender equality as part of fundamental human rights.

Until the late 1960s, most Western scholars studying the history, culture, social and political life and economy of Russia and the Soviet Union, paid scant attention to the participation and experience of women. The multifarious ways in which gender roles and perceptions of gender were influenced by and in turn influenced the heterogeneous cultures of the Soviet empire were largely ignored. However, this neglect has slowly been rectified and now the study of women and gender relations has become one of the most productive fields of research into Russian and Soviet society. This volume demonstrates the originality and diversity of this recent research. Written by leading Western scholars, it spans the last decade of tsarist Russia, the 1917 revolutions and the Soviet period. The essays reflect the interdisciplinary nature of women's work, women and politics, women as soldiers, female prostitution, popular images of women and women's experience of perestroika.

This book provides a new perspective through a closer look on “Other”, i.e. ethnic minority women defined by the Soviet documents as natsionalka. Applying decolonial theory and critical race and whiteness studies, the book analyzes archive documents, early Soviet films and mass publications in order to explore how the “emancipation” and “culturalization” of women of “culturally backward nations” was practiced and presented for the mass Soviet audience. Whilst the special focus of the book lies in the region between the Volga and the Urals (and Muslim women of the Central Eurasia), the Soviet emancipation practices are presented in the broader context of gendered politics of modernization in the beginning of the 20th century. The analysis of the Soviet documents of the 1920s-1930s not only subverts the Soviet story on “generous help” with emancipation of natsionalka through uncovering its imperial/colonial aspects, but also makes an important contribution to the studies of imperial domination and colonial politics. This book is addressed to all interested in Russian and Eurasian studies and in decolonial approach to gender history.

On July 20, 1917, Russia became the world's first major power to grant women the right to vote and hold public office. Yet in the wake of the October Revolution later that year, the foundational organizations and individuals who pioneered the suffragist cause were all but erased from Russian history. The women's movement, when mentioned at all, is portrayed as rooted in the elitist and bourgeois culture of the tsarist era, meaningless to proletarian and peasant women, and counter to socialist ideology. Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild reveals that Russian feminists in fact appealed to all classes and were an integral force for revolution and social change, particularly during the monumental uprisings of 1905-1917. Ruthchild offers a telling examination of the social dynamics in imperialist Russia that fostered a growing feminist movement. Based upon extensive archival research in six countries, she analyzes the backgrounds, motivations, methods, activism, and organizational networks of early Russian feminists, revealing the foundations of a powerful feminist intelligentsia that came to challenge, and eventually bring down, the patriarchal tsarist regime.Ruthchild profiles the individual women (and a few men) who were vital to the feminist struggle, as well as the major conferences, publications, and organizations that promoted the cause. She documents political debates on the acceptance of women's suffrage and rights, and follows each party's attempt to woo feminist constituencies despite their fear of women gaining too much political power. Ruthchild also compares and contrasts the Russian movement to those in Britain, China, Germany, France, and the United States. Equality and Revolution offers an original and revisionist study of the struggle for women's political rights in late imperial Russia, and presents a significant reinterpretation of a decisive period of Russian-and world-history.