'Preservation of the nation needs women’s care': Authoritarianism and Motherhood in Russia

• In Event: “Good Mothers” and (Nation)lisms: The Case of Lithuania, Authoritarian Russia, and of the Postsocialist Migrant Mothers in Sweden

Abstract

This paper is dealing with the “demographic anxieties” of the Russian authoritarian state and consequences of its (bio)political management of women in the Russian Federation. The paper explores how “traditional family values” are interpreted by two actors promoting “good motherhood” in the Russian Federation: one connected to the Russian Orthodox Church -ROC (media portal Foma.ru, section “Questions to the priest”) and the second being a state-dependent women’s organization, Women’s Union of Russia, WUOR. Using primarily online media resources, the paper demonstrates certain convergence (Farris 2017) between these two actors with respect to answers to the “demographic anxieties”, however indicates certain differences. In particular, answering women’s letters, the mediated priests often have to face some of the real concerns of Russian families, including economic hardships, housing problems and domestic violence. Thus, the rigid constriction of “good motherhood” according to the “traditional values” promoted by the ROC, gets to be adjusted to the reality of mothering in the RF in the context of neoliberal authoritarianism and the full-scale war against Ukraine. In its turn, the materials of the state-dependent women’s organization, WUOR, often demonstrate more dogmatic way of popularizing “traditional” families. However, the WUOR’s portal also uses references to “women’s interests”; its vision of “good motherhood” includes ideals of national cohesion around solution of the “demographic crises” and welcomes women’s agency in a form of giving more births, demonstrating activism for diminishing number of chirurgical abortions and mobilizing for patriotic actions, including for support of the Russian war on Ukraine.

Author

• Yulia Gradskova, Södertörn U (Sweden)