Feminist Journals and Networks in Late-Soviet and Post-Soviet Contexts

• In Event: Late/Post-Soviet Media Networks and Gender Technologies

Abstract

This paper explores feminist networks and media technologies in the late-Soviet and early post-Soviet contexts by focusing on underground and semi-official feminist journals and zines. Produced by “female clubs” in the 1980s and the 1990s, journals such as “Maria” and “Preobrazhenie” provided a rare platform for articulating gender concerns and fostering transnational dialogues between Soviet and Western feminists. Looking at the communities and publics that produced (and were produced by) these journals, the paper examines communicative regimes that replicated and challenged both Soviet discourses and Western feminist paradigms. Finally, I draw a connection between these early feminist initiatives and contemporary feminist media represented by Instagram-based feminist zines, similarly characterized by DIY ethos, community-building mission, and intellectual engagement with Western feminist paradigms.

Author

• Tatiana Efremova, George Washington U