Networks, Collaborations, and Identities: Women’s Agency in Late Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The panel addresses a broad spectrum of inclusion of women into the (counter)public sphere in the 19th and 20th centuries Russian Empire and Soviet Union. We will discuss individual strategies and collective efforts to obtain the right to influence the decision-making process in an authoritarian system and make the interests of the female gender visible. Based on the previously overlooked sources, such as petitions, diaries, letters and periodicals, we rethink the concept of women’s agency in the context of Russian and Soviet intellectual, cultural, and political history.

Sub Unit

• Gender/LGBTQ Studies

Chair

• Masha Bratischeva, Scuola Normale Superiore (Italy)

Papers

• Over 400 Women Signed the Petition for Opening the University': What the Single Signature Can Tell About the Women’s Movement - Masha Bratischeva, Scuola Normale Superiore (Italy)

• Puzzling Creative Agency: Rebuses, Professionalism, and Gender in Late Imperial Russia - Ksenia Butuzova, U of Oxford (UK)

• Survival Strategies in Stalin’s Exile: Reading the Siberian Diary by Arpenik Aleksanyan (1949-1954) - Ella Rossman, U College London (UK)

Discussant

• Karolina Nugumanova, Scuola Normale Superiore (Italy)