Revolutionary Womanhood and Women's Self-representation in the Interwar Soviet Union

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This interdisciplinary panel examines how women were represented and how they represented themselves in the years after the Russian revolution. We will approach this topic from four related but different directions, including how revolutionary womanhood featured in histories of the Russian revolutionary movement, in the international Communist Women's Movement, in the children's fiction of Vera Smirnova, and in the writings of Alexandra Kollontai. By looking at these representations through such a multi-faceted lens, we are able to observe the central but sometimes precarious positioning of women as active participants in making revolution.

Sub Unit

• History: Russian and Eurasian, since 1924

Chair

• Marina Balina, Illinois Wesleyan U

Papers

• Revolutionary Womanhood: Woman-Worker, Woman-Fighter, and Woman-Mother Models in the Political Discourse of the International Communist Women’s Movement of the Early 1920s - Daria Dyakonova, International U in Geneva (Switzerland)

• Women of the Revolutionary Past in the Revolution’s Present - Abby Holekamp, U of Chicago

• The New Woman and the 'Other': Ambivalent Legacies of Soviet Women’s Emancipation - Mari Jarris, Princeton U

• Vera Smirnova's 'Devohki' and 'Dva Serdtsa': Soviet Womanhood in the 1930s Children's Literature - Polina Popova, U of Illinois at Chicago

Discussant

• Anne Eakin Moss, U of Chicago