Association of Women in Slavic Studies
Publishes the Women East-West newsletter and runs the AWSS-L list; other activities include a mentoring program and a bibliography.

Study Group on Women and Gender in Russia and East-Central Europe
at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham; organized by Linda Edmondson, Melanie Ilic, and Hilary Pilkington.

Russian Women Today
Online language learning module by the American Council for the Teachers of Russian: "interactive modules that teach Russian through the views of a pop singer, a politician, and a writer". Visitors have to register, but access is free of charge.

Women's Battalion of Death Discussion (March 1996)
Archived discussion thread from the H-WOMEN list, supplemented by a bibliography.

Double Lives: Women Writing in the Russian Tradition Symposium at Berkeley in 1996.

Warrior Women of the Russian Steppes
A summary of Berkeley scientist Jeannine Davis-Kimball's Archaeology magazine article on excavations near Pokrovka in southern Russia. Amazons or not? More information on this topic can be found at CSEN (Center for the Study of Eurasian Nomads).

Articles

Cyber-Jouissance: A Sketch For A Politics Of Pleasure
by Irina Aristarkhova. An attempt "to outline a politics of pleasure for/as Russian (cyber)feminist(s)."

Articles by Anna Rotkirch, University of Helsinki, including:

• The Fractured Working Mother and other new gender contracts in contemporary Russia. By Anna Temkina and Anna Rotkirch.
• Women's Agency and the Sexual Revolution in Russia
• Traveling Maidens and Men with Parallel Lives: Journeys as Private Space During Late Socialism

Gender Character of Technological Innovations
Vitalina Koval studies women and men at a Moscow factory in the early 1990s, after the introduction of new technology.

Changes in the Everyday Activities of Rural Women in Russia from the 1970s to the 1990s - available as an Acrobat PDF file on the World Bank website.

Women of the "sandwich" generation and multiple roles: the case of Russian immigrants of the 1990s in Israel. Larissa I. Remennick (Sex Roles, March 1999)

Love and Tears in Russia: An Ethnographic Approach to the Study of Socialization of Gender Roles and Gender Relationships in Contemporary Urban Russia. By David Lempert, Harvard University Ukrainian Research Institute.

Scientific Contribution of Women in Soviet Radio Astronomy [Acrobat PDF file, 73Kb]
Covers the period 1979-91. Paper presented by Tatiana Smirnova at a conference on women in astronomy, September 1992. With accompanying illustrations.

Women and Libraries in Ryazan
paper presented at IFLA conference in August 1996 by Lyudmilla Pronina, on the information services provided to women by the libraries of the Ryazan region. Feminist perspective.

BASEES 2001 Online Papers
from a conference held at Fitzwilliam College Cambridge, U.K.
These documents are Acrobat PDF files. You need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them.

• Anat Vernitski. Socialist in Form, Humanist in Content: Vera Panova’s novel Sputniki and its film adaptation Poezd miloserdiia
• Michele Lowery. Daydreams: Envisioning Masculinity in Modernity

A Feminist Reading of the Novel Sad by Nina Sadur
Karin Sarsenov (Lunds Universitet, Sweden) summarises her thesis on the work of Moscow author Nina Sadur.

The Russian Anti-Oedipus: Petrushevskaya's The Three Girls in Blue
by Dr. Slobodanka Millicent Vladiv-Glover, Monash University, Australia

Gender and Genre in Pavlova's A Double Life - Article by Diana Greene about the writer Karolina Pavlova (1807-1893), in the Slavic Review, Fall 1995.

Engaging Sexual Demons in Marina Tsvetaeva's Devil: the body and the genesis of the woman poet. By Pamela Chester (Slavic Review, Winter 1994)

The Philosophy of Sex and Gender in Russia - conference paper by Olga Voronina of the Moscow Center for Gender Studies.

Sexuality and Politics in Russia, 1700-2000 - by Igor Kon, Russia's most famous sexologist.

The Five-Year Plan for Women's Labour: Constructing Socialism and the 'Double Burden', 1930-1932. By Thomas G. Schrand (Europe-Asia Studies, December 1999)

Mothers in the Motherland: Stalinist Pronatalism in its Pan-European Context. By David L. Hoffmann (Journal of Social History, Fall 2000)

The Russian Post-Emancipation Household: Two Villages in the Moscow Area
Master thesis in History by Herdis Kolle, University of Bergen, Norway: substantial material here on the peasant family in 19th-century Russia.

Women in Russian History: from early times to the Revolution
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 By Maria Kotovskaya, Center for Ethnographic Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Russia's Demographic "Crisis"
Full-text articles arising from a RAND conference in 1995: topics covered include demography, fertility decline, family planning, abortion, mortality, life expectancy, health care.

Women in Russia: second half of the 19th century till the 1930s - student paper written by Guergana Gougoumanova for a European Studies course at Mount Holyoake College.

Russian Women and the Domostroi - student paper written by Guergana Gougoumanova at Mount Holyoake College.

Bibliographies and Books

If you're looking for a hard-copy bibliography, try this one:
Ruthchild, Rochelle G. Women in Russia and the Soviet Union: An Annotated Bibliography. G. K. Hall, New York, 1993. (875 entries)

Bibliography of Russian Women's History
comprehensive unannotated bibliography split into 14 topics. Everything from pre-Petrine to post-perestroika! Compiled by Prof. Matthew Payne of Temple University, 1998.

Female Russian Peasants Bibliography from the H-Women list archives, 1998.

Medieval Women and Family
section of An Annotated Bibliography of Slavic and EE Medievalist Sources.

Bibliography of Russian Women's Studies 1996
archived from the H-RUSSIA list, compiled by "Christine".

Nina Sadur
works by and about this Moscow author, compiled by Karin Sarsenov. Also includes a list of general English-language books and articles about Russian women.

Catherine the Great: Annotated Bibliography
Descriptions of 14 books and articles, written by Melissa Toscani, 1998.

The Slavic and East European Studies Collection at the University of Chicago Library provides useful acquisitions lists in the areas of Women and the Family and Works of Russian Women Authors. Thanks to June Pachuta Farris, Bibliographer for Slavic and East European Studies.

Book descriptions available online

• Gender, Work and Wages in the Soviet Union: A Legacy of Discrimination (Katarina Katz; Palgrave, July 2001)
• Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilisation (ed. Peter I. Barta; Harwood, 2001)
• An Improper Profession: Women, Gender and Journalism in Late Imperial Russia (ed. Barbara T. Norton and Jehanne M. Gheith; Duke UP, 2001)
• My Life in Stalinist Russia: An American Woman Looks Back (Mary M. Leder; IUP, 2001)
• Science, Women and Revolution in Russia (Ann Hibner Koblitz; Harwood, 2000)
• Revolutionary women in Russia, 1870-1917: A study in collective biography (Anna Hillyar and and Jane McDermid; Manchester UP, 2000)
• Models of Self: Russian Women's Autobiographical Texts (ed. Marianne Liljestrom, Arja Rosenholm and Irina Savkina; Kikimora, 2000)
• Gender, State and Society in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia (ed. Sarah Ashwin; Routledge, 2000)
• The Man Question: Loves and Lives in Late 20th Century Russia (Anna Rotkirch; University of Helsinki, 2000)
• Representing the Marginal Woman in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature: Personalism, Feminism, and Polyphony (Svetlana Slavskaya Grenier; Greenwood, 2000)
• Essays on Karolina Pavlova (ed. Susanne Fusso and Alexander Lehrman; Northwestern UP, 2000)
• Amazons of the Avant-Garde: Alexandra Exter, Natalia Goncharova, Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Varvara Stepanova, and Nadezhda Udaltsova (ed. John E. Bowlt and Matthew Drutt; Harry N. Abrams, 2000)
• Tundra Passages: Gender and History in the Russian Far East (Petra Rethmann; PSU Press, 2000)
• Russian Women and their Organizations: Gender, Discrimination and Grassroots Women's Organizations, 1991-96 (Rebecca Kay; Palgrave, 2000)
• Organizing Women in Contemporary Russia: Engendering Transition (Valerie Sperling; CUP, 1999) - and a book review
• Slavic Gender Linguistics (ed. Margaret H. Mills; John Benjamins, 1999)
• Gendering Awakening: Femininity and the Russian Woman Question of the 1860s (Arja Rosenholm; Kikimora, 1999)
• Till My Tale is Told: Women's Memories of the Gulag (ed. Simeon Vilensky; Indiana UP, 1999) - and a book review
• Queer in Russia: A Story of Sex, Self, and the Other (Laurie Essig; Duke UP, 1999)
• Gender and identity in Central and Eastern Europe (ed. Chris Corrin; Frank Cass, 1999) - and a book review
• Making War, Not Love: Gender and Sexuality in Russian Humor (Emil A. Draitser; St Martin's Press, 1999) - and a book review
• The Boarding-School Girl by Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya (translated by Karen Rosneck; Northwestern UP, 1999)
• Creating the New Soviet Woman: Women's Magazines as Engineers of Female Identity, 1922-53. (Lynne Attwood; Macmillan, 1999)
• From Abortion to Contraception: A Resource to Public Policies and Reproductive Behavior in Central and Eastern Europe from 1917 to the Present (ed. Henry P. David; Greenwood, 1999)
• Marriages in Russia: Couples During the Economic Transition (Dana Vannoy et al.; Greenwood, 1999)
• Women Workers in the Soviet Inter-War Economy: from "Protection" to "Equality" (Melanie Ilic; Macmillan, 1998)
• Pornography and Democratization: Legislating Obscenity in Post-Communist Russia (Paul W. Goldschmidt; Westview, 1998) - and a book review
• Women and Political Change: Perspectives from East-Central Europe (ed. Susan Bridger; Macmillan, 1998) - and a book review
• Women and Russian Culture: Projections and Self-Perceptions (ed. Rosalind Marsh; Berghahn, 1998) - and a book review
• Women in the Politics of Postcommunist Eastern Europe, 2nd edn (ed. Marilyn Rueschemeyer; ME Sharpe, 1998)
• Russian Mirror: Three Plays by Russian Women (trans. and ed. By Melissa Smith; Harwood, 1998)
• Two Comedies by Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia (trans. and ed. by Lurana Donnels O'Malley; Harwood, 1998)
• Women and Work in Russia, 1880-1930: A Study in Continuity Through Change (Jane McDermid, Anna Hillyar; Addison Wesley Longman, 1998)
• Reading Russian Fortunes: Print Culture, Gender and Divination in Russia from 1765. (Faith Wigzell; CUP, 1998) - and a book review
• Women's Activism in Contemporary Russia (Linda Racioppi and Katherine O'Sullivan See; Temple Uni Press, 1997)
• A Revolution of Their Own: Voices of Women in Soviet History (ed. Barbara Alpern Engel and Anastasia Posadskaya-Vanderbeck; Westview, 1997)
• The Baba and the Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia (Elizabeth A. Wood; IUP, 1997)
• Women in Russian History: from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century (Natalia Pushkareva, trans. Eve Levin; ME Sharpe, 1997)
• Post-Soviet Women: from the Baltic to Central Asia (ed. Mary Buckley; CUP, 1997) - and a book review
• Bolshevik Women (Barbara Evans Clements; CUP, 1997) - and a book review
• I Am the Most Interesting Book of All: The Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff (Vol 1) (trans. Phyllis Howard Kernberger; Chronicle Books, 1997)
• Women's Voices in Russia Today (ed. Elina Haavio-Mannila and Anna Rotkirch; Dartmouth, 1996)
• Gender and Russian Literature: New Perspectives (ed. Rosalind Marsh; CUP, 1996)
• Dehexing Sex: Russian Womanhood During and After Glasnost (Helena Goscilo, UMP, 1996)
• Russian Women in Politics and Society (ed. Norma Noonan, Wilma Rule; Greenwood, 1996)
• Russia * Women * Culture (ed. Helena Goscilo, Beth Holmgren; IUP, 1996)
• Engendering Slavic Literatures (ed. Pamela Chester, Sibelan Forrester; IUP, 1996)
• Russia Through Women's Eyes: Autobiographies from Tsarist Russia (ed. Toby W. Clyman and Judith Vowles; Yale UP, 1996) - and a book review
• Women in Russian Theatre: The Actress in the Silver Age (Catherine Schuler; Routledge, 1996) - a book review
• Women in Russia and Ukraine (ed. Rosalind Marsh; CUP, 1996)
• Gender, Generation and Identity in Contemporary Russia (ed. Hilary Pilkington; Routledge, 1996) - a book review
• The Explosive World of Tatyana N. Tolstaya's Fiction (Helena Goscilo; ME Sharpe, 1996)
• No More Heroines? Russia, Women and the Market (Sue Bridger, Kathryn Pinnick, Rebecca Kay; Routledge, 1995)
• A Plot of Her Own: The Female Protagonist in Russian Literature (ed. Sonia Stephan Hoisington; Northwestern UP, 1995)
• Sonia's Daughters: Prostitutes and Their Regulation in Imperial Russia. (Laurie Bernstein; UCP, 1995) - and a book review
• Women in Contemporary Russia (ed. Vitalina Koval; Berghahn Books, 1995)
• A History of Russian Women's Writing 1820-1992 (Catriona Kelly; OUP, 1994)
• An Anthology of Russian Women's Writing, 1777-1992 (ed. Catriona Kelly; OUP, 1994)
• Dictionary of Russian Women Writers (ed. Marina Ledkovsky, Charlotte Rosenthal, and Mary Zirin; Greenwood, 1994)
• Women Writers in Russian Literature (ed. Toby W. Clyman and Diana Greene; Greenwood, 1994)
• Between the Fields and the City: Women, Work, and Family in Russia, 1861-1914 (Barbara Alpern Engel; CUP, 1994)
• Sexuality and the Body in Russian Culture (ed. Jane Costlow, Stephanie Sandler, Judith Vowles; CUP, 1993)
• Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917-1936 (Wendy Goldman; CUP, 1993)
• Women and Society in Russia and the Soviet Union (ed. Linda Edmondson; CUP, 1992)
• Perestroika and Soviet Women (ed. Mary Buckley; CUP, 1992)
• Russian Peasant Women (ed. Beatrice Farnsworth and Lynne Viola; OUP, 1992)
• Inessa Armand: Revolutionary and Feminist (R.C. Elwood; CUP, 1992)
• Russia's Women: Accommodation, Resistance, Transformation (ed. Barbara Evans Clements, Barbara Alpern Engel, and Christine D. Worobec; UCP, 1991)

Courses and Syllabi

Russian Women: Myth and Reality
detailed syllabus and reading list for course taught by Prof. Catharine Nepomnyashchy at Columbia University. Explores changing roles and images of women in Russia from the beginnings of Russian history to the present.

Post-Soviet Society Through Gender and Women's Issues
This course explores the constructions of gender and the impact of political change on gender relations in post-Soviet society. Full syllabus and reading list. Taught by Elena Gapova at the University of Illinois.

Mother Russia: Femininity in Russian culture
"The religion of the mothers and the myth of Russia as a common mother together embody what is perhaps the central mystery of Russian people. Russians' vision of their soul, in terms of the sexual imagery, is feminine." Syllabus and reading list for course taught by Tatiana Spektor at Iowa State University.

Russia's Women and Changing Images of Women in Russian Culture
courses taught by Madhu Malik at Bucknell University, looking at folklore, the writings of feminist theoreticians and social activists and literature by and about women.

Women in Russia 1825-2000
course at Wesleyan University covering women in Russian literature and society.

Women in Russian and Soviet History
syllabus and lecture outlines for a course taught by Professor Donald J. Raleigh at the University of North Carolina.

Sex and Gender in Russian Culture
syllabus for course taught by Prof. Eliot Borenstein at NYU.

Women and Revolution in 19th-Century Russia
syllabus and reading list for course taught by Richard Lewis and Chris Jazwinski at St Cloud State University.

Women, Culture and History in Russia
course taught by Irina Novikova at the Christina Institute for Women's Studies, University of Helsinki.

Representations of Gender in Russian (Soviet/post-Soviet) Films
course taught by Irina Novikova at the Christina Institute for Women's Studies, University of Helsinki.

Women Writing in Russian course at Sarah Lawrence College.

Readings in Russian Women's History and 20th Century Russian Women's History
course outlines for subjects at Oberlin College, taught by Heather Hogan.

Program on Gender and Culture at the Central European University, Hungary.

Program of Gender Studies
list of courses offered by the European University at St. Petersburg.

Sexuality and Feminism in Russia
taught by Yelaina Kripkov and Oleg Kripkov at the University of Oregon.

Gender and Sexuality in Russian Culture
Covering pre-Revolutionary Russia, the Soviet Union, and post-Soviet Russia. Taught by Prof. Kevin Moss at Middlebury College.

Women in Societies and Cultures of the Former Soviet Union
Course looking at the socially constructed images of women in Russia from Kievan Rus to the creation and demise of the New Soviet Woman. Presented by Jane Knox-Voina at Bowdoin College.

Women in Eastern Europe: Images of Women in Film
Syllabus for a course at the University of Texas, run by Dina Iordanova. Includes Russian films from 1920s to Little Vera.

Women in Russian Literature and Culture
taught by Teresa Polowy at the University of Arizona.

Russian Women Authors (in Translation)
syllabus and reading list for course taught by Sibelan Forrester at Swarthmore College.

Women and Gender in Russia and Eastern Europe - taught by Prof. Diane Koenker at the University of Illinois.

Russian Women's Writing
a half-year course taught in English by Dr A. Smith at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Superfluous Men, Superior Women
Heroes and heroines in 19th-century Russian literature; taught by J. Givens at the University of Rochester.

Russian Women Writers: 19th and 20th centuries
brief description of course taught in English by Dr. Lyubomira Parpulova at Ohio State University, Winter 1999.

Issues of Gender in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature taught by Joe Andrew at Keele University, UK.

Women in Russia: Broken Promises taught at Dartmouth College.