Russia's Women: Accommodation, Resistance, Transformation

328 Pages·1991·8.064 MB·English

by  Barbara Evans Clements

Russia’s Women

Russia’s Women
Accommodation, Resistance,
T ransformation
EDITED BY
Barbara Evans Clements
Barbara Alpern Engel
Christine D. Worobec
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles Oxford
Excerpt from “Matryona’s House” from Stories and Short Prose by Alexander
Solzhenitsyn. Translation copyright © 1970, 1971 by Michael Glenny. Re­
printed by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
Oxford, England
© 1991 by
The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Russia’s women : accommodation, resistance, transformation / edited by
Barbara Evans Clements, Barbara Alpern Engel, Christine D. Worobec.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-520-07023-2 (alk. paper).—ISBN 0-520-07024-0 (pbk : alk.
paper)
1. Women—Soviet Union—History. 2. Women—Soviet Union—
Social conditions. I. Clements, Barbara Evans, 1945- II. Engel,
Barbara Alpern. III. Worobec, Christine.
HQ1662.R88 1990
305.4'0947—dc20 90-37203
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. ©
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS / vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / ix
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND DATES / xi
in tro d u ctio n : accom m odation, resistan ce, tran sfo rm atio n
Barbara Evans Clements / 1
PART I • TRADITIONAL SOCIETY
Accommodation and Resistance
Christine D. Worobec / 17
Women in the Medieval Russian Family of the
Tenth through Fifteenth Centuries
N. L. Pushkareva / 29
Childbirth in Pre-Petrine Russia: Canon Law and Popular Traditions
Eve Levin / 44
Women’s Honor in Early Modern Russia
Nancy Shields Kollmann / 60
Through the Prism of Witchcraft:
Gender and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Muscovy
Valerie A. Kivelson / 74
Widows and the Russian Serf Community
Rodney D. Bohac / 95
Infant-Care Cultures in the Russian Empire
David L. Ransel / 113
v
CONTENTS
PART II • TRANSFORMING TRADITION
Transformation versus Tradition
Barbara Alpem Engel / 135
The Peasant Woman as Healer
Rose L. Glickman / 148
Women’s Domestic Industries in Moscow Province, 1880-1900
Judith Pallot / 163
Abortion and the Civic Order: The Legal and Medical Debates
Laura Engelstein / 185
The Impact of World War I on Russian Women’s Lives
Alfred G. Meyer / 208
The Female Form in Soviet Political Iconography, 1917-32
Elizabeth Waters / 225
Women, Abortion, and the State, 1917-36
Wendy Goldman / 243
Later Developments:
Trends in Soviet Women’s History, 1930 to the Present
Barbara Evans Clements / 267
GLOSSARY / 279
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER READING / 283
CONTRIBUTORS / 291
INDEX / 293
ILLUSTRATIONS
Following Page 132
1. Childbirth, sixteenth century
2. Muscovy’s tsaritsa and her attendants in public, late seventeenth century
3. A peasant woman outside her hut in a fishing village on the Volga River,
late nineteenth century
4. A peasant mother and child fetching water from a well outside their dwelling
in Samara Province, late nineteenth century
5. Peasant women and children, late nineteenth century
6. Peasant women pilgrims at the walls of the Ponetaevsky Monastery,
late nineteenth century
7. Migrant peasant women in late nineteenth-century Moscow
8. Female peddler of kerchiefs, towels, and knitted socks
in late nineteenth-century Moscow
9. Woman weaver, late nineteenth century
10. A women’s dormitory at the Trekhgornaia Textile Mill, c. 1900
11. An apartment of metalworkers of the Putilov plant in St. Petersburg, c. 1900
12. A food line, composed largely of women and children, in Petrograd in 1917
13. A largely middle-class demonstration in July 1917
14. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox church blessing the Women’s Death
Battalion before it leaves for the front, July 1917
vii
viii ILLUSTRATIONS
15. A panel design for Petrograd street decorations, celebrating the first anniversary
of the October revolution, 1918
16. A group of women delegates from different parts of the empire to the
First All-Union Congress of Soviets, 1924
17. Literacy classes for women at the Krasnyi Bogatyr Works
in Moscow, 1932
18. Instruction in breast-feeding for middle-class and
working-class women, 1930s
19. Vera Mukhina’s statue of the factory worker and the
collective-farmworker, 1937
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The articles in this collection were written originally for a conference held
August 11—14, 1988, at the University of Akron and Kent State University.
Neither the conference nor the collection would have been possible without
the support of several institutions and the hard work of many people. Finan­
cial assistance came principally from the Division of Research Programs of
the National Endowment for the Humanities (an independent federal agen­
cy), with the generous support of the University of Akron and Kent State
University as well as the history departments of both universities. Dean
Claibourne E. Griffin of the University of Akron encouraged us from the
beginning, and his backing ensured that the conference would be held. Dean
Rudolph Buttlar and Assistant Dean Linda Rinker of Kent State University
were also very supportive. Thanks also are due Charmaine Streharsky and
John Mulhauser of the University of Akron and Charlee Heimlich of Kent
State University for leading us through the maze of applications and helping
us understand complicated accounting procedures. Brenda Meehan-Waters
and Rochelle Ruthchild served on the Program Committee for the confer­
ence, helping to sort through all of the paper proposals and put together
conference panels. Without Edie Richeson, Mia O’Connor, and especially
Susan Hill, who spent many long hours at the photocopier, the conference
would not have run smoothly. Edie Richeson and Mia O’Connor also typed
the manuscript, learned different software programs to accommodate our
authors, and made numerous corrections, always cheerfully and efficiently.
Special appreciation goes to Eve Levin, who provided us with invaluable
suggestions concerning the translation of N. L. Pushkareva’s article. We
must also thank Eve, as well as Nancy Shields Kollmann, for keeping us from
making blunders in our discussion of medieval Russian women’s lives. Warm
ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
X
thanks go to Sheila Levine of the University of California Press, whose con­
stant encouragement, enthusiasm, and efficiency made this volume possible.
We owe a great deal to those who chaired panels and to those who pre­
sented papers at the meeting but whose articles are not included in this
volume. A list of their names follows. They and all the other scholars and
students attending persevered through three days of intense discussions, only
mildly daunted by the hottest summer on record in the United States. Their
enthusiasm and stimulating ideas demonstrated that the history of Russian
women is alive and well: Dorothy Atkinson, Laurie Bernstein, Moira
Donald, Linda Edmondson, June Pachuta Farris, Beate Fieseler, Barbara
Heldt, Patricia Herlihy, Daniel H. Kaiser, Ann Kleimola, Ann Hibner Ko-
blitz, Brenda Meehan-Waters, Carol S. Nash, Barbara Norton, Maureen Per-
rie, Christine Ruane, Rochelle Ruthchild, Mary Grace Swift, G. A. Tishkin,
and Mary Zirin.