CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Talaver, Alexandra Vladimirovna |
|---|---|
| Title | Samizdat Magazines of the Soviet Dissident Women's Group, 1979-1982: A Critical Analysis |
| Summary | The current research aims to re-write, or at least reconsider, the history of feminism in the USSR during the late Brezhnev years. My starting point is the group which is often called ‘the first Soviet feminists,’ or considered to be the first reincarnation of feminist ideas in the Soviet Union since 1920s, namely, the dissident women’s group, which appeared in 1979 with samizdat publication of the almanac Woman and Russia and existed till 1982. My research question is: Was the Woman and Russia group the only feminists in the SU in 1970s, and what are implications of that label in light of the Cold War competition? The dissident women's group started its activity at the time of intense international debates on women’s rights after the International Women’s Year of the United Nations (1975) and during the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979). Thus, it was a time when women's rights became an important battlefield of the Cold War confrontation. Therefore, regarding the group I will not only reconstruct the history of this group, and do a content analysis of their almanacs, but also situate their activity within the broader political context. My key argument is that the exclusive attachment of the label 'feminist' to the dissident women's group both in media and scholarship is determined by the Cold War paradigm and serves to erase the history of activism of communist women or those who acted within the state system. The key assumption of the research is that women in state women’s organizations had certain agency and opportunities to promote a feminist agenda, therefore they should not be ignored. This paradigm was developed by such scholars as Francisca de Haan, Krassimira Daskalova, Raluca Maria Popa, Kristen Ghodsee, Zheng Wang. Therefore, I analyze the activity of the state-owned magazine Rabotnitsa as well, from the perspective of its institutional ability to act as an agent, affecting state gender politics. I also compare issues raised by dissident women with ones discussed in the official media and show their similarity. My sources are printed copies of the samizdat dissident almanacs Woman and Russia (№1, 1979) and Maria (№1-3, 1980-1982); issues of Rabotnitsa (monthly, 1975-1980); the electronic archive of the USSR News Brief, the human rights bulletin, which existed from 1978 till 1991; the testimonies of the members of the dissident groups (both published and unpublished); and materials from the personal archive of Tat’yana Mamonova, founder of Woman and Russia. |
| Supervisor | Fodor, Eva |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/talaver_alexandra.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University