This volume is recommended to all researchers with an interest in the evolution and history of feminism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet space. It is especially relevant to scholars and students of political science who want to trace feminist ideas and the quest for gender equality in the region. Monika Batham, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 71 (3)” (, )¿
Monika Batham, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 71 (3)
The collection Gender in 20th Century Eastern Europe and the USSR, edited by Catherine Baker, presents chapters on a wide variety of countries in eastern Europe. Moreover, it includes work by contributors of various professional statuses and disciplinary backgrounds from Canada, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, the United Kingdom, and the United States … Anyone interested in gender and gender scholarship in eastern Europe will find this book both valuable and engaging.
Sibelan Forrester, The Polish Review, Vol. 63 (4)
A concise and accessible introduction to the gender histories of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the 20th century. These essays juxtapose established topics in gender history such as motherhood, masculinities, work and activism with newer areas, such as the history of imprisonment and the transnational history of sexuality.
By collecting these essays in a single volume, Catherine Baker encourages historians to look at gender history across borders and time periods, emphasising that evidence and debates from Eastern Europe can inform broader approaches to contemporary gender history.
Introduction: Gender in 20th
Century Eastern Europe and the USSR; Catherine Baker
PART I: BETWEEN THE FIN-DE-SIECLE AND THE INTERWAR PERIOD
1. Czech Motherhood and Fin-de-Siècle Visual Culture; Cynthia Paces
2. British-Yugoslav Lesbian Networks During and After the Great War; Olga Dimitrijevi? and Catherine Baker
3. Creating 'New Soviet Women' in Armenia? Gender and Tradition in the Early Soviet South Caucasus; Jo Laycock and Jeremy Johnson
PART II: GENDER REGIMES OF REVOLUTION AND WAR
4. Mothers of a New World: Maternity and Culture in the Soviet Period; Jenny Kaminer
5. Life and Fate: Race, Nationality, Class, and Gender in Wartime Poland; Katherine R. Jolluck
6. Female Red Army Soldiers in World War II and Beyond; Kerstin Bischl
7. Soviet Masculinities and Revolution; Erica L. Fraser
PART III: GENDER POLITICS AND STATE SOCIALIST POWER
8. Gender and Youth Work Actions in Post-War Yugoslavia; Ivan Simi?
9. Listing Homosexuals since the 1920s and under State Socialism in Hungary; Judit Takács
10. Everyday: Intimate Politics under Communism in Romania; Maria Bucur
PART IV: GENDER DURING AND AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM
11. Masculinity and Dissidence in Eastern Europe in the 1980s; Anna Muller
12. What is Political in Post-Yugoslav Feminist Activism?; Adriana Zaharijevi?
13. Gender and Professional Work in Russia and Hungary; Maria Adamson and Erika Kispeter
14. Transnational 'LGBT' Politics after the Cold War and Implications for Gender History; Catherine Baker
Select Bibliography.