Print Price: $109.99

Format:
Paperback
320 pp.
7 illus., 156 mm x 233 mm

ISBN-13:
9780195066944

Publication date:
August 1992

Imprint: OUP US

Russian Peasant Women

Edited by Beatrice Farnsworth and Lynne Viola

Bringing together recent scholarship on Russian peasant women's history from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book covers such topics as family life in the countryside, woman's work, her sexuality, her marital and family positions, her experience of the Bolshevik Revolution, and her role in collectivization of agriculture from its onset in the Stalin years through the Gorbachev era. Placing the peasant woman within the context of the peasant household and integrating, rather than separating out, the female experience in Russian rural society, these essays contribute to a greater understanding of the development of Russian peasant society as a whole. A pioneering work of social history, this collection is essential for all interested in Russian and women's history.

Readership : Russian History Survey; Russian Women, Women's History, Peasant Studies, Third World Studies

Reviews

• "[T]he essays are linked to one another by several recurrent themes, which give the book overall cohesion and homogeneity....This collection of essays is very useful...in its reconstruction of the main stages of the long process of change from the abolition of serfdom to Gorbachev's perestroika." --Journal of European Economic History
• "[A] unique contribution to the study of Russian history as it expands our understanding of the role of gender in the process of historical change,...an essential addition to undergraduate reading lists...Russian Peasant Women will also prove an invaluable source for research students embarking on a study of Russian women, rural society and peasant culture."--Revolutionary Russia
• "Excellent organization and expert use of unfamiliar sources."--John Posey, St. Joseph's College
• "Not only a politically correct subject, but genuinely useful...nothing else centers on this enormous subject."--Francis B. Randall, Sarah Lawrence College
• "Contains some fascinating scholarly research on a rarely analyzed subject."--James Newbill, Yakima Valley College
• "A handy compilation of articles....Students are always interested in the status of peasant women, and this will make that study much easier."--Nellie Ohr, Vassar College
• "First-rate! A collection of this type is long overdue. Well-edited and informative. Exactly what is needed for my undergraduate survey."--William B. Husband, Oregon State University
• "Opens up to students a whole world barely examined in textbooks. Matussian's introductory essay provides a nice overview of the setting. Students should find Farnsworth's essay particularly readable and provocative."-Paul Revetow, Missouri Southern State College
• "An excellent collection of essays--a perfect addition to my Women in Russia/USSR course. Farnsworth and Viola deserve thanks for making available such a useful compendium."--Ann Hibner Koblitz, Hartwick College
• "A valuable supplement to the standard Russian history course, Russian Peasant Women provides insight into an often overloaded aspect of Russian history."--James A. Brown, Tougaloo College
• "A fascinating and useful collection. Opens a window on an important aspect of Russian life."--Jeffrey Brooks, Johns Hopkins University
• "A very successful combination of scholarship and classroom usability. Helps fill a very definite gap in our understanding of Soviet society."--A.V. Riasanovsky, University of Pennsylvania
• "An excellent collection of essays on Russian peasant women, both before and after the revolution of 1917. It is an important subject that has received very little attention up till now from scholars. The collection is most welcome and should be useful in many courses on Russian social history or Women's Studies."--Walter M. Pintner, Cornell University
• "An exciting collection that brings together in one volume the best scholarship of the past ten years or so devoted to Russian peasant women. The chief contributions of the essays come from new data sources and from fresh and innovative readings of ethnographic and traditional folk materials. There is no doubt in my mind that this volume should stand on every Russian historian's bookshelf. Many of its essays should be part of the reading for any undergraduate course in modern Russian/Soviet history."--Peter Czap, Amherst College
• "A valuable resource that should find steady use in courses on Russian women and peasants and in more general courses on modern Russian history. Unlike other books on this topic, it enables the students to follow in detail the transformation of the status and role of women in a key social group--one that, until quite recently, constituted the majority of the Russian population--from the mid-nineteenth century to the present."--William G. Wagner, Williams College
• "An important and useful collection that fills a wide gap. The editors are among the leading scholars in Russian women's history, and their book is analytically strong, centering on the household as the framework for exploring the changing lives of rural women. I particularly welcome the essay on rural women and Glasnost, which I will use to talk about the extraordinary recent events in Russia and Eastern Europe."--Jean H. Quataert, State University of New York, Binghamton
• "An instructive and revealing historical survey...well produced and carefully edited."--Canadian Journal of History
• "Well-written, concise and insightful."--Norma C. Noonan, Augsburg College