Creating the New Soviet Woman: Women's Magazines as Engineers of Female Identity, 1922-53

by Lynne Attwood

The "new soviet person" the Bolsheviks were committed to creating was to be a creature willing and eager to subordinate his or her own interests to those of society. Both men and women would play a full role in the construction of socialism, but the model of the "new women" had an additional feature--she also had to reproduce the population. This book explores the ways in which the "new woman," in her various incarnations, was presented to female citizens of the 1920s to the end of the Stalin era in the pages of popular women's magazines, Rabotnitsa (The Woman Worker) and Krest'yanka (The Peasant Woman).

Genres: Feminism, Soviet Union

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Maja Solar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lynne Attwood analyzed two woman's magazines, Rabotnitsa and Krest'yanka, to show how they redefined the position of women and shaped new female identities. The author devoted a lot of attention to the analysis of fiction as the main vehicles for messages attempting to create identities of new Soviet woman. Particularly interesting is the fact that the reactions of the readers of these journals are also included in this book. This brilliant analysis clearly shows the gap between the first revolutionary wave (1920s), which was very progressive in terms of women's issue, and the second wave in the Stalin era (late 1920s and beyond), which was conservative and full of ambiguities. The model of the new woman underwent a transformation, a new set of roles was simply grafted on to their old ones. The author nevertheless recognizes that at least the initial change in the position of women was extreme, especially in relation to the previous situation in imperial Russia, and that much of this could not be easily done with a magic wand due to the many objective obstacles.