Motherland Quotes

“These nigilistki, the nihilist women of the 1860s, were deadly serious about living their convictions. They wore their hair short and their dresses dark and plain because they didn’t want to be decorative objects. They studied and developed their minds and personalities and demanded respect from their male peers—often successfully. Preaching total freedom in love and sex, they wed their radical brethren in sham marriages to escape their parents’ control.12”
― Julia Ioffe, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy – A National Book Award Finalist: Women's Stories of Idealism, War, and Sacrifice

“them. Kollontai pushed for socialists to recognize that childbearing was a public good that should be supported by the state”
― Julia Ioffe, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy – A National Book Award Finalist: Women's Stories of Idealism, War, and Sacrifice

“If a woman is a slave”
― Julia Ioffe, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy – A National Book Award Finalist: Women's Stories of Idealism, War, and Sacrifice

“I understood that you have to protect the male ego very, very carefully, she explained. It’s delusional to think that a man needs some kind of exceptional woman. He needs a woman with whom he feels exceptional.”
― Julia Ioffe, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy

“After reading your letter, I again feel that you went up one more step, and I, again, have to stretch to reach you.”
― Julia Ioffe, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy

“The human mechanism is a strange thing. Large volumes of blood can, under the influence of reading a small piece of paper, shift from part of the body to another.”
― Julia Ioffe, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy