"Odds and Ends of the Russian Revolution," 1917–1920: Gender and American Travel Narratives

In: Journal of women's history, Band 20, Heft 4, S. 10-33

Abstract

In this essay, I analyze the discourses that American women generated on the subject of the Russian Revolution of 1917, a body of works that has for the most part escaped critical scrutiny. While the First World War slowed tourist traffic to Russia, by 1917 there was a substantial contingent of American women in Petrograd reporting on the revolution. Unlike male narratives of the revolution, women's literature avoids diagnosing the Russian condition, or expertly summing up the Russian character. These correspondents, rather than focusing on abstract political philosophies and political events, recorded the intimate ways that individuals experienced class warfare, political instability, and economic dislocations. I argue that this technique of vivid impressionism was perhaps a more suitable method to represent the revolution than as a coherent, logical, and transparent narrative. In this essay, I analyze the gendered travel narratives of the Russian Revolution, a genre that is unique as it is under-theorized, and reveal an unknown dimension to Russian-American relations.