Suchergebnisse

"In reconstructing the history of the so-called agitation trials and placing them in a rich social context, Elizabeth A. Wood makes a major contribution to rethinking the first decade of Soviet history. Her book traces the arc by which a regime's campaign to educate the masses through entertainment and discipline culminated in a policy of brute shaming."--Jacket

By most accounts, the Russian Revolution began on February 23, 1917 with the women's strike for bread and suffrage. Yet for the next thirteen years (until 1930), that revolutionary beginning was celebrated on March 12, after which it was expunged from the revolutionary calendar altogether. "International Women's Day" meanwhile became March 8 because of the change in the Russian calendar in 1918 (it had been 13 days behind the European calendar), and February 23 became "Red Army Day" and subsequently (in 2006), "Day of the Defender of the Fatherland." Over the course of the early 1920s, the connection between the women's strike on February 23/March 8 and the February Revolution was actively undermined in several ways. First, the February Revolution itself was dated not from the moment when women marched in the streets of Petrograd calling out the men to strike, but rather from March 12 (February 27), which was the day of the founding of the Temporary Committee of the State Duma, soon to become the Provisional Government. Second, the celebration of the two holidays of Red Army Day on February 23 and International Women's Day on March 8 created a split between men and women in their celebrations, separating them and assigning spheres to each, the army for men and the home for women. Finally, the creation of February 23 as the anniversary of the Red Army's founding seems to have deliberately upstaged both women's involvement in the 1917 Revolution and the overthrow of autocracy.

AbstractBy making World War II a personal event and also a sacred one, Vladimir Putin has created a myth and a ritual that elevates him personally, uniting Russia (at least theoretically) and showing him as the natural hero-leader, the warrior who is personally associated with defending the Motherland. Several settings illustrate this personal performance of memory: Putin's meetings with veterans, his narration of his own family's sufferings in the Leningrad blockade, his visits to churches associated with the war, his participation in parades and the creation of new uniforms, and his creation of a girls' school that continues the military tradition. In each of these settings Putin demonstrates a connection to the war and to Russia's greatness as dutiful son meeting with his elders, as legitimate son of Leningrad, and as father to a new generation of girls associated with the military. Each setting helps to reinforce a masculine image of Putin as a ruler who is both autocrat and a man of the people.

This essay examines the texts of Soviet plays from the 1920s known as agitation trials that deal with issues of women's emancipation and participation in the public sphere. It argues that, far from showing women to be men's equals (the ostensible purpose of the plays), the trials give a shocking portrayal of their heroines' faults, from passivity and meddling to gossip and lack of discipline. Given these weaknesses, the women delegates are supposed to recognise their need for tutelage from the new authorities. Their citizenship is thus held, at best, on contingent approval from those authorities.