2. New directions in Russian and soviet women’s history

Abstract

This chapter explores changes in the history of Russia's women and of gender relations following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It begins by discussing how Cold War politics shaped the field of Russian and Soviet women's history. In particular, it considers the challenges faced by scholars in pursuing studies of women and gender, largely due to hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union that severely limited the sources that they were able to consult. Access to Soviet archives was restricted not only by political considerations, but also by the lack of access to lists of archival holdings. The chapter also examines the influence of social history on the field of Soviet history and how gender history transformed women's history in the 1990s, along with the impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union on Russian and Soviet history, Russia's complex relationship with Western Europe, the ways that gender structures and legitimates power relations during the first three decades of the Soviet experience, and gender analyses that focus on the Russian empire.