Attempts of political participation versus loyalty manifestations? German women in the process of nationalization in the Baltic provinces of the Russian empire (1880–1920)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe political transformations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries changed the political orientation of the German population and their relationship toward the Russian tsar and the German Empire. This study examines three examples in which German women used public spaces for political and national statements: the new language policy of the Russian government with its new forms of teaching in the 1890s; the Revolution of 1905/06, when associations initiated by German women were founded; and the care for prisoners of war during WWI. This paper argues that the path from national indifference to national self-understanding was closely related to fluid gender constructions in public discourses as well as to individual gender identification.