Tractus Aevorum (Nov 2014)
Transnational Feminisms: Gender and Historical Knowledge in Post-Soviet Russia (Part I)
Abstract
In this essay, Choi Chatterjee and Karen Petrone examine how feminist and gender theories traveled between Russia and the West after the fall of the Soviet Union by featuring the careers of two eminent scholars: Natalia Pushkareva and Tatiana Barchunova. They chronicle the parallel development of feminism in the Soviet Union and in the English-speaking world, and then discuss the development of gender studies programs and women’s activism in Russia after 1991. Using the intellectual biographies of Barchunova and Pushkareva, the authors show how Western ideas about feminism meshed with Russian ones in post-Soviet gender and women’s studies. While postSoviet pressures push toward the de-politicization of the field, both Barchunova and Pushkareva maintain a critical edge in their scholarship, supporting and promoting women’s activism, raising awareness of Russian women’s issues past and present, and advancing feminist theory.
