WOMEN AND THEIR WAY OF LIFE IN USSR IN 1950-1960SIN SOVIET AND MODERN RUSSIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

Abstract

The urgency of the reference to the historiography of the issue of Soviet women’s every-day life during the thaw period is explained by the preservation of the image of the woman of the post-war society - mother, wife and worker - at the present time. Studies of this multi-role image have not only scientifi c, but also practical signifi cance. This article examines the views of Soviet and modern Russian historians on the way of life of Soviet townswomen. Being in different ideological conditions, researches tried to reconstruct the history of Soviet women and their way of life using various approaches to the studies. This historiographical review makes it possible not only to determine the periodization, but also to fi nd out common and special characteristics in the scientists’ views of Soviet women’s way of life. As a result of the research, the author singles out four historiographical periods. The fi rst stage from the 1950s to the mid-1960s was characterized by the desire of researchers to prove that the “women’s issue” in the USSR was successfully solved, as well as to demonstrate the care for women on the part of the state. Due to the researchers’ enthusiasm for studying these aspects, the issue of women’s non-offi ce hours became secondary. The historiographical pe-riod from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s was similar to the previous stage. However, 1975 proclaimed the Year of Women, conditioned the increase of sociologists and historians’ inter-est in the “time budget” issue of Soviet townspeople in their everyday life. In the period from the second half of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s, there was an increase in the range of sources. Besides that, there appeared new approaches to researching women’s everyday life. The present stage, beginning from the 2000s, is characterized by the most diverse studying of the details of women’s daily life: clothes, furniture, housing conditions, reproductive health, the microclimate in Soviet families and motherhood.

Keywords

• советская историография
• постсоветская историография
• совет-ские женщины
• «оттепель»
• работающие горожанки