Археология евразийских степей (Oct 2021)
Gender Aspects of Kazan Archaeology in the Second Half of the 19th –20th Centuties
Abstract
The paper discusses the issues related to the gender situation in Kazan archaeology during the second half of the 19th and the entire 20th century. Until 1917, there was practically no female participation in Russian archaeology. The only exception was Countess P.S. Uvarova, and before the First World War - V.V. Golmsten, a student of one of the renowned Russian archaeologists V.A. Gorodtsov. In Kazan, where there were many public organizations and local history societies which operated in the last quarter of the 19th century - the first decade of the 20th century, and there were no women archaeologists. Female archaeology began to form in Kazan only in Soviet times. This situation was due to the granting of social and civil rights to women in the USSR and the elimination of restrictions to obtaining education. The most important factor was the demographic situation in the USSR after two world wars and the Civil War. The author identifies three stages of Kazan female archaeology: the fi rst – 1918–1937; the second – 1938–1950 and the third - 1960s – 1990s. All of them are associated with the activities of three prominent archaeologists: V.F. Smolin, A.P. Smirnov and A.Kh. Khalikov. At the first stage, the first student generation of women archaeologists was formed: Z.A. Akchurina, A.M. Efimova, L.I. Varaksina, born in an atmosphere of revolutionary enthusiasm. At the second stage, mainly in the post-war years, Z.A. Akchurina, A.M. Efimova and O.S. Khovanskaya, who studied with the archaeologist V.V. Holmsten, continued to engage in archaeology, but already on professional level. Their mentor and scientific supervisor was a Moscow archaeologist A.P. Smirnov, almost of the same age. He managed to create a unique team, which was later replenished with young participants - students of the postwar generation: T.A. Khlebnikova, N.D. Aksenova. It was they who continued and strengthened the Kazan feminine archaeology, although at the third stage it faded into the background, supplanted by the purposeful assertion of the masculine basis of archaeology in the TASSR. But at the same time, the number of women archaeologists in Kazan archaeology was rather large, which, according to the author, reflected the same demographic consequences of the Second World War. One of the features of the Kazan feminine archaeology of this period was gender apprenticeship.
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