«Бабий бунт» в советской агитационной литературе 1920-х годов

Новое литературное обозрение. 2021. Т. 171. № 5. С. 94–110.

Grafova M. A.

In this article, the coverage of so-called “country wives’ revolts” in 1920s Soviet Russia are examined. They played a role in the formation of the new Soviet ideology and ideological politics within the framework of the actualization of the “cultural revolution.” In historical studies, “country wives’ revolt” usually refers to women’s protests in villages during collectivization, but an analysis of 1920s agitational literature shows that “country wives’ revolts” were an entire conceptual segment of Soviet agitation. As a result of an analysis of sources, the general patterns of the plotlines, moves, and stereotypical characters have been defined. It has been determined that the goal of this kind of agitation
was to inform peasant women about their new political rights and imbue them with new self-consciousness
and trust in the Soviet government. This gender emancipation, however, was given within the limited framework of the Marxist understanding of the women question: the goal of the revolt was only to educate the women and discipline the men. “Сountry wives’ revolts” in the 1920s are merely an ideological concept that had the aim of imposing gender modernization on the peasantry from above, but strictly within the framework of party strategy in relationship to the peasantry.

Keywords: эмансипация, НЭП, коллективизация, советская идеология, гендерная история, soviet propaganda, collectivization, new economic policy, sovietology, советская деревня, Russian countryside, иделогическая пропаганда, propaganda in the USSR, culture in the soviet union, бабий бунт, Lysistrata, Лисистрата