Overview

Russian rural women have been depicted as victims of oppressive patriarchy, celebrated as symbols of inherent female strength, and extolled as the original source of a great world culture. Throughout the years of collectivisation, industrialisation, and World War II, women played major roles in the evolution of the Russian village. But how do they see themselves? What do their stories, songs, and customs reveal about their values, desires, and motivations? Based upon nearly three decades of fieldwork, from 1983 to 2010, The Worlds of Russian Rural Women follows three generations of Russian women and shows how they alternately preserve, discard, and rework the cultural traditions of their forebears to suit changing needs and self-conceptions. In a major contribution to the study of folklore, Laura J. Olson and Svetlana Adonyeva document the ways that women's tales of traditional practices associated with marriage, childbirth, and death reflect both upholding and transgression of social norms. Their romance songs, satirical ditties, and healing and harmful magic reveal the complexity of power relations in the Russian villages.

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9780299290344

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Reviews

A gendered presentation of life in the twentieth-century Russian village, with its interplay of power and tradition . . . Industrialization, collectivization, and three wars took a catastrophic toll on the male population. A major result was the feminization of musical culture, including group singing. . . . This innovative study [is] an unprecedented appreciation of women s contributions to Russia s village life. The Historian

Olson and Adonyeva skillfully interweave fieldwork data with historical background, theoretical connections, and interpretation. In-depth and balanced, the book covers a number of important topics: the village life cycle, magic and healing, gossip and consumption of mass media, and women's relationship to both traditional and popular music. --Sibelan E. S. Forrester, Swarthmore College

A gendered presentation of life in the twentieth-century Russian village, with its interplay of power and tradition . . . Industrialization, collectivization, and three wars took a catastrophic toll on the male population. A major result was the feminization of musical culture, including group singing. . . . This innovative study [is] an unprecedented appreciation of women s contributions to Russia s village life. The Historian

A gendered presentation of life in the twentieth-century Russian village, with its interplay of power and tradition . . . Industrialization, collectivization, and three wars took a catastrophic toll on the male population. A major result was the feminization of musical culture, including group singing. . . . This innovative study [is] an unprecedented appreciation of women s contributions to Russia s village life. <i>The Historian</i>

Author Information

Laura J. Olson is associate professor in the department of Germanic and Slavic languages and literature at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Svetlana Adonyeva is professor of folklore and theory of literature at St. Petersburg State University in Russia.

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