Overview

Winner, 2014 AWSS Best Book in Slavic/East European/Eurasian Women's Studies In Russian culture, the archetypal mother is noble and self-sacrificing. In Women with a Thirst for Destruction, however, Jenny Kaminer shows how this image is destabilized during periods of dramatic rupture in Russian society, examining in detail the aftermath of three key moments in the country’s history: the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the fall of the Communist regime in 1991. She explores works both familiar and relatively unexamined: Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin’s The Golovlev Family, Fyodor Gladkov’s Cement, and Liudmila Petrushevskaia’s The Time: Night, as well as a late Soviet film (Vyacheslav Krishtofovich’s Adam’s Rib, 1990) and media coverage of the Chechen conflict. Kaminer’s book speaks broadly to the mutability of seemingly established cultural norms in the face of political and social upheaval.  

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9780810133303

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Reviews

why, given the reverence for motherhood, [is] the bad mother is a recurrent figure in Russian culture? What is the purpose of the bad-mother image? Does it debunk the ideal mother or reaffirm the persistence of the myth? Kaminer s satisfying answer to this question spans three chapters, each of which focuses on a period directly following a national crisis: the emancipation of the serfs, the Russian revolution, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Slavic Review

The image of the mother is important for Russian culture, but, as Kaminer deftly demonstrates in her first monograph, its symbolism impacts not just literary studies, but also has wide-reaching resonance politically, economically, and socially. Similarly, Kaminer s study adds a new dimension to European motherhood studies, which historically have largely focused on Western European traditions. This book will be of value to those who are interested in Russian literature, but also family studies, the role of women in society, childhood studies, or the historical transformation of cultural myths. Journal of Soviet & Post-Soviet Politics & Society

"“… why, given the reverence for motherhood, [is] the bad mother is a recurrent figure in Russian culture? What is the purpose of the bad-mother image? Does it debunk the ideal mother or reaffirm the persistence of the myth? Kaminer’s satisfying answer to this question spans three chapters, each of which focuses on a period directly following a national crisis: the emancipation of the serfs, the Russian revolution, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.” —Slavic Review |""The image of the mother is important for Russian culture, but, as Kaminer deftly demonstrates in her first monograph, its symbolism impacts not just literary studies, but also has wide-reaching resonance politically, economically, and socially. Similarly, Kaminer’s study adds a new dimension to European motherhood studies, which historically have largely focused on Western European traditions. This book will be of value to those who are interested in Russian literature, but also family studies, the role of women in society, childhood studies, or the historical transformation of cultural myths.” —Journal of Soviet & Post-Soviet Politics & Society"

Author Information

Jenny Kaminer is an assistant professor of Russian at the University of California, Davis.

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