ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the pursuit of women's emancipation by focusing on the evolution of different projects designed to improve the situation of non-Russian women, both before and after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. It investigates Soviet solutions to the 'women's question' for women of the 'national minorities' during 1920-1930. The chapter explores the similarities and differences to pre-revolutionary ideas and projects pursued by different actors. It then focuses on the period between the liberal-democratic revolution in February of 1917 and the Bolshevik revolution of October: a period when all the local ideas on women's roles in the society could be publicly discussed and, in part, were transformed into laws and programmes. The chapter describes the Volga-Ural region before examining the changing views on women's role in the society that existed in these regions before the Bolshevik revolution. It extends its analysis to Soviet ideas, practices, and the institutions created to bring culture and emancipation to non-Russian women of the region.
