ABSTRACT
T h e em ergence an d developm ent o f R ussian an d Soviet w om en’s history has reflected the trends o f the b ro ad e r areas o f research an d study w ithin the field o f w o m en ’s h isto ry .1 It has a ttem pted to address such issues as chronology an d periodisation , the ‘exclusion’ o f w om en from the s tandard histories, the range o f sources an d m ethodologies available to historians, and the iconographic representations o f wom en. As the scholarship in Russian an d Soviet w o m en ’s history is likely to be unfam iliar to m any readers o f this volum e, I will begin this chap ter w ith an overview o f recent historiographical developm ents before exam ining in m ore detail the results o f som e o f m y ow n recen t research. M y com m ents here are m ostly restricted to Englishlanguage m ateria l an d the W estern h istoriography o f the n ine teen th and early tw entieth centuries, w here m ost o f the cu rren t research is focused. I have cited m ono g rap h lite ra tu re w here app rop ria te , b u t it is also im p o rtan t to note th a t there is an extensive jou rn a ls lite ra tu re in the a rea o f R ussian an d Soviet w o m en ’s history. T h e re are also a n u m b er o f useful collections o f essays on this topic, m any o f w hich are cited in the notes.
