ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book contains the stories of eight Russian women whose lives have spanned the twentieth century—an era of tremendous social and political turmoil and change. Women found work outside the home and gained access to education and professional training, taking pride in these accomplishments. The book is the outgrowth of our shared curiosity concerning what the Bolshevik revolution really meant to women. Barbara Engel is a historian of Russia who has devoted her scholarly career to chronicling the lives of Russian women; Anastasia Posadskaya, an economist by training, has long been active in the Russian women’s movement and was a founder and director of the Center for Gender Studies in Moscow. The Bolsheviks’ vision of social transformation also included the emancipation of women. Despite the increased opportunities and efforts to overcome the unequal relations between women and men, inequality persisted in public life and women rarely obtained the same rewards as men.
