ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the phenomenon of the Leningrad-based religious women's club “Mariia”, which was created in 1980 by a group of members of the Leningrad underground and co-founders of the samizdat edited collection Woman and Russia (1979). It traces the chronological development of the group's activities and provides an overview of the main theoretical foundations of the group, as laid out in the club's journal Mariia. The Christian feminists publicly denounced the Soviet project of women's emancipation, which led to persecution by the KGB, forced exile of half of the group and imprisonment of one of the club members. The theory of “Russian feminism”, which centred on the figure of the mother of God and the Christian virtue of humility, however, was never fully understood by Western feminists, which contributed to the decline of the club after the exile of its co-founders.
