A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present

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Many people helped me in the writing of this book. Lynn Benediktsson, Jerry Newman, and Christine Worobec read early versions. Their wise observations and kind suggestions guided me through the rewriting. Shelley Baranowski gave me very useful comments on the finished manuscript and some bucking up when I needed it. So did Jerry Mushkat, whose counsel over many decades has been invaluable. Rochelle Ruthchild and an anonymous reader for Indiana University Press made careful assessments that assisted in the final polishing. Tina Kelley, Pete Newman, and Lynn Benediktsson were there through the years with words of good cheer. I hope all these folks like what they read here. I must also acknowledge my mother, who taught me about love, about coping, and about finding joy in simple things. I dedicate this book to her.

This book is a brief history of all the women in all the Russias that existed on the far-eastern European plain during the past millennium. That history includes more than one hundred ethnic groups inhabiting what had become by 1800 the geographically largest country on Earth. Their lives across the centuries deserve telling, from the earliest times to the most recent, so this book begins with the Rus of the tenth century and ends in the present day. It concentrates on the Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians, and Jews who made up the great majority of the population. It also attempts to bring into view the histories of women of smaller ethnic groups, particularly those who lived in the vast territories of Siberia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus that were annexed by the spreading Russian Empire.

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