Preliminary Programme

Background (pre-history) of the Russian feminism takes its roots in the early XIX-th C. «Women's Patriotic Society», the "first organization on Russian soil meant to achieve social goals" was founded in 1812. The crystallizations of female collective self-consciousness in Russia was fostered not just of the women who fit well in the social and cultural context of the times, but also the ones who blew up traditional stereotypes. In the early 1850's progressively minded Russian intellectuals (intelligentsia) familiarized themselves with the Western debate on women's equality. "Women's issue" gained it's civic right in literature and was perceived not as a separate problem but as one of the manifestations of societal ills.
The beginning of women's movement in Russia (1859-1904) was related to efforts to provide women with opportunities for professional occupations and - by means of that - economic independence. Secondly, it was connected to struggle for access to higher education. This first stage covers in Russian history the period from 1859 to 1905. In 1867 a hundred of women of nobility background signed a petition addressed to the Dean of St. Petersburg's University to allow women to attend lectures. In 1878 the Women's Bestuzhev Courses were founded in Sankt-Petersburg. But to complete their education women had to travel abroad. In Western universities Russian female students were in constant contact with the ideas of Western feminism. These ideas were at times almost unconsciously exported to Russia by these very women who later on helped to set up secret political groups.
Differences and similarities in the history of Russian and Western feminism. Russian and Western feminism had a lot in common: (1) Financially secure women from the big cities (capitals) were the ones who initiated women's movement in Russia. (2) These well-to-do representatives of the "educated society: voluntarily donated their funds for public needs. (3) The social composition of women's movement in Russia gradually changed - from the more well-to-do to those on the verge of poverty and poor. (4) The age composition - young people dreaming to get rid of parental guardianship and the "yoke of the family". (5) Aspiring to civil and political rights to be granted to them, the first Russian feminists viewed education and free choice of occupation as the means to obtain these rights. Despite many similarities the origins of the Russian feminism had its own peculiarities. (1) Legal status of the Russian women (including their property status) after the abolition of serfdom in 1861 was rather sound compared to their western counterparts. (2) Significant property rights that the Russian women enjoyed made it possible for them to donate money, form women's cooperatives, and decide independently what to spend their riches on. (3) Western feminists attempted to separate themselves from the male hierarchy and create their own system free of autocracy and hierarchy. Russian women's activists didn't position themselves against men. (4) Russian women who joined the feminist movement could not raise the issue about women's political rights since in autocratic Russia many social groups had no political rights. Therefore, in that regard women were socially "equal" to men. (5) There was no way for Russian feminist movement to become a mass one in the XIXth and even in early XXth c. (before 1905) (6) Close link between literature, public and real life. (6) Russian feminists paid less attention to the issues of sexes and sexuality than their Western counterparts.
(7) Most early Russian feminists were good with the pen - both prose and poetry. (8) In the West worshipping of women as the embodiment of femininity was incomparably more pronounced than in Russia. Russian feminists viewed this cult of womanhood as a "spiritual ghetto" (Anna Tyrkova), "silk snares" (Maria Pokrovskaya) that continued to keep women in their usual roles (those of seducers, wives and housewives). Therefore in Russia "women's liberation" was perceived as freedom of stereotypical social roles and professional self-realization (9) The charitable aspect of the Russian women's movement was also different from that in the West. (10) Links between feminism and revolutionary-democratic movements was also characteristic of Russia.
Russian women's movement of 1905-1917 was mature and well prepared, both ideologically and organizationally. The revolutionary wave of 1905 summoned women who had been previously only demanding higher education and professional work to struggle for civil and political rights. In January 1905 about thirty women from St. Petersburg announced the creation of all-Russian "Women's Equality Union". In April 1905 it carried out the first rally in the Russian history in defense of women's political rights. In the summer of 1913 "Voice of a woman-worker" and "Working woman" magazines began to be published. In March 1917 more than 40 thousand women came to take part in a demonstration in front of the Temporary Government residence in St. Petersburg. Their streamers read: "Women's place is in the Constituent Assembly!"
Background of Russian Feminism of "second wave". Bolshevik decrees of late 1917 - early 1918 banned the work of all feminist organizations - together with the activity of other parties and unions. Only in the late 1970-s one can see the resurrection of feminism in Russia in frames of dissidents movement.
Russian feminism of the second wave (late 1980's to the present). The reforms of mid 1980's changed women's position in the Russian society. They created conditions for new forms of women's movement, the emergence of many public associations which began to strive for not just formal and legal gender equality but the real one. The absolute majority of the new and existing organizations that upheld the interests of women preferred to be called precisely 'women's". The term "feminism" and its derivatives were associated in public consciousness with something negative, politicized, ideological, brought in from the West and unnecessary for Russia. March 29 - 31, 1991 in the city of Dubna outside Moscow The First Independent Women's Forum uniting more than 70 organizations took place, and in 1992 the second Forum was held. In the second stage from 1993 to 1995 these organizations began to seek ways to cooperate with government authorities and the party-political system and ran into stereotypes about the role and place of women in society. The number of organizations rose to 300. In the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of education, in Universities and other institutions of higher education groups, laboratories and departments of women and gender studies began to appear. There staff gave new impulse to studies of theoretical problems of feminism as a theory, analyzing the reasons for oppression of women and proposing ideas for overcoming male superiority.
In the third stage of the rebirth of feminism its main goals were the self-determination of the movement in the context of the civil society and the forms of action within it. In 1999 the Ministry of Justice had registered more than 650 women's groups, nine of which had federal status (the Russian socio-political women's movement "Women of Russia", "Women's League", Union of Women in Russia", "Confederation of Business Women". Recently Russian feminist organizations have been advocating principles of social partnership , joined participation in the solution of serious social problems. This process has been helped by the creation in 1998 of the Information center of the Independent Women's Forum and the Consortium of Women's non-governmental organizations which focus on lobbying women's interests at various level of government. (Show less)

Russian feminists are generally portrayed as privileged women out of touch with the female masses, part of a failed movement swept away by the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917. Such an interpretation obscures the real history of Russian feminism in the years between its emergence as a political movement in 1905 and the revolutions of 1917. Further, the portrait of Russian feminists as bourgeois discourages an investigation of the dynamics of class in Russia during a period of shifting social identities and especially of the intersection of class and gender. The great majority of feminist activists and leaders came from the emerging female intelligentsia and were part of the free professions, particularly working as doctors, teachers, and journalists. In their class backgrounds they were very similar to female socialists. In my paper I will examine the lives and activities of key feminists in relation to the myth of the 'bourgeois' feminist. (Show less)

Till now in Russian historiography the issue is debating, whether the Russian women’s movement of the second half of the XIXth – the beginning of the XXth centuries can be characterized as feminist. The notion «women’s suffrage», as applied to Russia, is used in the works of foreign historians. Such caution is quite lawful, since women themselves, who participated in the women’s movement, were against the notion «feminist» with reference to them. Thus, a well-known activist of women’s movement in Russia N. Shakhmatova stated that «women of Russia had never been feminists and it in particular distinguishes them from their Western sisters». Similar thoughts can be found in the works of other women-activists of the Russian women’s movement who, in spite of scrupulous studying of Western experience, tried to underline the specificity of Russian woman's historical fate. Women’s movement, launched after the Revolution of 1905, was called in Russia «women’s liberation movement», but not feminist movement. To what it has been bound up with and was Russian women’s movement indeed so distinctive, that it is impossible to characterize it as «feminist» or «women's suffrage» movement, we will try to find out in this paper. To answer these questions we will compare the way women’s suffrage movement took in Russia and Great Britain, being a native land for woman’s suffrage in Europe and where this movement became, so to say, classical example of women’s struggle for their political equality. (Show less)

The paper will present the activity of Women's Equality Union, the largest and most influential Russian women's suffrage organization.
In Russia both men and women had no political rights till the first democratic revolution of 1905. That is why first women’s organizations founded in Russia in the middle of XIXth century had no political claims and were aimed exclusively at women’s right on equal education and professional career. Political repressions of the tsarist regime, intensified after the assassination of Alexander II, made all manifestations of social activity almost impossible. Men and women felt themselves equally disfranchised, and so a huge number of socially active women incarnate themselves not in feminist, but in revolutionist movement against the tsarist regime.
Only the Tsarist Rescript (February 18) on People’s Representatives adopted in 1905 under the pressure of revolution, gave the chance to speak about suffrage. In May 1905 in Moscow took place a constituent meeting of Women’s Equality Union, the most influential women’s suffrage organization in Russia. Its goal was to obtain the inclusion of the words «without distinction of sex» into the election law. However already on this meeting a dispute flamed up on whether to make the demand for political equality the fundamental principle of the Union’s program or not. A considerable part of participants believed that «due to the today’s public feelings, and particularly women’s, Union, restricted itself to the narrow feminist frames, risks to be quite unpopular and will not be able to recruit new members» Since in May 1905 the question of suffrage had not been settled yet, it was supposed to make the special emphasis not on political, but civil rights of women, as soon as all Russian citizens «politically disenfranchised, but woman has no human rights» And only the passage of election laws of August 6, October 17 and December 11 in 1905, which had excluded women from electorate and upset the gender «equality in illegality», led to the emergence of women’s suffrage movement in Russia.
Just as in England, women’s suffrage movement in Russia was the part of wide liberal-democratic movement, though the policy of recruiting its supporters in Russia was more democratic. Russian suffragists were at radical platform, sometimes directly participating in revolutionary events. Thus, members of Women’s Equality Union helped Moscow workers during the armed revolt in December 1905: they organized canteens and first-aid post, raised money for strikers. As a result WEU established close contacts with trade-unions and workers supported their activities. Revolutionary spirit reflected itself in the fact, that honorable members of WEU were such prominent women-revolutionist as V. Figner, C. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, V. Zasulich, M. Tsebrikova. In 1905 Women’s Equality Union raised 100 000 rubles (a vast sum of money for those times) and assigned it to social-democrats
We can state that on the revolutionary wave the majority of democratic community in Russia was in favor of women’s suffrage and public opinion was more favorable than in England. It can be explained by the fact that in Russia the demand for woman’s suffrage was put forward jointly with the demand for universal suffrage backed by almost all Russian political parties. Thus, women's suffrage supporters had really good chance to make women's enfranchisement bill passed through the first State Duma. To convince deputies of the necessity to grant women the right to vote, suffragists collected signatures to the petitions demanding political equality for women. To the first State Duma Women’s Equality Union presented petition with the 5 000 signatures. Since such practice had not been in use of other public organizations, we could say that this was suffragists innovation to Russian political life.
To sum it all up, we can state that Russian women’s liberation movement had its own national specificity that was conditioned by the features of historical and political development of Russia. It emerged rather late; its evolution had its highs and lows, which coincided with the evolution of Russian democratic movement and depended on the changes in the political situation. In Russia, on the revolutionary wave, it was easier for women to obtain their rights than in other countries. At the same time we should not ignore activity and purposefulness of Russian suffragists, because thank to them Russian women were one of the first who obtained political rights in Europe. (Show less)