Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilization (review)

While a number of fine book-length studies of women’s roles in Russian culture and literature and translations of some less-often translated women’s works have been published in the West over the last decade, gender studies have been woefully underrepresented in Slavic studies. Peter I. Barta’s collection of essays, Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilization, is evidence of the lively scholarly activity that has been taking place. Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilization is the fourth volume in the Routledge Harwood series, Studies in Russian and European Literature. It is comprised of eighteen essays by scholars from various American and British institutions. Barta writes that the intention of the volume was to “highlight the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: we feel that these periods—while extensively scrutinised in traditional scholarship—have to date received insufficient attention by scholars working in cultural and gender studies” (5).

One of the highlights of the volume is Barta’s thoughtful introductory essay. He carefully lays out a brief history of gender and identity studies in the West and the problematic relationship of gender studies and the Russian academic sphere. Gender and women’s studies are only gradually growing into an acceptable area of scholarship in Russia, while the investigation has seen heightened interest and productivity in the West, particularly, as Barta notes, following the decline of the Soviet Union. Barta’s recap of the groundbreaking work in the area of women’s studies, in Russian literature and in the social sciences, lays an informative foundation for both the readers of the volume and anyone beginning an investigation in this area. More importantly for the reader, Barta’s essay conveys the guiding thought by which the essays were grouped.

The variety of material offered in this book is great. The selected essays span an incredible time frame—from pre-Petrine Russia to the literature and theatre of the post-Soviet era—and proffer a thoughtful mixture of well-known literary texts and authors with more obscure material. The essays are arranged under the headings “Gender and Power,” “Gender and National Identity,” “Sexual Identity and Artistic Expression,” “Literary Discourses of Male and Female Sexualities,” and “Sexuality and Literature in Contemporary Russian Society.” The careful grouping of the essays gives the volume thematic concinnity so that the breadth does not detract from the overall cohesiveness of the collection.

It is beyond the confines of this review to discuss every essay, but it would, perhaps, serve to note a few that are extraordinary. The volume opens under the heading “Gender and Power” with a group of essays that, in Barta’s words, “analyse the intervention of the empowered in determining the perception, representation and social impact of women’s self-assertion” (5). It is quite appropriate that the first essay would address reforms instituted by a male Tsar with a widespread impact on women’s lives, the dress reforms instituted by Peter the Great. Lindsey Hughes’s essay, “From Caftans into Corsets: The Sartorial Transformation of Women during the Reign of Peter the Great” is a fascinating look at the impact of Peter’s proclamations on women’s public and private lives. The essay sets the tone for the essays that follow, raising oft-repeated questions of how and to what degree gender transformations took place and how Russian women “remained and remain distinct from their Western counterparts, despite the efforts of rulers like Peter to change them by decree from above” (28).

In the sections that follow there are many outstanding essays exploring sexuality and gender as they influence artistic expression, literary discourse, and as represented in contemporary literature. If there is a flaw in the volume, it is that essays focusing on the more obscure texts may appear less cogent when read against discussions of more familiar texts. On the other hand, some essays lure the reader with the promise of exploring unknown realms. Snejana Tempest’s “Acquiring an Identity: Gender Distinctions in Russian Childlore and Rituals” in the section “Gender and National...