This handbook brings together recent and emerging research in the broad areas of women and
gender studies focusing on pre-revolutionary Russia the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet
Russian Federation. For the Soviet period in particular individual chapters extend the
geographic coverage of the book beyond Russia itself to examine women and gender relations in
the Soviet ¿East¿ (Tatarstan) Central Asia (Kazakhstan Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) and the
Baltic States (Estonia Latvia and Lithuania). Within the boundaries of the Russian Federation
the scope moves beyond the typically studied urban centres of Moscow and St Petersburg to
examine the regions (Krasnodar Novosibirsk) rural societies and village life. Its chapters
examine the construction of gender identities and shifts in gender roles during the twentieth
century as well as the changing status and roles of women vis-a-vis men in Soviet political
institutions the workplace and society more generally. This volume draws on a broad range of
disciplinary and methodological approaches currently being employed in the academic field of
Russian studies. The origins of the individual contributions can be identified in a range of
conventional subject disciplines ¿ history literature sociology political science cultural
studies ¿ but the chapters also adopt a cross- and inter-disciplinary approach to the topic of
study. This handbook therefore builds on and extends the foundations of Russian women¿s and
gender studies as it has emerged and developed in recent decades and demonstrate the
international indeed global reach of such research
