Women in the First World War and the Russian Civil War

Olga Simonova is Researcher at the University of Turku, Finland. She is a specialist in early twentieth-century Russian literature, with a focus on mass-market literature, gender, and women’s magazines. She has extensively researched war propaganda and ideology during the imperial and Stalinist periods. She is the author of over eighty academic publications, and her current research explores the portrayal of women in fiction and autobiographical narratives with a focus on military identities and cultural memory in post-revolutionary Russia.

“This book contributes significantly to our understanding of the female hero in the context of the revolutionary changes in Russia in the 1910s-20s. Its breadth and depth of research will be widely appreciated by everyone interested in Russian twentieth-century history and culture.”Alexandra Smith, University of Edinburgh“The book offers insightful analyses of the complex history of gender, war, and memory in early twentieth-century Russian culture and literature. It deepens our understanding of how the First World War and the Russian Civil War shaped representations of femininity that became foundational to later literary works.”Arja Rosenholm, Professor Emerita, Tampere University

• Introduction Chapter 1. NURSES IN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL AND FICTION WRITINGS Chapter 2. MILITARY WOMEN: FEMININITY AND HEROISM Chapter 3. FEMALE COMMANDERS OF THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR: TRANSFORMATION OF IMAGES Chapter 4. WOMEN WRITERS WITNESSING THE WARS Conclusion