Contributor archive

Articles written by

Intersectionality via zoom Reflections on teaching an online course on gender and Soviet history for students from/in authoritarian Russia

I decided to teach free of charge a short online course on gender, intersectionality and Soviet history for students of the Russian Free University5 (Rossiiskii Svobodni Universitet). Since April 2023, the NGO-driven university has the status of an undesirable organization in Russia. More than 80 people registered for my course; however, from the beginning there was a lot of uncertainty on both sides due to fear that students could be accused by the Russian authorities of collaboration with an “undesirable organization”. In order not to be detected while participating in the online course, many students did not use their real names; some never spoke, merely writing down some comments. Indeed, the university introduced a new security protocol that allowed the students not to disclose their identity to other course participants if they did not want to.

By Yulia Gradskova September 18, 2024

Recovering traditions? Women, gender, and the authoritarianism of “traditional values” in Russia

In recent years, “traditional values,” increasingly articulated in accordance with the Christian Orthodox canon, has moved to the center of Russian official discourse. The author argues that the ideology of “traditional values” corresponds mainly to the interests of the Russian state in union with the Orthodox Church and reflects Russian imperial and authoritarian traditions rather than popular customs and beliefs.

Essay by Yulia Gradskova May 24, 2020

Postsocialist Revolutions of Intimacy

 “Postsocialist Revolutions of Intimacy: Sexuality, Rights and Backlash”, Workshop October 1–2, 2018. The workshop was organized by CBEES, Centre for […]

By Yulia Gradskova March 7, 2019

An innovative guidebook to St. Petersburg. Breaking through the invisibility of Muslim history and culture

Renat Bekkin and Almira Tagirdz-hanova, Musulmanskii St. Peterburg.Istoricheskii putevoditel. [Muslim St. Petersburg: Historical Guidebook; The Life of Muslims in St. Petersburg and Its Suburbs] Renat Bekkin and Almira Tagirdzhanova. Moscow and St. Petersburg, 2016, 639 pages.

By Yulia Gradskova June 19, 2017

Female shuttle trade between Belarus and Lithuania. Dissertation review

Volha Sasunkevich, “From Political Borders to Social Boundaries: History of Female Shuttle Trade on the Belarus–Lithuania Borderland (1990—2011)” (PhD diss., Greifswald University, 2013).

By Yulia Gradskova November 19, 2015

Translating “gender equality” Northwestern Russia meets the global gender equality agenda

The unsuccessful “translation” of “gender equality” into Russian reveals numerous difficulties and indicates that the realization of the transnational feminist agenda could meet with serious obstacles not only in the countries of the “Third World”, but also in some former “Second World” countries.

Essay by Yulia Gradskova May 12, 2015

BECOMING FULL MEMBERS OF SOCIETY

In the first post-revolutionary years the Bolshevik government saw Tatar and Bashkir women as important allies. Muslim women from the Volga-Ural region were to be educated and taught about their rights, and this educational campaign was seen as contributing to the development of the new socialist society. Women’s ignorance was seen by the Soviet authorities as an obstacle to progress which had to be overcome with the help of the new institutions like Commissions for the Improvement of the Work and Everyday Life of Women.

By Yulia Gradskova January 8, 2013

Pussy Riot and Femen: Strategies of Symbolic Violence

Comment written jointly with Irina Sandomirskaja on Pussy Riot: Reflections on Receptions However, in the post-modern Russian society, radical protest […]

By Yulia Gradskova December 20, 2012

War, masculinity, and memory. Recruited into a foreign army

Ene Kõresaar (ed.)Soldiers of Memory World War II and its Aftermath in , Estonian Post-Soviet Life Stories, Amsterdam & New York Rodopi 2011, 441 pages

By Yulia Gradskova January 18, 2012