Gender in Russia and Eastern Europe since World War I

On the eve of the First World War, the multinational empires of Eastern Europe - the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires - were in the grips of a series of overlapping transformations related to the rise of nationalism, to accelerating demands for political democratization, and to the pressures of ongoing economic modernization. The nationalism of Eastern European nation-states rested on a particular biological understanding of both gender and ethnicity. The previously nationalist/fascist but now communist states of East-Central Europe constructed their own specific versions of socialist society, including radical anti-capitalist economic transformations in industry and agriculture, and a reenvisioning of social and gender norms. Women in the Soviet Union were expected to engage simultaneously in production and reproduction, while Eastern European nationalism and feminism tended to position women as mothers of the nation.