MOSCOW—Julia Ioffe’s new book, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy (Ecco), immediately brings to mind Soviet Women: Walking the Tightrope (1989) by Francine du Plessix Gray. It was one of the first popular books about Soviet women, published as the Iron Curtain was coming down. The characters of Gray’s book were successful and professional women who talked a lot about their burdensome living conditions, the horrible conditions of Soviet maternity hospitals, about their “emancipation fatigue.” They dreamed of hiding behind a reliable and strong man, whom they often missed from their lives. As a matter of fact, this was indeed the yearning of many women in the Perestroika years. They had become fed up with Soviet hypocrisy and were longing for that “American dream” they had glimpsed in the first films about the West that reached the USSR.

This illusion evaporated in the1990s—the early days of “Wild Capitalism.” As Katrina vanden Heuvel noted in her review in the Nation, du Plessix Gray failed to discern quite a few of the perestroika realities Nevertheless, the book sparked interest and prompted many researchers and scholars to begin working together with colleagues from the former Soviet Union—and this collaboration proved to be successful. Over the past thirty years, Russian women became the subject of dozens of books and hundreds of articles on both sides of the Atlantic, of newly created university centers, and of dozens of scholarly events and conferences. Unfortunately, most of them are known only to a narrow circle of specialists. At present, academic contacts with Russia are virtually frozen, and dialogue is barely maintained, even though not completely extinguished.

Against this background, Ioffe’s book presents itself “as reopening the subject,” almost as if from scratch. It reminds American readers that a vast country of 145 million people has other residents beside Vladimir Putin. This is unquestionably important.

The author left the USSR with her parents in 1990 as a child. She tells her family story of four generations of women who were educated professionals, while accurately noting that this was commonplace in the Soviet Union. From my standpoint, her family saga is the most interesting part of her book; she alternates the chapters of this story with brief notes on historical figures, including the wives of Soviet leaders, and on many important events of the Soviet era. In the preface, Ioffe defines her task: to understand how “the country of [Alexandra] Kollontai and women fighter pilots become a country of women who wanted nothing more than to become housewives.”

In essence, she repeats the claim of du Plessix Gray, which is perplexing, and not just for a Russian reader.

Ioffe has clearly done a lot of research and surveyed important publications of the period; she reminds readers of the names of historical figures, most of them unfamiliar to Americans, and she does so in an engrossing, at times even cinematic manner. The chapters of the book resemble fragments of a TV series script—with attention paid to the requirements of the genre (and to audience expectations), with the requisite eroticism, glamour and a touch of horror.

At the same time, those readers who are somewhat familiar with the subject will notice significant gaps in the narrative, arbitrary emphases, a mixture of hearsay and facts, allegiance to the stereotypes transmitted via mass media, and other shortcomings. Undoubtedly, the author of a journalistic book is not a historian and is entitled to her own interpretation. Yet it is regrettable that Ioffe’s version of the history of Russia’s women tells us so little about Russian feminism as such, which emerged long before Kollontai and continues to this day.

“Three projects for the emancipation of women in Russia—pre-revolutionary, Soviet, and post-Soviet feminism—were cut short due to historical factors,” says Russian sociologist Olga Zdravomyslova. “Yet each of them was important for the life and self-perception of the country.” And the Soviet experience of women’s active participation in the economy and society, even though under total control, enabled women to join forces in the 1990s, with the rise of the “wild market,” in efforts to solve their most pressing problems, such as how to put bread on their families’ table, how to maintain sanity, how to “find themselves” in the new, often rough conditions.

In the years when Ioffe was learning the basics of English grammar in the US, millions of Russian women had lost their jobs (for reasons that included the popular neoliberal myth that women are bad workers and jobs should be given to men), were deprived of government support, kindergartens, and other benefits, they began to learn the basics of entrepreneurship . Those who only the day before were still engineers were now baking pies and trading in the market, importing cheap clothes from China and Poland, and were setting up clubs and coteries while sharing their experience.

I was writing about these women in the mid-to-late 1980s into the 1990s, for glasnost- era publications Ogonyok and Nezavisimaya Gazeta, marveling at their courage and talent, and realizing that they were the ones saving the country, as has often been the case in Soviet history. The independent women’s movement of the 1990s largely emerged as a result of Gorbachev’s democratic perestroika (Gorbachev, incidentally, wanted to involve women more actively in its processes) and quickly gained momentum.

According to the results of a study commissioned by the Russian government in 2000, one in five Russians, that is, 30 million people per year, were the recipients of assistance from Russian civic organizations—and most of it was the work of women. NGOs employed two million people. And quite a few of these organizations were not dependent on Western grant money, as businesses and individual citizens started to contribute to them. Women’s organizations existed in every city and village, seeking to solve practical problems. There were academic initiatives, feminist centers, crisis support centers, gender departments in universities, self-help groups, soldiers’ mothers, political clubs, and for a short period, a women’s caucus in parliament. Not all of these efforts were mutually supportive, yet despite this, the results of their work turned out to be impressive.

Just as the six years of perestroika changed the country beyond recognition, so did a decade and a half of active development of the independent women’s movement deeply impact and, most importantly, women’s self-awareness. The 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation had Article 19, establishing equal rights and opportunities, while the Labor Code and Family Code now included provisions on social and economic protections for mothers.

There were short-term programs on reproductive health and sex education; even though they were subsequently curtailed, they were kept alive by NGOs. As a result of this, Russia is now on a par with Europe with regards to the number of abortions, while before that it had, along with Romania, the largest number of them among the countries of the world. According to prominent population studies expert Anatoly Vishnevsky, this came about precisely because of all this work, as the new generation internalized new rules of behavior.  believed that this was the result of such work, with a new generation learning new rules of behavior. The rhetoric of patriarchy and its propaganda have not significantly impacted the new rules of behavior.

As of this year, women make up 45 percent of all entrepreneurs, are included in the Forbes list of billionaires, and hold high level positions not only in the service sector, but also in finance and the oil industry. Most importantly, people’s mindsets have changed.

These days, a woman in a position of leadership is not perceived as an oddity. The overwhelming majority of Russians consider domestic violence to be a crime, regardless the absence of a corresponding law, and despite the propaganda of patriarchy, and pressure on NGOs. Hotlines and shelters operate in Russia, and the Consortium of Women’s NGOs handles hundreds of cases each year, often winning in court. Mari Davtyan, a lawyer and the head of the Consortium, as well as journalist Eva Merkachova are important voices in the Russian media landscape. Under the new restrictions, many groups operate informally, helping prisoners and refugees from war zones. This huge layer of everyday life in a country spanning nine time zones is not reflected in either the Russian or international media. Women’s activism and feminist thought, awakened by perestroika, continue to develop in cities with millions of inhabitants and modest regional centers. Working in spite of censorship and pressure from the authorities is a long-standing Russian tradition: a wealth of experience has been accumulated, and it is very much in demand today.

One of the most vivid chapters in Ioffe’s book is called “The Hunt.” It is about women hunting for millionaires and about their coaching school, the Moscow Life Academy. Even though it describes the events of 2012 when Ioffe came to Moscow as a reporter, they also recall, unwittingly, the TV programs from the 1990s.

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Ioffe believes that the “fairy-tale country” was submerged under authoritarianism waves. The feminist project failed because of men in power. 

Is this really so? And is it true that young Russian women dream exclusively of marrying a millionaire?

I remember in the 1990s, some female students really did want to find a sugar daddy so they could live a glamorous life and write for fashion magazines.  In the 2000s, they thought about the benefits of having a rich husband to support their own creative projects.  Meanwhile, in recent years, many stopped thinking of marrying at altogether; instead, they are obsessed with their own projects and would like to pick a like-minded partner in the future. Their life strategy is completely at odds with the propaganda that actively promotes the patriarchal model of the family and the place of women in society.

But in Russia, propaganda and reality have long been moving apart from each other. A recent study on women in entrepreneurial life by Elena Rozhdestvenskaya, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, yielded unexpected results: a new group of women has emerged, consisting of executives and top managers, often the daughters and granddaughters of influential men. They have no need for rich husbands; they are ambitious and super professional, picking men who are convenient for them. They are transforming the traditional family structure, yet at the same time almost all of them have families and children. They do not express open solidarity with feminist ideas, yet they defend a feminine style of leadership and set up their own private clubs. This is a new type of modern Russian elite.

“As for the future of feminism in Russia,” says Olga Zdravomyslova, “it is hard to say what it will be like. Perhaps young feminists will start all over again, disregarding the past. But it could be different.”

In the final chapters of the book, Ioffe bitterly concurs with her father’s words that “our homeland is a country without a future.” And yet her book does not leave an unequivocal impression on the reader. Precisely because of its unevenness, its incompleteness, its subjectivity, it is more likely (I would like to think) to encourage us to learn more about the lives of people living in a vast territory spanning nine time zones, and to hear their vibrant and very dissimilar, voices—just like the book by Francine de Plessix Gray did in its own time. At the meetings of the gender caucus of the Yabloko Party in Moscow, in university lecture halls, at artistic events in various cities, I encounter young women who speak passionately about the future of Russia, and the things that can already to be done today to achieve this vision, or what they have already been doing, here and now. Some of them are studying the history of feminism. And while listening to them, I believe in their success.

Translated by. Dmitrii Glinski. Editor’s Note: Since Antonina Bouis did not have a say in the final translation of this text, she asked The Nation to remove her name as translator.