Women in Russia, 1700 2000

Engel tackles a vast subject. It sprawls across three centuries of turmoil and revolution. Plus it spans a vast geographic area and a multitude of ethnicities and religions.The care she has taken with this book starts in the very title, "Women in Russia". It does not say "Russian Women", for that can be taken to connote ethnic (Christian) Russian. Whereas she includes in her study Muslim women, Jewish women, the women of the Volga Germans, and Finnish women. Probably out of praticality, she omits discussion of the Russian Far East (Siberia), which has enclaves of Korean, Mongolian, Japanese and Chinese.The later chapters that deal with Communist rule may owe much of their detail to the fall of Communism, and the subsequent accessibility of many documents. This may have been further eased by these documents undoubtedly being seen as having no military value. Unlike say a history of Soviet rocketry or microbiology.I found the most interesting sections to be on the Communist period. They did put the first female astronaut (V. Tereshkova) into orbit, and proudly trumpeted this. But, as Engels makes clear, inside the Soviet Union, women were commonly relegated to traditional family rearing roles, not so different from the US at the time.A very commendable survey by Engel. One that an interested reader might then wish for her to write more detailed analyses of the various aspects she discusses here.

Engel¡¯s history of women in Russia is a fascinating glimpse at an otherwise overlooked part of Russian history. It is a great addition to any personal library.