Editor’s Introduction:

A – Art, F – Feminism, A Topical Dictionary, Moscow 2015

Author

E. Susanna Weygandt

Abstract

This translation project grows organically out of some of the most socially-conscious aspects of contemporary Russian art and performance: specifically, a recent wave of feminist discours in literature and media. This dictionary, A for Art; F for Feminism / I – iskusstvo; F – feminizm (published in 2015 in Russian by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation) defines gender terms for the general public accompanying them with images from an art exhibit to which East European and Russian feminist artists contributed.

Keywords

Aleksandra Kollontai; gender, defining gender, sexism, post-Soviet Studies, feminism, visual art, contemporary Russian art, performance art.

The rise of protest art in post-Soviet Russia has given voice to social problems and inequalities through feminist discourse, as seen in the Pussy Riot movement and the I-iskusstvo; F-feminizm dictionary-catalogue. The lack of feminist theory published in Russian has led to a void in public discourse, making it difficult for people to express feminist values. The exhibition and dictionary-catalogue seek to fill this void by defining terms related to gender, LGBTQ, feminism, sexuality, and identity for the general public. The publication is accompanied by photographs from the visual art exhibition at Center Krasnyi (Tsentr Krasnyi) and then at ISSMAG Gallery, both in Moscow, in 2015-2016, which was also called I-iskusstvo; F-feminizm, (the exhibition was conceptualised together with the dictionary). The 2015 exhibition was also held at the former Research Institute of Long-Range Radio Communication (Nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut dal’nei radiosviazi) in Moscow.

The exhibition and dictionary-catalogue use traditional genres of visual art, social media, street performance, and activism to create bold and expansive projects. The artists involved in the exhibition and dictionary-catalogue are Ukrainian, Russian, and Moldavian women.These artists identify as feminists, and while some are non-Russian, they all share an understanding of Soviet memory, post-Soviet transition, and the fall-outs in gender equality, in particular in the final period of Soviet rule in Eastern and Central Europe and in the non-Russian Soviet republics. They aim to raise awareness of singularly female experiences in post-Soviet Russia, including child birth, sexuality, domestic violence, migration, and ageing, while also critiquing the current Russian regime as authoritarian, patriarchal, and imperialist.

The evolution of contemporary feminist art across post-Soviet space leading up to the 2015 exhibition is rooted in women’s roles in the Soviet Union, where normative femininity dominated for a long period. However, feminist perspectives were developed in the early Soviet period, particularly in Soviet avant-garde art, highlighting the need for social critique and the empowerment of women.

The rhetoric of early Soviet society was “progressive” in terms of gender equality, particularly when compared to the struggles that women faced in the US and Europe at the same time. Universal suffrage was part of the Bolshevik platform, and during the civil war that followed the revolution, women were encouraged to participate in all spheres.

Aleksandra Kollontai,¹ a leading Russian feminist and the only woman in the Council of People’s Commissars, argued for policies to integrate women in the workforce. She hoped and called for the class revolution to lead to a gender revolution, emphasising it must be this way in her books, such as Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926).In her writings, Kollontai described the role that the "New Soviet Woman" should play in the newly established socialist state and asserted that the struggle of women pertains not just to one particular class within society but to the female gender as a whole, envisioning a distinct "female consciousness”.

Many of the women artists of the early Soviet avant-garde identified with the movement known as Constructivism. Constructivists believed that art, design, and clothing should be utilitarian and comfortable, following the trends of lifestyle of the time. Constructivist clothing designers such as Varvara Stepanova designed sporty and comfortable women's clothes, assuming they would be worn by working women and women enjoying athletic pursuits outside of the home.²

Although Kollontai and female artists of the time might appear to be feminists, they couldn't refer to themselves as such, because class orientation was paramount. However, Kollontai's theoretical writings remain influential among contemporary and feminist artists in Russia and the former USSR. Her goals were ambitious and not completely realised during her own lifetime. It’s as though her unfinished work lives on in some of the art works of this exhibition, and Ilmira Bolotyan is an admirer of this historical figure. Kollontai’s vision of the "New Soviet Woman" as an individual who asserts herself and fights for the representation of women's rights remains relevant today.

Because of extreme labour shortages, women were encouraged to work, and throughout Soviet history, but especially in the 1920s and 1930s, working women were celebrated in Soviet propaganda. This is evident in the art, literature, and film produced during this time. The Constructivist movement in visual art, for example, featured female artists such as Liubov' Popova and Vera Mukhina, whose works celebrated the female body in steel and emphasised women’s contributions to the Soviet Union's industrial development. But women continued to bear the burden of childcare and domestic labour, even as they worked long hours in dangerous jobs.

In several works of early Soviet film and literature, the female body was depicted in a way that suggests a Soviet woman’s experience to be one of true freedom and emancipation. For instance, Dziga Vertov and Elizaveta Svilova’s 1934 documentary Three Songs about Lenin depicted young Uzbek women driving tractors and going to school, no longer confined to the sphere of domesticity. However, the unveiling movement in Uzbekistan was complex, with resistance from some women who saw wearing the hijab as a practice that made them feel and behave piously. Thus, while Soviet policies toward the “emancipation” of Uzbek Muslim women were seen as a "progressive" part of the USSR's revolutionary development, many Uzbek women negotiated a way to grow in this role by applying themselves to work outside of the home, at the same time remaining true to their personal values. This negotiation and protection of identity was a springboard for feminism in the Soviet Union.

The “Stalin Revolution” of 1928-32, followed by the Great Terror of 1936-38, made clear that the rhetoric of female emancipation was just that: rhetoric. Women, like everyone else, did not fully gain freedoms until after the fall of the Soviet Union. However, the catastrophic losses of World War II meant that women continued to serve in non-traditional roles, including fighting in the Soviet army, and often raised their children as single mothers. Mixed messages abounded, and domesticity was celebrated in a society that offered few labour-saving devices or comforts. Despite the mixed messages, Soviet society's expectations of gender roles remained largely traditional.

Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksievich's first book, War's Unwomanly Face (1985), provides provocative insights into interpretations of femininity through the literature of testimony. Her book is based on the recollections and memories of 500 female veterans who fought on the frontlines and flew military planes during World War II. These interviews highlight traditional practices of femininity, such as sewing and embroidery, hair grooming, and the desire for feminine dress. Women used these practices as coping mechanisms to deal with trauma on the front or as a way to feel a sense of normalcy. The book portrays a traditional view of womanhood as biologically constructed, with these ideas echoing throughout the interviews because at the time of the Great Patriotic War and even in the mid-1980s when Aleksievich was conducting her interviews with veterans, gender roles had not been challenged in public discourse. Nor had the goals of feminism been clearly articulated in scholarship or in public discourse.

Aleksievich intended her project to fill a gap in the history of the Great Patriotic War by sharing women's experiences in war, as their voices were left out of the official narrative, with few exceptions. Traditionally, masculinity has been associated with heroism and risk-taking. Soviet literature depicts male soldiers' pain as heroic sacrifices for communism, while female veterans are mostly absent from this narrative. While the goals of upholding traditional femininity escaped the 500 female veterans who were interviewed for this book, the women would still draw on traditional practices of grooming hair, needlework and embroidery, desire just to wear a dress on the front. Looking at this book through history and gender studies, one understands that it was only through war and horror that shifts in conceptions about gender were made. The familiar practices took on a new, original meaning in the face of trauma and in conditions that threaten the body. In extreme settings the everyday feminine experiences were not routines of insignificance; rather, creations of a semblance of normal life in the face of trauma, and thus mechanisms of mental survival, which for many led to physical survival. This is a rare instance in Soviet history when gender isn’t performed repeatedly to reinstill a norm in society. Here, finally, gender is not necessarily something one is, but rather something that is performed and interpreted, as Judith Butler would remark.

The Soviet Union in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s didn’t have a VALIE EXPORT who would ostensibly question the portrayal in society of woman. With the rise of protest art and feminist activist art in Russia since the 2010s, feminism and an anti-patriarchy movement gathered attention throughout the globe, yet, within Russia still remained a phenomenon of non-conformity after the fall of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, there has not been a similar solidarity over feminism in any period in Russia since the protests surrounding Pussy Riot or since the 2015 exhibition of A-Art; F-Feminism and its subsequent published dictionary that defines gender terms and gender problems for Russian society in general as well as Ilmira Bolotyan’s statement that details the difficulties of practising feminism in Putin’s Russia.

The summary of the dictionary, written by artist, curator and researcher Ilmira Bolotyan, considers how the dictionary I-iskusstvo; F-feminizm and its accompanying art exhibition overlap with existing definitions of feminism, as well as how they alternately resist and revise these constructions.The exhibition and catalogue speak directly about and challenge stereotypes, stigmas, and depictions of the body by media. Other venues besides Center Krasnyi and the Research Institute of Long-Range Radio Communication were contacted to host the exhibition, but they ultimately declined in light of the “LGBT propaganda” law that was legislated in 2013. According to Bolotyan, in Russia, the words "feminism" and "extremism" are considered closely related. This made it difficult for the institutions to agree to host such an exhibition. The catalogue-dictionary was published in Russian by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in 2015.

The translation of entries from the dictionary-catalogue organically grows out of some of the most socially-conscious aspects of contemporary art and performance in the Russian Federation. It was the only major exhibition dedicated to feminism and gender theory in the 2010s in Russia. The artists of the exhibition organised gatherings in Ekaterinburg, Kazan’ and in Kyiv dedicated to the release of the dictionary-catalogue and the so-called “fem weekends”. Bolotyan remarked that she stopped organising these meetings when it became clear to her that the Russian art community was not ready for academic discussion of such topics. Yet she also noted that the artists, for a long time after the release of the dictionary-catalogue, would contact her to discuss how the project greatly influenced their practice and helped them to do what they did not dare to try on their own because they lacked sufficient support. It should be noted that the arts community has been primarily influenced by the printed dictionary, and not just by the exhibition itself. That is why Bolotyan now works more with texts than with images.

Several Russian art magazines applauded the exhibit for the deep research it was informed by and the original approach to connecting the audience with feminism and gender terminology (Artuzel, October 2015)³. The exhibit celebrated feminism as a strategy for solidarity rather than separatism. Artuzel Magazine noted that this exhibit, unlike others that have come before it and have focused on feminist art, this one suggests that “we focus on routine everyday practices of power and subordination, that have become dissolved in people’s communication”. Baza Institute announced that the exhibit is of interest mainly to those who want to widen their understanding of contemporary art in Russia to today “and to observe everyday life through an articulated critical position” (Baza Institute, 2015)⁴.

E. Susanna Weygandt
Sewanee: The University of the South
esweygan@sewanee.edu

Acknowledgement

Funding for this article was provided by the University Research Grants Committee at Sewanee: The University of the South.

Bio

E. Susanna Weygandt received her PhD from Princeton’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. In her peer-reviewed articles and in her 2019 anthology (Columbia University Press) she has analysed indigenous Russian performance theories that have not yet been documented. Her soon-to-be published book is titled From Metaphor to Direct Speech: Drama and Performance Theory in Contemporary Russia. This research shaped her into a scholar of visual language, the body, affect, embodiment, and gender. At the Russian Department at Sewanee: The University of the South she teaches late-and post-Soviet studies and Russian language, and she teaches gender theory and digital humanities approaches in the Humanities Program.

Suggested Citation

Weygandt, E. Susanna. 2023. The Book Lab: “Editor’s Introduction: A – Art, F – Feminism, A Topical Dictionary, Moscow 2015”. Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe 16. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17892/app.2023.00016.349.

URL: http://www.apparatusjournal.net/

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