2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

The Russian Empire was the first of the multi-national and multi-cultural empires to collapse during World War I; the effects of these world changing events still reverberate as we approach the centennial of the 1917 Russian Revolutions. The Russian Tsar Nicholas II was the symbol of autocracy. Challenged by military defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, and subsequent revolution in 1905, assassinations and failed political and economic reform, the Tsar brought his Empire into the Great War with hopes for revival. Wars often disrupt gender relations and create the conditions for social protest. With large numbers of men away at war, women came into the public space as workers, peasant farmers, soldiers wives, bread rioters, physicians, nurses, and women’s rights activists.  Tsarist policies affected women during the war and then women played key roles in the outbreak of the first, February Revolution, which toppled the Tsar. Women’s suffrage supporters organized a 40,000 strong march in Petrograd on March 19, 1917; by the end of the day their demand for the vote won support from all revolutionary leaders. Russia became the first major power to enact women’s suffrage. And women were an important constituency in the Bolshevik seizure of power in October.  Bolshevik attempts at radical restructuring of family relations in the name of women’s liberation electrified the world, but from the start had mixed results. Panel participants will be mindful of the importance of an intersectional analysis of the war, women’s activism, and revolutionary change.