The Epic and the Domestic: Women and War in Russia, 1914-1917

As a total war, the First World War precipitated the involvement of thousands of Russian women, often in capacities that transcended previous war experiences, created new opportunities and challenges, and blurred boundaries of gendered behavior and expectations. Given the highly mobile nature of the conflict on the Eastern Front, where lines separating “front” from “rear” were porous and ever-changing, the war extended into domestic spaces predominately occupied by women, while women entered wartime service in areas traditionally conceived as male. Even labor conventionally understood as “feminine,” such as nursing, defied such strictly gendered dichotomization, while that seen as exclusively the purview of men, such as soldiering, was contested by the presence of women.