The modernisation of Russian motherhood, 1917–1937

Dados Bibliográficos

ID11601467
AutoresElizabeth Waters (Australian National University, autor correspondente)
Ano1992
Volume44
Fascículo1
Páginas123-135
Data de publicação1992-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSoviet Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0038-5859
EditoraRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09668139208411998
OpenAlexW2091838518
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas7
Referências citadas9

up and overtaking the West meant above all achieving higher levels of production, but it was also recognised that before the workers and peasants could transform the economy they themselves must be transformed: the new Soviet Man must be neat and efficient, literate and cultured, hygienic and healthy. The health of the next generation, of infants and young children, had from early in the 19th century been a matter for national concern, and campaigns for modern mothering dated from that era. Enlightenment propaganda aimed to inculcate the ideas of modern medicine on pregnancy, childbirth and infant care current across the industrialising world from Paris to New York and Sydney. In post-revolutionary Russia, this transmission of knowledge was effected through clinics, public lectures and the mass publication of popular literature, the same methods of propaganda employed elsewhere. Also, as elsewhere in the Western world, both before and since, the campaign for modern mothering was coordinated by the medical profession, which presented itself as the guardian and practitioner of the new knowledge and instructed mothers to turn to doctors rather than to wise women for advice and aid. As well as these similarities, this modernisation of Russian motherhood exhibited a number of special characteristics. It was rather late in starting, and slow to get off the ground. At the end of the 19th century, child care manuals were circulating in the cities and urban clinics had opened their doors, but not until the 1920s and 1930s did the new medical knowledge begin to make an impression on the villages, and even then changes were sporadic and uneven. Because of the sharp gulf, historically, between society and the people in Russia, and the small size of the middle class, this shift from traditional to modern was resisted with

Enlightenment · Government (linguistics · Guardian · Modernization theory · Political science · European history and politics · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law