Soviet Arts Culture: Femenine Presence in 20th Century Russian/Soviet Literature

I was recently inspired to join the Women Writer's Reading Group, a grassroots initiative committed to recognizing the woefully underrepresented female presence in the literary world. The are no restrictions on who may participate. So, look into joining if you are interested. The project's initiator, Hila Shachar has kindly created a member's badge, the link to which is as follows: http://hila-lumiere.blogspot.com/p/women-writers-reading-group.html. By posting the button, you commit to:

1. Making a conscious decision to read books by women, and;

2. Reviewing books by women on my blog/website.

While you're their, check out Hila's blog. It is amazing.

This week, I began drafting a list of titles by soviet women. It did not take me long to realize that the ratio of male to female writers in 20th Russian/Soviet literature is even more disproportionate than it is in Western literature of the same period. This realization came as something of a surprise. During the Soviet era, it became useful to the communist cause to recognize the equal utility of men and women. A propaganda campaign was launched to promote the regime's claim that the Soviet Union was "the world's most emancipated nation." At one time, women made up a staggering 51% of the nation's work force. Of course, this growing number had more to do with necessity than it had to do with equality for equality's sake. Between wars fought on foreign soil and purges at home between 1914 and 1945, the nation was drained of 40 million men. Among those unfortunate souls were many hundreds of male writers. It is interesting, therefore, that women did not inherit a more prominent role in the literary culture. However, I digress. The project: Every month for the next six months, I will write a critical analysis of one of the titles listed blow. It was my intention to commit 12 months to the project, but I was unable, after two days of searching the web, to come up with six more titles. This, I think, only stresses the importance of the undertaking. I am especially eager to read Birdsong on the Seabed. I have two reasons for feeling this way. 1) I am in awe of the few Shvarts poems with which I am already familiar. 2) I'm not above judging a book by its title.