Freedom of the Individual:

The Russian Housewife

Andrew J. King

History 275
Dr. Brown
11 April 2017
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Freedom of individuals, families and society as a whole has developed unlike any other

country throughout the world. There have been moments in Russian history where the nationality

of the citizens of the state has been put above and beyond anything else, and other moments

where that was only preached by the national government and the citizens were left in the dust

only with hopes of being helped. One of the most important aspects of this entails the history and

development of the Russian housewife. The development of these women from the times of Rus

and the Slavs through imperial Russia up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union has drastically

gone through a political and social roller coaster. Under the socialistic and communist views,

along with imperialistic rule, women have faced sorrows and freedoms but have always been one

of the largest keys to the development and analysis of individual freedom throughout Russian

history.

Looking further into how this development came to be it is important to understand the

foundation of Russian beginnings and how Russia would develop into the modern day form that

it is known as today. Russian beginnings were founded on an area that was unique to all other

areas on Earth, an area that was in earlier times inaccessible for trade as it is a landlocked area.

On top of being landlocked from trade, Russia has always been extremely limited agriculturally

due to the lackluster soil that has forever stricken the greater majority of Russian land.1 The line

of succession including into the leaders of modern day Russia has always been that of an

authoritarian role to the civilians of the state, though it has been denounced that this has effected

development of Russia it is most certain to have an effect on the development of women’s

freedom.2 This role of almost entirely male dominance over Russia with few other exceptions

1
Poe, Marshall T., The Russian Moment in World History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), xii.
2
Ibid., xiii.
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can most certainly be looked at as having shaped how women were treated and how their roles in

society have come to place.

The modern Russian woman, specifically the housewife, has come a long way since the

times of Ivan the Terrible and The Domostroi. This household manual and rule book was a

guideline to every Russian household under the rule of Ivan. During this 15th century period the

household, including everyone in it from the children to the wife to the husband, was subject to

strict lifestyles and can be looked back upon as a start to the timeline of the development of

Russian housewife freedom and individualism. Russian housewives had no public role in this

15th century period and were strictly confined to the walls of their homes; this law being the rule

of the land it was accepted and not questioned by all within the home.3 Physician and author

Anton Chekhov would write about the unusual circumstances of a woman being outside of her

home that she may be faced with in his short story The Lady with the Toy Dog. The woman in

this story is out while her husband is away, while still being a man she admires the circumstances

are still indifferent, and she encounters a man whom she strikes a conversation with. After

laughing with this man he remarks that her speaking and laughing with him was bizarre and was

something that he could never imagine his daughter doing not only with a stranger but with a

man that is not her husband.4

One recurring theme throughout this development was an exemption of sorts for the

women of elite, aristocratic and oligarchical homes. Women were expected to make most of the

food that was fed to the family which was something that held true through the later parts of the

19th century turning into the 20th century. Women of upper class homes were exempt of this

3
Pouncy, Carolyn, ed., trans., The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 8.
4
Chekhov, Anton, “The Lady with the Toy Dog,” in Five Great Short Stories (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc.,
1990), 83.
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expectation, leaving it to servants or collection from their serfdom depending on the time period.5

The entirety of the household depended on the women during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, if it

were not for the housewife within this period homes would deteriorate. Budgeting, meals,

maintenance of the homes and much more were left to these women.6

One of the main focuses of the rise of Lenin, following the formation of the Social

Democratic Party of Russia in the last few years of the 19th century, was helping women. Lenin

would go on to seize power through means of developing a revolutionary party and developing

the Communist state in Russia. As this state developed a main focus was the development of

communal living as well as a communal society, making the life of a woman at home much

easier as compared to the previous few decades and centuries.7

Working together through the community more equal opportunities were offered to these

women, a gripe that women would have for centuries up until this time was the matter of

divorce. Previously it would seem to be an endless process or would seem to never be granted.

Under the Council of People’s Commissars starting in 1917 divorce was “made easier in Soviet

Russia” for women whom were subject to severe abuse or displeasure at home, now only taking

up to two weeks to be granted.8 Financial independence allowed women to come to this point as

previously women were forced to remain with an abusive husband, staying at home, as they had

no other means of supporting themselves financially. Women now able to work were able to

leave an abusive husband with this independent income to support themselves and any children

they felt necessary to remove from their husband’s home as well. Early Soviet era women were

now able to leave the confining walls of their homes, some women never seeing much more of
5
Ibid., 28.
6
Ibid., 125.
7
Millner-Gulland, R.R. & Dejevsky, Nikolai J., Cultural Atlas of Russia and the Former Soviet Union (New York:
InfoBase Publishing, 1998), 154-155.
8
Kollontai, Alexandra, “Communism and the Family”, RIC Classroom Session, 1.
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the world than what they would view from their windows previously, now being allowed to

socialize outside of the home. At work, on women’s group trips to the theatre and picnics a

social event was now standard for a woman to embark on. These new freedoms would help the

woman develop a sense of independence, freedom and more personality than ever expected even

two decades prior to this time.9

While the Communist state gave freedoms to women in this aspect, and even gave more

free and even access to the workforce, it was still believed that the family would maintain

contrary to popular belief in Russian history. Capitalism was believed to have burdened the

women of the West forcing them to work hours much longer than what would be necessary in

the Soviet Union and that the family would break down.10 Fear of capitalism interfering and

penetrating Soviet lifestyle would be persistent under Lenin, Stalin and further through the 20th

century, fearing that it forces many to only consume and no longer produce for the bettering of

the national economy. The Soviet woman would still be allowed to work, the Soviet woman

would still be able to produce her own linens, butter, pickled foods and soups at home while still

eating in a communal setting, thus preserving the Russian state and further enhancing the value

of Communism to the nation as professed by Lenin.11

Women’s newly founded freedom would not only allow them to become free from the

standard of remaining as a housewife throughout their lives but they would also be subjected to

all the punishments and torments of life that generally only men would have previously been

faced with. Women were now more often subject to the consequences faced in the Gulag, or the

Soviet prison system heavily abused by Stalin. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a highly decorated

9
Smith, Hedrick, “Women, Liberated but Not Emancipated,” in The Russians (New York: Quadrangle/New York
Times Book Co., 1976), 175-176.
10
Ibid., 3.
11
Ibid., 4-5, 7.
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Captain of the Red Army and Soviet Army, wrote of what he saw of the women within the

Gulag. These women were not only prone to forced rapes and tragic living conditions enforced

by camp officers but were also made to do the same work as some men were doing. While

having questionable pregnancies, venereal diseases and poor health women were now subject to

do the same work in the Gulag as men12; Soviet mentality held true through home life and life in

prison, equality amongst the genders. Solzhenitsyn will go on to say that “everything was harder

for the women than for [men]”13 perhaps to make a point that the Soviets were truly enforcing

matters of equality by making it clearly evident to male prisoners that females were not getting

an easy ticket out.

The new development that Russia has been faced with starting with the Bolshevik

Revolution leading to Lenin’s rise in power, to the near century reign of Soviet Union leaders, up

through modern day times has been one of the most rapid changing time periods in Russian

history. The amount of change that has taken place thanks to the overthrowing of the Romanov

Dynasty, and thus diminishing of Imperial and “Old Russia”, has allowed for groundbreaking

advancements within the feminist and women’s rights movements – especially for that of the

Russian housewife. Women are no longer confined to the walls of their homes, women no longer

have to rely on their husbands, women can be their own human being and form a life of their

own if the so desire. Though these changes have been drastically increased there is still much

work that needs to be done. Women still need an easier route to go through to access healthcare

products, including birth control, something that has been fast tracked through the past two

decades since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992 but still needs improvement. Marshall Poe

puts it best through saying “Russia is now, for the first time in half a millennium, experimenting
12
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (NY: HarperCollins
Publisher, 2007), 233-235, 237.
13
Ibid., 232.
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with a radically new way of doing things. Whether it will succeed in the new or return to the old,

only time will tell.”14

Bibliography

Chekhov, Anton, “The Lady with the Toy Dog,” in Five Great Short Stories (Mineola,

NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990).

14
Poe, 104.
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Kollontai, Alexandra, “Communism and the Family”, RIC Classroom Session.

Millner-Gulland, R.R. & Dejevsky, Nikolai J., Cultural Atlas of Russia and the Former

Soviet Union (New York: InfoBase Publishing, 1998).

Poe, Marshall T., The Russian Moment in World History (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 2003).

Pouncy, Carolyn, ed., trans., The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time

of Ivan the Terrible (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994)

Smith, Hedrick, “Women, Liberated but Not Emancipated,” in The Russians (New York:

Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co., 1976).

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary

Investigation (NY: HarperCollins Publisher, 2007).