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Inheriting and Re-imagining Rights: Assessing References to a Soviet Past amongst Young Women in Neoliberal and Neoconservative Russia

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Women’s Narratives and the Postmemory of Displacement in Central and Eastern Europe

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Life Writing ((PSLW))

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Abstract

Turbine brings together feminist interventions on inherited memories with work on post-Soviet imaginaries and youth cultures. The chapter reveals how inherited memories of Soviet rights and citizenship are transmitted and also disrupted in daily intergenerational interactions in the family—a core site for both collective memory projects and the development of individual subjectivities. Through analyses of when references to ‘Soviet’ occur in interviews conducted with young women over a series of projects between 2005 and 2014, the chapter highlights the ambiguities and ambivalences inherent within inherited memories. They produce re-imagined and idealised versions of Soviet social citizenship that are regarded as simultaneously emancipatory and restrictive in its expectations of, and effects on, women. Thus, the chapter calls for the further need for feminist interventions within studies of collective memory.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In Russia, intergenerational household are common due to legacies of housing shortages and the current difficult economic situation that keeps young people financially dependent. Younger people are living with their parents for longer, a trend seen across the globe and in post-industrial, post-financial crisis Europe.

  2. 2.

    This piece of research was funded by the Economic & Social Research Council as part of the project ‘The Internet and everyday rights in Russia’. Details of the project and outputs can be found here: http://www.researchcatalogue.esrc.ac.uk/grants/RES-000-22-4159/read.

  3. 3.

    The interviews conducted in 2013 and in 2014 were conducted on the author’s behalf by Russian-speaking social scientists owing to the author’s maternity leaves. The 2014 project was funded by the University of Glasgow Adam Smith Research Foundation.

  4. 4.

    Owing to word limit constraints, full discussion of the methodology and sample are not included here. For full detail of the 2005 project, see Turbine (2007), for details of the 2013 and 2014 projects, see Turbine (2015).

  5. 5.

    All quotes are attributed to participants using a pseudonym. In order to protect their anonymity and confidentiality only a general level of contextual and demographic information is provided.

  6. 6.

    The participant is referring to state led, youth organisations that aimed to appropriately socialise young people as Soviet citizens.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Vikki Turbine

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  1. Vikki Turbine
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Correspondence to Vikki Turbine .

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  1. Department of Interdisciplinary Research, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania

    Simona Mitroiu

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Turbine, V. (2018). Inheriting and Re-imagining Rights: Assessing References to a Soviet Past amongst Young Women in Neoliberal and Neoconservative Russia. In: Mitroiu, S. (eds) Women’s Narratives and the Postmemory of Displacement in Central and Eastern Europe. Palgrave Studies in Life Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96833-9_11

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