Womens Experiences of Repression in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
Based on extensive original research, including studies of autobiographies and biographies, reminiscences and memoirs, archived oral history data and interviews conducted by the authors, this book provides a rich picture of how women experienced repression in the former Soviet bloc. Although focusing on key years when repression was at its height 1937 for the Soviet Union, 1941 for Lithuania and Poland, 1948 for Czechoslovakia and 1956 for Romania the book ranges more widely. It demonstrates that although far fewer women than men were the direct victims of repression, women experienced severe repression in many ways, including exile, deportation and as family members of those arrested, imprisoned and executed.
Kelly Hignett is a Senior Lecturer in History at Leeds Beckett University, UK.
Melanie Ilic is Professor of Soviet History at the University of Gloucestershire, UK.
Dalia Leinarte is Professor of History at Vytautus Magnus University, Lithuania.
Corina Snitar is a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, UK.
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Womens Experiences of Repression in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
Kelly Hignett, Melanie Ilic,
Dalia Leinarte and Corina Snitar
Womens Experiences of Repression in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
Kelly Hignett, Melanie Ilic, Dalia Leinarte and Corina Snitar
First published 2018
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2018 Kelly Hignett, Melanie Ilic, Dalia Leinarte and Corina Snitar
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Kelly Hignett is Senior Lecturer in History at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Kelly Hignetts research relates to the history of modern Central and Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on communist Czechoslovakia. She has previously published a number of articles and book chapters about crime, social deviance and dissent in communist and post- communist Central and Eastern Europe. Kellys most recent research relates to repression in Czechoslovakia in the period from 1945 to 1968, with a particular focus on womens experiences. She is currently writing a new monograph- length study of the 1952 trial of Rudolf Slnsk and is also planning a longer- term project about experiences of incarceration and forced labour in post- Second World War Eastern Europe.
Melanie Ilic is Professor of Soviet History at the University of Gloucestershire, UK. Melanie Ilic is author of Women Workers in the Soviet Interwar Economy (1999) and Life Stories of Soviet Women (2013), and editor of Women in the Stalin Era (2001), Stalins Terror Revisited (2006), and The Palgrave Hand- book of Women and Gender in Twentieth- Century Russia and the Soviet Union. She is co- editor (with Susan E. Reid and Lynne Attwood) of Women in the Khrushchev Era (2003), (with J.R. Smith) Soviet State and Society under Nikita Khrushchev (2009) and Khrushchev in the Kremlin (2011), (with Katalin Miklssy) Competition in Socialist Society (2014), and (with Dalia Leinarte), The Soviet Past in the Post- Socialist Present (2016). She is also author of a number of other articles and book chapters on different aspects of Soviet history. Her current research focuses on Soviet womens everyday lives.
Dalia Leinarte is Professor of History at Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania, and a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, UK. She is a Chairperson of the UN CEDAW Committee. In addition to her many journal article and book chapter publications, Dalia Leinarte is author of The Lithuanian Family in its European Context, 18001914: Marriage, Divorce and Flexible Communities (2017) and Adopting and Remembering Soviet Reality: Life Stories of Lithuanian Women, 19451970 (2010). She is also co- editor (with Melanie Ilic) of The Soviet Past in the Post- Socialist Present: Methodology and Ethics in Russian, Baltic and Central European Oral History and Memory Studies (2016).
Corina Snitar is a PhD Candidate in Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK. As a participant in the revolution that ended the Communist regime in Romania and a witness to the political, social and economic transformations occurring from this important moment in its history, Corina Snitar began research in Soviet Studies, with a focus on Cold War International Relations, more than 20 years ago. Her desire was to understand not only how Communism could last for so many years, but also to decipher its legacy in the world this system left behind. Her MSc dissertation in International Relations examined the spheres of influence in Europe. Her research interest has continued in Soviet Studies alongside Security Studies. Her PhD research focuses on the repressive methods of the former Secret Services and peoples resistance in Soviet- dominated Central and Eastern Europe. She is preparing publications on the 1956 students movement in Timisoara and surveillance methods in 1950s Romania.
