Der Schatten der Männer: Historikerinnen im Zarenreich

• Published in: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas Vol. 62; no. 4; pp. 481 - 531
• Main Author: Kappeler, Andreas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: German
• Published: Franz Steiner Verlag 15.12.2014
• Subjects: ABHANDLUNGEN; JGO 2014, 481
• ISSN: 0021-4019; 2366-2891

The Shadow of the Men: Women Historians in Tsarist Russia While the history of women historians in Germany, the United States and other countries has been studied by a growing number of scholars during the last 25 years, the women historians of tsarist Russia have been neglected almost completely. This article gives a first overview of the topic in presenting the lives and works of 50 women who have published at least one historical study between 1837 and 1917. On the one hand it tries to outline a collective biography of these women (social and ethnic origin, relationship to parents and husbands, education, profession, social and political activities), on the other hand it presents an overview of their oeuvre. So the article contributes to the history of the historiography and to the gender history of the Russian Empire. The women historians of Russia shared several characteristics with their colleagues in other countries, such as discrimination in a patriarchal society, dependence on their fathers and husbands, late access to the universities and to many professions, exclusion from the core research areas of political and intellectual history and edition of sources. As in other countries they reacted in specializing in writing for children and a wider public, and in looking for niches in the less prestigious fields of social, everyday and gender history. Here some women wrote pioneering studies which have been of interest until today. On the other hand we can discern certain peculiarities of women historians in Russia in comparison with female historians in other countries. The educated elite in Russia was less misogynist than in other countries of continental Europe. Most women historians were married and had children: In Russia the scholarly work of the women was compatible with family life. Women historians had the possibility to teach at schools of all levels (since 1914 even at the universities) and to publish their studies in prestigious journals. The most important advantage was the existence of the Higher Courses for women (from the 1870’s) which provided them with a professional training on equal level with universities. Almost all of the women historians of the last two generations graduated at the Courses, most of them at the Bestuzhev courses in St. Petersburg. Because of their existence women historians in the Russian empire surpassed their colleagues in other countries of continental Europe. They succeeded partially in stepping out from the shadow of men, but they remained in the shadow of male historiography.