Military Masculinity and Postwar Recovery in the Soviet Union

"Throughout the book, the author emphasizes the ways in which military masculinity was defined in opposition to femininity and with disregard to women’s responsibilities and accomplishments. For these reasons, this book would be useful for students as a model of both thoughtful source interpretation and thorough gender analysis."

Deborah A. Field, Adrian College, Slavic Review

"As she explores the process of reclaiming military masculinity in the postwar period in the context of competing masculinities in the Soviet landscape, Fraser divides her study into sections according to her source base, beginning with archival sources of military and Komsomol institutions and then moving on to sexualized and gendered imagery from Krokodil, then to memoir literature from nuclear physicists, and finally to the public celebrity of the first cosmonauts in the 1960s. Her use of a wide variety of sources and viewpoints allows for a unique perspective into ‘how hegemony as a relational form was reconfirmed and maintained – as part of postwar recovery narratives.’"

Greta Bucher, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, The Russian Review, Vol 79, July 2020

"This study is a welcome addition to the growing literature on Soviet masculinities as it powerfully shows how worries over postwar manhood shaped Cold War security concerns."

Brandon Gray Miller, Southern Methodist University, Canadian Slavonic Papers

"Fraser has written a solid monograph that fills a significant lacuna in the historiography of the Soviet Union. […] This pioneering work is a concise, overall well-written piece of scholarship that showcases an impressive toolbox full of methodologies."

Brandon Schechter, New York University, American Historical Review

"Military Masculinity and Postwar Recovery in the Soviet Union explores the crucial yet understudied question of how the Soviet Union sought to restore ideals of martial and scientific masculinity in the decades after the cataclysmic ‘Great Patriotic War.’ This compelling study will engage upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, as well as scholars in Russian studies, gender studies, and history of science.

Karen Petrone, Department of History, University of Kentucky

"By focusing on the reconstruction of the link between military service and masculinity after 1945, Fraser repeatedly proves that we cannot think about issues to do with masculinity in isolation – women also need to be a part of the picture. Compelling and detailed, this book deals with an aspect of Soviet society that is drastically under-researched with authority, and utilizes both a novel approach and source base in doing so."

Claire McCallum, Department of History, University of Exeter