Military Masculinity and Postwar Recovery in the Soviet Union Browse Inside

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Military Masculinity and Postwar Recovery in the Soviet Union

By Erica L. Fraser

© 2019

Catastrophic wartime casualties and postwar discomfort with the successes of women who had served in combat roles combined to shatter prewar ideals about what service meant for Soviet masculine identity. The soldier had to be re-imagined and resold to a public that had just emerged from the Second World War, and a younger generation suspicious of state control. In doing so, Soviet military culture wrote women out and attempted to re-establish soldiering as the premier form of masculinity in society.

Military Masculinity and Postwar Recovery in the Soviet Union combines textual and visual analysis, as well as archival research to highlight the multiple narratives that contributed to rebuilding military identities. Each chapter visits a particular site of this reconstruction, including debates about conscription and evasion, appropriate role models for cadets, misogynist military imagery in cartoons, the fraught militarized workplaces of nuclear physicists, and the first cohort of cosmonauts, who represented the completion of the project to rebuild militarized masculinity.

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Product Details

  • World Rights
  • Page Count: 272 pages
  • Dimensions: 6.5in x 1.0in x 9.3in
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SKU# SP004158

  • PUBLISHED APR 2019

    From: $48.75

    Regular Price: $65.00

    ISBN 9781442637207
  • PUBLISHED APR 2019

    From: $48.75

    Regular Price: $65.00

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Quick Overview

Rearming Masculinity explores military masculinity in the Soviet Union after the catastrophe of the Second World War. Soldiering had to be reimagined and resold to the public, which involved writing women out and re-establishing military identity as the premier form of masculinity in Soviet society.

Military Masculinity and Postwar Recovery in the Soviet Union

By Erica L. Fraser

© 2019

Catastrophic wartime casualties and postwar discomfort with the successes of women who had served in combat roles combined to shatter prewar ideals about what service meant for Soviet masculine identity. The soldier had to be re-imagined and resold to a public that had just emerged from the Second World War, and a younger generation suspicious of state control. In doing so, Soviet military culture wrote women out and attempted to re-establish soldiering as the premier form of masculinity in society.

Military Masculinity and Postwar Recovery in the Soviet Union combines textual and visual analysis, as well as archival research to highlight the multiple narratives that contributed to rebuilding military identities. Each chapter visits a particular site of this reconstruction, including debates about conscription and evasion, appropriate role models for cadets, misogynist military imagery in cartoons, the fraught militarized workplaces of nuclear physicists, and the first cohort of cosmonauts, who represented the completion of the project to rebuild militarized masculinity.

Continue Reading Read Less

Product Details

  • World Rights
  • Page Count: 272 pages
  • Dimensions: 6.5in x 1.0in x 9.3in

  • Reviews

    "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

  • Author Information

    Erica L. Fraser is an instructor in the Department of History at Carleton University.

  • Table of contents

    Introduction
    Soviet Masculinities
    The Soviet Union after the War
    Sources and Narratives

    Part I: Martial Masculinities and the Postwar Armed Forces

    Chapter 1. Conscripting Soviet Manhood
        Conscription in War and Peace
        DOSAAF and Young Men in Civilian Defence
        "No One is Interested": Avoiding DOSAAF
        Cataloguing Evasion
        Soldiers without an Army: Khrushchev’s Troop Reductions
        Conclusion

    Chapter 2. Looking for Role Models in Education and Literature
        War Orphans and Boyhood at the Suvorov Academies
        Cadets and Community Surveillance of Masculine Behaviour
        Defence Instructors as Surrogate Fathers
        Masculine Role Models in Literature and Film
        Conclusion

    Part II: Martial Masculinities Outside the Military during the Early Cold War

    Chapter 3. Gender and Militarism in Foreign Affairs Cartoons
        Sex, Humour, and Visual Culture
        Franco in a Skirt: Cross-dressing and Misogyny
            Assaulting Marianne
        The Soviet Counterpoint
        Conclusion

    Chapter 4. Telling Manly Stories About Nuclear Physics
        Masculinity and "Scientific Impotence"
        The Gendered Cold War Workplace
        "Some Kind of God": Rearming a Soviet Prometheus
        Telling Manly Stories
        Conclusion

    Chapter 5. Martial Masculinity and the Cosmonaut Brotherhood
        Gendering Sputnik
        Even Martian Girls Want to Date Gagarin
        The Cosmonaut’s Wife
        Cosmonaut Masculinity on Tour
        Conclusion

    Conclusion

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