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Military Masculinity and Postwar Recovery in the Soviet Union
Erica L. Fraser (Author)
9781442637207
Hardback, published 8 April 2019
272 pages
23.5 x 16.5 x 2.5 cm, 0.54 kg
"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." "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.’" "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." "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."
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.
Introduction Part I: Martial Masculinities and the Postwar Armed Forces Chapter 1. Conscripting Soviet Manhood Chapter 2. Looking for Role Models in Education and Literature Part II: Martial Masculinities Outside the Military during the Early Cold War Chapter 3. Gender and Militarism in Foreign Affairs Cartoons Chapter 4. Telling Manly Stories About Nuclear Physics Chapter 5. Martial Masculinity and the Cosmonaut Brotherhood Conclusion
Soviet Masculinities
The Soviet Union after the War
Sources and Narratives
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
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
Sex, Humour, and Visual Culture
Franco in a Skirt: Cross-dressing and Misogyny
Assaulting Marianne
The Soviet Counterpoint
Conclusion
Masculinity and "Scientific Impotence"
The Gendered Cold War Workplace
"Some Kind of God": Rearming a Soviet Prometheus
Telling Manly Stories
Conclusion
Gendering Sputnik
Even Martian Girls Want to Date Gagarin
The Cosmonaut’s Wife
Cosmonaut Masculinity on Tour
Conclusion