eprintid: 10043447 rev_number: 26 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/10/04/34/47 datestamp: 2018-03-07 14:43:02 lastmod: 2020-02-12 20:57:30 status_changed: 2018-03-07 14:43:02 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Koenker, DP title: Stalinism on the Frontier of Empire: Women and State Formation in the Soviet Far East. By Elena Shulman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xiv plus 260 pp. $79.00.) ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: A01 divisions: B03 divisions: D92 keywords: Arts & Humanities, History, Stalinism, The Soviet Union, Communistic regime, Khetagurovites, Socialism, Human rights note: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. abstract: In 1937, at the height of the Soviet terror, a Communist youth league activist and wife of an official in the Soviet Far East wrote to a central newspaper to invite young women to volunteer to join her to help build socialism on the easternmost frontier of the Soviet Union. In the next three years, over 300,000 women volunteered, and about 25,000 were chosen to lend their skills and labor to the construction of farms, schools, administration, and industry of the Far East. They received the name “Khetagurovites,” after the woman who issued the original call, Valentina Khetagurova. This deeply researched and exquisitely argued book uses the phenomenon of the Khetagurovites to explore a number of key issues in the history of the Soviet Union, and it makes major contributions to our understanding of state-building, empire, gender, and sexuality in the context of the Soviet experiment. Above all, the book successfully punctures arguments about a “great retreat” to a pre-revolutionary domesticity in the 1930s, and instead offers a compelling picture of women who enthusiastically seized the opportunity to test their mettle in difficult conditions and to contribute to the common effort of the construction of socialism. date: 2011-03-01 date_type: published publisher: GEORGE MASON UNIV official_url: https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2011.0020 oa_status: green full_text_type: other language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green article_type: review article_type_text: Book Review verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1527394 doi: 10.1353/jsh.2011.0020 language_elements: English lyricists_name: Koenker, Diane lyricists_id: DKOEN71 actors_name: Koenker, Diane actors_id: DKOEN71 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Journal of Social History volume: 44 number: 3 pagerange: 960-962 pages: 3 issn: 0022-4529 citation: Koenker, DP; (2011) Stalinism on the Frontier of Empire: Women and State Formation in the Soviet Far East. By Elena Shulman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xiv plus 260 pp. $79.00.). [Review]. Journal of Social History , 44 (3) pp. 960-962. 10.1353/jsh.2011.0020 <https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2011.0020>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10043447/1/Koenker_%20Stalinism%20on%20the%20Frontier%20of%20Empire%20Women%20and%20State%20Formation%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Far%20East.pdf