Motherland

A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy

Acclaimed journalist Julia Ioffe tells the story of modern Russia through the history of its women, from revolution to utopia to autocracy.

In 1990, seven-year-old Julia Ioffe and her family fled the Soviet Union. Nearly twenty years later, Ioffe returned to Moscow—only to discover just how much Russian society had changed while she had been living in America. The Soviet women she had known growing up—doctors, engineers, scientists—had seemingly been replaced with women desperate to marry rich and become stay-at-home moms. How had Russia gone from portraying itself as the vanguard of world feminism to the last bastion of conservative Christian values?

In Motherland, Ioffe turns modern Russian history on its head, telling it exclusively through the stories of its women. From her own physician great-grandmothers to Lenin’s lover, a feminist revolutionary; from the hundreds of thousands of Soviet girls who fought in World War II to the millions of single mothers who rebuilt and repopulated a devastated country; from the members of Pussy Riot to Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, Ioffe chronicles one of the most audacious social experiments in history and how it failed the very women it was meant to liberate—and documents how that failure paved the way for the revanche of Vladimir Putin.

Part memoir, part journalistic exploration, part history, Motherland paints a portrait of modern Russia through the women who shaped it. With deep emotion, Ioffe shows what it means to live through the cataclysms of revolution, war, idealism, and heartbreak—and reveals how the story of Russia today is inextricably tied to the history of its women.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Stupendous research and insight

An astonishing work of history as well as contemporary reportage, Julia Ioffe tackles the most awe-inspiring and darkest periods of Russian history—for women. As deeply researched as it is felt, this listener was blown away by Ioffe’s account, which opens desperate questions for the future of Russia’s political leadership and policy reform. I am hoping this book reaches its intended audience—not so much the hardened minds and hearts of politicians who might never change from sheer inertia, but the citizenry whose only choice at this time appears to be to suffer for justice which might not come in their lifetime.

Chilling and compelling. Highly recommended.

Julia Ioffe's eloquent way of weaving historical and personal stories together

I absolutely loved this book. It was a compellingly interesting and moving way to present her personal and non personal history. In a word, a masterpiece.

Better than I thought!

A book club was reading this and I thought it was going to be more political. I found it more historical, informative. I would be dead 100 times over if I had lived in Russia. The bravery of the women in these stories is unbelievable. I thoroughly enjoyed this, learned about the horrific conditions generations have survived, and I’m leaving with an admiration for the strength and pride of the Russian women

Sincerity!

The factual breakdown of the survival of the people. Weaving the family history into the narrative.

Thank you for an amazing offering…

I learned so much from this book. About Russia, about the United States, about patriarchy and the lethality of Russia’s special version of it. I never knew about Alexandra Collontai (sp?) and her vision for what a woman -centered world can look like. Inspirational. So depressing that, after all that Russia has gone through, the revolution and on through the 20th and now the 21st centuries, it has ended up very much like it started. It’s a story that really reinforced for me why working for a more perfect union, living democratically, sharing power, building a more collaborative world beyond patriarchy is worth all the effort.