“It Will Be Absolutely Impossible to Hide Women Again in Those Corners into Which They Have Been Driven from Time Immemorial...”. The Great War and the Emancipation of Women in the Discourse of Women's Magazines (1914-1916)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the discourse of women's magazines in the prerevolutionary period of the First World War. It is shown that the main topic of publications was the problem of "woman and war" - the issues of the impact of war on the position of women, her participation in social and political processes, the cause of national mobilization. In the discourse of the studied women's magazines ("Women's Bulletin", "Women's Affair", "Women's Life", "Journal for Women"), issues of emancipation played a significant role, considered in close connection with the problems generated by the war, which reflected the formation of new identities and models of women' behavior in political, social and family spheres. Thematic blocks were identified and considered, within which issues of emancipation were discussed on the pages of journals - the actualization of the women's issue in connection with the war and the role of women in the post-war world order; the impact of the war on the gender order and gender ideology, problems and contradictions in the field of gender relations; expansion of spheres of responsibility, work and activity of women; the role of women in the process of national mobilization in Russia and allied countries; domestic and foreign experience of social and political participation of women, their self-organization. An analysis of the discourse of women's publications shows that the WW1 became an important milestone in women's history in Russia, contributing to the development of women's self-awareness, the intensification of their relations with the state and various segments of society, providing a way out of the home, involving them in the processes of political and social communication. The war accelerated the inclusion of women in the public sphere, their obtaining new economic and social opportunities, revealed the resurces for using gender images and language in the process of political mobilization. © 2022 Aquilo. All rights reserved.