Soviet people with female bodies : performing beauty and maternity in Soviet Russia in the mid 1930-1960s

The everyday practices of maternity and beauty are important for the enactment of femininity. This dissertation deals with femininities created in the context of changing ideas about normality in Soviet Russia during the mid 1930s-1960s and explores a diversity of norms, discourses and rituals. The main sources are womens magazines, advice books, and interviews with women living now in three different cities of the Russian Federation Moscow, Saratov (Volga region) and Ufa (capital of Bashkortostan Republic).