Publishers Weekly
04/18/2022
In these informative if somewhat dry biographical sketches, Ghodsee (Taking Stock), a professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, describes the careers of five socialist women who fought for revolutionary change in Russia and Bulgaria in the first half 20th century and influenced women’s movements abroad. Soviet diplomat Alexandra Kollontai, “enigmatic” Russian political activist Inessa Armand, education reformer Nadezhda Krupskaya (who also was Lenin’s wife), WWII sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko, and Bulgarian scientist and politician Elena Lagadinova pushed for women’s equality while engineering a future socialist society. Some, including Kollontai and Pavlichenko, even toured in the West and became media sensations for their achievements. Ghodsee is careful to distinguish these women from many of their counterparts in the West, noting that “liberal feminism supports a worldview wherein everything is just fine as long as women have better access to wealth and power,” whereas her heroines “imagined a political project that challenged the exploitation of unpaid labor in the private sphere as part of a wider program to overcome the injustices perpetuated by a free market system that produces systemic forms of discrimination.” Though Ghodsee lucidly explains the era’s revolutionary politics, she struggles to convey these women’s lives beyond their résumés. Still, this is an eye-opening deep dive into an underexamined aspect of feminist history. (July)
From the Publisher
We’ve needed this book longer than we know: celebrating and learning from revolutionary socialist women, Red Valkyries gifts us with models essential to today’s struggles. Kristen Ghodsee breaks down the wall liberal feminism built in women’s history, bringing to life a vision of emancipation that continues to be worth fighting for.”
—Jodi Dean, author of Comrade
“Written with clarity and zest, Red Valkyries is an illuminating introduction to the extraordinary lives of prominent socialist women in the Soviet Union and Bulgaria.”
—Sheila Rowbotham, author of Daring to Hope
“In our historical moment, quotas of women in power positions and correct manners or expressions are obfuscating the long historical link between feminism and radical politics. Ghodsee’s Red Valkyries is exactly the book needed to correct this misperception and help feminism to rejoin its radical past. The five figures analyzed were fighters who pursued the feminist cause through their full engagement in revolutionary political struggle.”
—Slavoj Žižek
“Red Valkyries is a fascinating alternative history of the feminist movement, told from the perspective of the east rather than the west. The women Ghodsee profiles are committed socialists who realise that women’s liberation is incompatible with capitalism, and who also frequently struggle against the centralisation of power within their own countries. Required reading for anyone seeking out an alternative to #girlboss feminism.”
—Grace Blakeley, author of The Corona Crash
"A beautiful book about the intimate lives and bold ideas of Communist women who built theirrevolutionary dreams into reality. Ghodsee lifts up the immense contradiction between thefuture-oriented social hopes of these revolutionaries, these exiles from the future, and the grip ofthe social conventions of the present.”
—Vijay Prashad, author of Washington Bullets
“Until the late 20th century, you could pay close attention in school, graduate from a prestigious university with a degree in history and still never find out who Harriet Tubman was. Outrageous, right? But due to capitalist ideology and Cold War hangover, you could still do all that and never learn about Alexandra Kollontai or Inessa Armand, or any of history’s great Communist women. Kristen Ghodsee’s riveting account of these complicated, imperfect and inspiring lives is an outstanding corrective to our miseducation, one that’s long overdue.”
—Liza Featherstone
“Funny and politically illuminating, Ghodsee writes with the clear-sighted directness of the revolutionary women she describes. Women’s sexual, political and daily emancipation were the eye of the socialist storm for Kollantai, Krupskaya, Armand and Lagadinova. Ghodsee's book breathes new life into their stories of how to create a world without patriarchy.”
—Elizabeth Armstrong, Smith College
“Kristen Ghodsee’s new book is a well-documented and immensely personal guide to the 20th-century East European socialist women’s movement. The author extracts from silence and saves from oblivion five women who have made an attempt to change not only their own, personal history, but also political, social and cultural history of women in Europe and worldwide. It is a story about a communist revolution in which women played a significant role, creating and implementing the project of a better world for all people. Reflections on the past are not, however, used to celebrate it nostalgically, but to draw conclusions for the future—how to act to build an alternative to the hegemony of capitalism and nationalism. This well-written, passionate story about the “red Valkyries” shows that socialism is not a song of the past, but still valid and long-awaited response to the challenges of the present world. Ghodsee argues that the history is not over, but rushes forward. Speeding up, however, it needs signposts to avoid falling into the abyss. The Red Valkyries will be perfect for this role.”
—Agnieszka Mrozik, Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences
“Compelling … by telling unfamiliar and forgotten stories, [Red Valkyries] suggests there are other fronts on which the battle can be fought than those favoured by western feminists.”
—Desmond Bullen, Northern Soul
“Illuminating … Ghodsee equips us with five extraordinary role models whose tenacity, perseverance and dedication to revolutionary politics should serve as inspiration to anyone seeking to build a better world for all.”
—Rachel Collett, Red Pepper
“This is an eye-opening deep dive into an underexamined aspect of feminist history.”
—Publishers Weekly
“As an expert in her field, [Ghodsee] deftly covers vast amounts of history, political theory, and complicated personal relationships … A timely and fascinating volume for those interested in Russian and socialist history.”
—Halie Kerns, Library Journal
“Ghodsee weaves these women’s ideologies and feminist views into the larger picture of a time, that of multiple world wars, open revolution, burgeoning socialist societies, and the knowledge that extreme change was needed in dire circumstances.”
—Kathleen Townsend, Booklist
“A compelling book, a call for a broader understanding of the history of women’s political practice, the ideas that informed it, and its implications for our own time.”
—Ben Clarke, Chicago Review of Books
“Any utopia first needs to be imagined. For that endeavor, Ghodsee’s gripping book, with its important ideas distilled (yet not made banal) for those who might be encountering them for the first time, is available.”
—Oana Uiorean, LIBER
Library Journal
06/01/2022
Ghodsee packs a punch in her short volume focusing on five different Red Valkyries. Resistant to the label "feminist" because of its close association with the western liberal feminist agenda, Ghodsee explores her socialist women activists one by one, tracing their lives and work as they respond to some of the most significant Russian and world events of the 20th century. As an expert in her field, she deftly covers vast amounts of history, political theory, and complicated personal relationships in an accessible way for all levels of informed readers. She invokes a large body of research, which can be seen in the extensive notes section and the "suggestions for further reading" pages. But her prose is never too academic, and the little-known stories of the women are captivating. The Red Valkyries' accomplishments, in everything from record-breaking sniper kills to the formation of several political institutions for women's emancipation, help challenge narrow views of what it meant to empower women in the twentieth century. Ghodsee ends the book with nine overarching lessons to take from the women's lives, which helps reframe their efforts for today's activists. VERDICT A timely and fascinating volume for those interested in Russian and socialist history.—Halie Kerns
