Authors

Pavel Vasilyev¹; Anastasiia Starkova¹;  ¹ Personal capacity, Russian Federation

Discussion

The paper looks at Mariya Ivanovna Pokrovskaya, a Russian physician active in late Imperial and early Soviet periods, a founder of the Female Progressive Party and a prolific writer on women's rights, prostitution, hygiene, urban housing conditions and other issues. There has been some research on Pokrovskaya's activism in the late Imperial period (Rochelle Ruthchild, Angelika Strobel). At the same time, it has also been acknowledged that 'little is known about the activities of this feminist pioneer after the Revolution'. The paper, therefore, has a focus on Pokrovskaya's activities following the 1917 February revolution and her transition to the early Soviet period. The paper makes extensive use of Pokrovskaya's under-researched personal collection at the Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg (TsGIA SPb) and attempts to situate her within early 20th century Russian and global liberal discourse.
In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Pokrovskaya continued to pursue her research and political agenda and openly criticized the Soviet authorities. However, later she agreed to volunteer her scientific expertise to the new regime and serve as a local health and sanitary inspector in Petrograd until her death in the early 1920s. Drawing on Daniel Beer's concept of 'renovating Russia', we use Pokrovskaya's case to study the complex relationships between the social sciences, Russian liberalism and the state across the 1917 revolutionary divide.