Creating the Formidable Woman: Gender and Authority in Imperial Russia

FAIN: FB-52768-06

Michelle Lamarche Marrese
University of Toronto (Toronto M5S 1A5 Canada)

The phenomenon of extended female rule in eighteenth-century Russia--its impact on Russian society and its implications for women--comprises a central problem in the history of imperial Russia. Yet both scholarly and popular accounts of the age of empresses continue to be dominated by conjecture and anecdote. The goal of this project is, first, to examine the parameters of noblewomen's authority against the backdrop of female rule. Secondly, this work will confront the contradiction between women's circumscribed political authority during the age of empresses and the persistent image in historical literature of the eighteenth century as one dominated by women.