Russian Revolution and Georgian Feminists: Woman as a Political Subject

Abstract

This research aims to find out how the early twentieth century Georgian women/feminists were trying to realize themselves as political subjects; how their efforts played out in their contemporary political context; what was the development of these women’s identities in the Soviet Union. The Research took such a focus, because I consider that it is important to study the role of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet state in the development of Georgian society and also, to focus on the history of women as political subjects. As its data, this research uses texts obtained in archives. Data analysis is done by using gender as analytic category. I have analysed the political activities of two Georgian feminists, Kato Mikeladze (1877-1943) and Nino Tkeshelashvili (1874-1956) as well as their relations and reactions towards the Russian Revolution. Despite these women’s political and revolutionary activities in the 1910s, the 1920s mark as the years of their transformation and gaining new identities of writers and/or poetesses. This became their dominant identities by which they are known in the Soviet historiography and contemporary Georgian historiography and general discourse as well. The data is analysed in order to reveal what was the basis of such transformation and subsequently, the reasons of marginalization of these women, as feminists and political subjects, in history.