This book looks at Russian women's mobilization and agency during the two periods of transformation, the turn of the 19th-20th century and the 20th - 21st century. Bringing together the parallels between the two great transformations, it focuses on both the continuities and breaks and, importantly, it shows them from the grassroots point of view, emphasizing the local factor. Chapters show the international and transnational aspects of Russian women's agency of different spheres and different historical periods. The book goes on to raise new research questions such as the evaluation and comparison of Soviet society and contemporary Russia from the point of view of gender and women's possibilities in society.

1. Breaks and Continuities of Two 'Great Transformations' Aino Saarinen, Kirsti Ekonen and Valentina Uspenskaia Part 1 2. First-Wave Women's Movement: Result and Factor of Civil Society Formation in Russia Irina Iukina 3. The Art of Change: Modernist Women Writers' Feminist Thinking Kirsti Ekonen 4. Integration or Exploitation? Party Political Mobilization of Women in Early Twentieth Century Russia Vera Kulik 5. Working for Women's Liberation in a Radical Fashion: Family Life in the Emancipatory Project of Aleksandra Kollontai Valentina Uspenskaia 6. 'Solving' the 'Woman Question': The Case of Zhenotdels in Tver Province Natalia Kozlova Part 2 7. Perestroika and Feminist Critique Elena Zdravomyslova 8. Gender Mainstreaming and the NGO-ization of Russian Women's Activism Julie Hemment 9. Russian Public Sphere from a Gender Perspective: The Arkhangelsk Region Case Natalia Kukarenko 10. Karelian Women's Network: A (Feminist) Women's Movement? Meri Kulmala 11. Revisiting a Transborder Network Project: Combating Gender Violence in the Barents Region Aino Saarinen 12. Sex Trafficking, Women's Activism in Russia, and the US Intervention Janet Elise Johnson