Performing Politics as a Woman in Moscow Dissident Circles in the 1970s and 1980s

Natalia Kolyagina is a doctoral candidate at the Sorbonne Université in Paris. She coordinated a research program for the study of Soviet dissidence at the International Memorial Society in Moscow, banned by the authorities after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

This presentation will explore women's participation in human rights dissident circles in late-Soviet Moscow, discussing their strategies of ideological and cultural resistance in the context of traditional gender roles assigned to women in the Soviet Union's patriarchal society. While questioning and undermining the state, Soviet dissident communities created unofficial forms of self-organization, while adhering to the cultural codes and social practices and norms widespread in the Soviet Union. The talk will analyze the relationship between the gender models adopted by Soviet dissident communities and their impact on individual strategies of resistance practiced by Soviet dissidents.