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Abstract:

The paper analyses the life and personality of Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva, a Soviet party official and Minister of Culture of the USSR, in the context of the representation of Soviet femininity. Furtseva is considered as both an exceptional and, at the same time, a typical case of a woman’s journey in the Soviet period. Using her example, the article traces the demands and constraints imposed on women by the Soviet regime, their transformations over time, and the possibilities and limits of women’s self-realization in the USSR. By examining such aspects of Furtseva’s life as her origins, her early work in a textile factory, her participation in sports and militarized youth rituals, her education, the stages of her party career, her tenure as Minister of Culture, and her family life, the author seeks to demonstrate how the Soviet state’s efforts to create a “new woman” were intricately intertwined with and, in part, undermined by patriarchal traditions deeply embedded in ideology and everyday practices.

Keywords: Ekaterina Furtseva, Soviet femininity, women in the USSR, “new Soviet woman”.