Absolutely awesome catalogue. Soviet magazines for women

Now we are not surprised by the abundance of magazines and websites dedicated to the fair half of humanity. You can choose a publication to suit your taste: if you want to read about fashion, personal care, travel, or study sections about raising children, psychology, and cooking. But it was not always so.

Magazines during the USSR

During Soviet times, the official press became the mouthpiece of the CPSU. In addition to it, liberal publications were also published, as well as dissident newspapers. However, even at this time there were women’s magazines, the names of which are still remembered by those who are a little over 40: these are “Worker”, “Peasant Woman”, and “Soviet Woman”. But they also observed the unspoken rules of that era, that is, representatives of the fair half of humanity were depicted in them, first of all, as tireless workers or public figures.

But time dictated new rules: it was necessary to increase the birth rate, so all these publications were now trying to create a new image of a woman - an exemplary mother. Therefore, sections appeared in magazines from which girls could get practical advice and learn a lot of new and interesting things. They began to devote space to materials about spiritual and personal life. “The Peasant Woman” in the 70s attracted attention with its design and fashionable freedom: in the photo one could see women in romantic blouses, original accessories, and bright suits. But only famous personalities appeared on the covers of magazines: athletes, astronauts, shock workers, etc.

Magazines during perestroika and later

Times have changed. During the period of perestroika, global questions about the status of women began to be raised. It was no longer possible to hush up the real state of affairs. Women had rights, but their life was very difficult, since they had to combine the role of a mother, as well as a social activist and a worker. There was even a section in “The Worker” that described the hard work of women, for example, working as loaders or miners.

Both the materials and the style of presentation have changed. Even if they did an article about a famous woman, they talked not only about her achievements and hard work, but also about her family and life. All articles became emotional and interesting. And the design of the magazines changed: now you could see ordinary people on the covers, and not just celebrities, for example, a livestock specialist from the village of Korovnitsa or newlyweds, sometimes just a girl. Also, from the mid-80s, columns appeared with practical advice on how to raise a child, recommendations for housekeeping, etc., magazines became truly women's magazines. Readers could not help but like this, so in 1989 more than 20 million copies of these publications were released.

Names of popular magazines

In addition, the number of journals has increased over these few decades. In addition to “The Peasant Woman” and “The Worker,” one could also read other publications:

"Fashion of the season";

“Kuznetsky Most, 14”, began publishing in the 80s, was published every quarter, a fashion magazine;

“Riga Fashions”, which was published in Riga in the 50-80s, the magazine was also popular among Muscovites;

“Woman and Russia” (later – “Maria”). This magazine was created in 1979, it was uncensored. Censorship would not have spared him, since journalists showed the life of women in our country as complete humiliation. However, few could read this magazine, and the group of feminists who created it were soon evicted from the country;

Since the beginning of the 19th century, publishers have paid attention to women's themes in magazines. A real woman has always been associated with home comfort and maintaining the family hearth. And therefore this topic has always been in demand and relevant.

The subject of our research was a number of magazines published throughout the Soviet era, primarily the most popular “Rabotnitsa” and “Peasant Woman”...

1917-1928

In the period from 1917 to 1928, the main types of Soviet women's press emerged. At that time, the Central Committee of the Communist Party began to use periodicals to achieve its own goals.
The work of women's publications was organized in accordance with special party resolutions: their activities were now aimed at promoting the ideas of communism and attracting women to participate in the production process.
The authors of the magazines were party workers, worker reporters and village reporters. The publications now included sections on political education, agriculture, industrial production, eastern republics, as well as a foreign and literary section. The headings of home economics, pedagogy, and medicine now occupied no more than two pages of the publication.

The heroine of magazines at the beginning of the century, a pampered lady with brightly painted lips and big eyes, was replaced in the 1920s by the “worker-peasant type” - a stocky woman with large facial features and unexpressed gender characteristics.
For several decades, the only types of women's publications remained mass socio-political and subtle literary and artistic magazines with a stable thematic and graphic model, structure and genre content.

Literary and social magazine

The publication of mass literary and social magazines, most widespread at the beginning of the century, was suspended in the 1920s. Most of the 18 women's publications that existed at that time were closed for “lack of ideas.”
“Magazine for Women” and “Magazine for Housewives” were accused of hidden propaganda of alien theses that happiness can only be found in the family, as well as indirect condemnation of women’s social activities.

"Women's magazine"

From 1926 to 1930, the publishing company Ogonyok published a monthly illustrated Women's Magazine, which was positioned as “household and fashionable.” It was printed in black and white, with the exception of the “Fashion in Colors” section. Fashion during the NEP period was still of great importance.

In other sections of the magazine, texts significantly prevailed over illustrative content. The main task of the publication was considered to be the formation of common interests, values and needs of female readers and indicating to them areas for realizing the need for free social labor, in particular by organizing public catering and organizing collective recreation for children.

The content of the “Women’s Magazine” was selected with the goal of “better organization of women’s life, development of the best, most perfect forms of women’s life.”

Initially, in terms of themes and structure, the magazine was similar to the literary and social publications of the early twentieth century, but in 1928, under pressure from party structures, it refused to cover issues of love, family crisis, women's rights and began to pay more attention to anniversaries and leaders of the USSR, political topics and production, castigation of the “philistinism”. In the structure of the publication, the socio-political part has become stronger and the economic and applied part has decreased.

Social and political magazine

In the 1920s, socio-political magazines were divided according to their target audience:
- for party workers (“Communist”, 1920-1930);
- for working women (“Worker”, renewed in 1923 – present);
- for workers and housewives-activists (“Delegate”, 1923-1931);
- for peasant women (“Collective Farm Woman”, “Labor Worker”, 1925-1929, “Peasant Woman”, 1922 – present).
Local socio-political magazines appeared, where the interpretation of party guidelines and work with women were carried out taking into account the specifics of history, customs, and production of the region.
Such publications were “Red Siberian Woman” (Novosibirsk), “Toiler of the North Caucasus” (Rostov-on-Don), “Red Tula” (Tula), “Kommunarka of Ukraine” (Kharkov), “Worker of Armenia” (Yerevan), “Toiler” (Tbilisi), etc.

“I congratulate the magazine “Worker and Peasant” on a decade of its deeply important work... every time I had to read it, I was pleased with the skill with which you run the magazine, the simplicity of the language in which you talk with the worker and peasant, the clarity of presentation of the great ideas that unite the working people of all countries into one force and with whom you will certainly introduce the women of the Union of Socialist Councils, the first country where, under the influence of these ideas, the construction of a new life began.
Sometimes it seems that you are sparingly introducing the reader of your magazine to the shameful phenomena of current reality abroad of the Union of Soviets - to the drama that women - workers and peasants, powerless slaves of the church and the capitalist state - are experiencing in Europe and America. But it would be good - interesting and useful - to talk, at least occasionally, about how the maddened spider - capitalism - got entangled in its own web, how convulsively it beats in it and what a powerless woman suffers from this...
Women of the Union of Socialist Republics must catch up with men in all areas of their activity. To do this, they need to free themselves, first of all, from the internal, instinctive gravitation towards property - a gravitation that hindered the growth of their abilities and talents.”
M. Gorky, “Working Woman and Peasant Woman”, 1933

"Communist"

The first Soviet women's magazine "Communist" was published from 1920 to 1930. The publication was addressed to female executives. His main task was the education of Soviet women, as well as the leadership of the women's press in general.
The magazine identified the main typological features of the women's Soviet political publication: the publisher of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) determined its goals and objectives, the main of which was the promotion of the communist way of life; the target audience were working women, peasant women, and party members; the structure was subordinated to ideology and included almost no practical sections; the problems and themes were determined by the party.

"Peasant Woman"

The magazine for rural women was founded in 1922 by the Department for Work among Women of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). At first, his goal was to “involve working women in the social and cultural life of the USSR,” as was printed in an address to readers by the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee M.I. Kalinina.

The publication conveyed in simple language the basics of party policy, explained in detail how to eliminate illiteracy, organize women's councils, mutual aid committees, public catering centers, nurseries, kindergartens (“What the October Revolution gave to the peasant woman,” “How to organize cultural and educational work,” “ Soviet power and the church”, “What is a tractor”, “Marriage and the peasant woman”).
In the fiction section, works were published that reflected the objectives of the publication and promoted a new life (P. Dorokhov “Woman”, N. Platonich “Matryona the Warrior”, A. Neverov “The Committee”, “Nursery”, etc.). Each issue of the magazine was accompanied by a manual on knitting, cutting and sewing.

“If a proletarian or a proletarian, a Komsomol member or a Komsomol member, instead of drinking away their money in a pub or losing it at cards, buy decent clothes, then this, of course, is a positive fact.”
People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky, article “Is it time for a worker to think about the art of dressing?”
In the 1930s, Krestyanka began publishing tips on self-care, culinary recipes, and fashionable dress patterns. In this decade, fashion collages without the author's signature began to be placed on magazine covers. In No. 3 for 1935, T. Shapovalova, a member of the presidium of the Second All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers-Shock Workers, admitted: “I am now a housewife, I was a cook until 1923, and now I do things in the Kremlin together with the party.”

"Working Girl"

In 1923, the publication of the magazine “Rabotnitsa” was resumed. The task of the editors was to educate women as members of the Communist Party, social activists and workers in production. The magazine contributed to the dissemination of information about politics and its history. In order to increase the ranks of the female proletariat at the expense of housewives, materials were published about professions that women could master.

According to “Worker,” the most suitable profession for women was a locksmith: “Plumbing does not require particularly significant muscle tension and does not require lifting heavy weights. Plumbing is quite accessible to a person of average physical strength; it does not involve any particular dangers. A woman can do plumbing without any harm to her body.”

Workers were called upon to actively participate in public life and eliminate illiteracy, to organize women’s departments, public canteens, orphanages, to help those in need, to engage in cultural work (section “Literate, teach the illiterate!”, M. Rastopchina “Worker in the Club”, worker N . “Working women are eliminating their illiteracy”, N. Krupskaya “About our school”, Antilyeva “Circle of political literacy in a county town”, etc.).

“Mental development is retarded by petty worries, pots, kneading bowls, filthy buckets and other abominations. Having rejected all this, women would quickly move forward and feel completely free and happy.”
N. Krupskaya, “Worker” No. 3 for 1925
The literary and artistic section published works promoting the work of female workers (S. Cheerful “The Weaver”, N. Alekseevsky “The Spinner”) or glorifying Soviet life (M. Ilyina “Old Cargo”, A. Shiryaevets “Wonderful Day”). “Rabotnitsa” promoted comfortable Soviet fashion, for example, publishing articles about the dangers of high heels:
“For women who have to do relatively heavy physical work (lifting, carrying heavy objects, etc.) we recommend tying up their bellies tightly and wearing an abdominal bandage. We have written many times about the dangers of high heels...
Thanks to high heels, the alignment of the knee joints is unnatural, which causes severe pain in the legs; they also cause “twisting” of the leg and a very painful sprain in the ankle joint.
Despite this, high heels are very firmly held in everyday life and do not go out of fashion. It’s time to finish with the high heel and replace it with a hygienic low, wide “English” heel.”

In 1933, for success “in educating the female proletarian masses in the spirit of struggle for the complete triumph of socialism, in the spirit of fulfilling the great behests of our teacher, Lenin,” Joseph Stalin awarded “Rabotnitsa” the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
“We need to expand the network of kindergartens and nurseries, improve public catering, so that workers’ wives can free themselves from housework and go to production.”
"Worker" No. 1 for 1931

Fashion magazine

Women's magazines of socio-political and literary-social types complemented the modified fashion publications with pattern drawings. In the 20s and 30s, the magazines “Fashion News” and “Fashion of the Season” were published. They were popular mainly among residents of the capitals.

"Studio"

In 1923, the first issue of the Soviet fashion magazine Atelier was released, conceived as an alternative to Parisian publications.

The main idea of the publication was the concept that only fashion that is intended for a simple Soviet working woman deserves attention. The creative elite of the USSR was involved in the creation of the magazine: fashion designer Nadezhda Lamanova, sculptor Vera Mukhina, poetess Anna Akhmatova, artists Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and Boris Kustodiev.

The editorial team of “Atelier” received a first-degree certificate at the All-Russian Art Industrial Exhibition.

1928 – 1945

In the 1930s, women's magazines glorified the successes of industrialization, collectivization, and Soviet five-year plans. The publications called for people to go into production, contributing to its socialist breakthrough, and to take the path of socialist competition and shock work.
In the 1940s, the press, as a powerful information and management channel of communication between the government and the female population, was called upon to motivate readers to work hard to ensure the uninterrupted supply of the army.
By the early 1940s, a women's magazine of a socio-political type had become widespread. Social and political publications for women housewives appeared. The target orientation of the magazines - a reflection of the economic and political processes of the country - became the main feature of the Soviet women's press of that period.
At the same time, many specialized magazines were published:
“Photographer” (1929), “Art and Life” (1929 – 1930), “Cinema and Culture” (1929 – 1930), “The Art of Cinema” (1931 – 1940), “Cinema and Life” (1929 – 1941), “Worker and Theater” (1931), “Village Theater” (1931 – 1934), “Soviet Architecture” (1931 – 1934), “Art” (1933 – 1941), “Collective Farm Theater” (1934), “Cinema” ( 1935 – 1937), “Proletarian Photo” (1932 – 1933). The biweekly magazine was published from 1925 to 1998 with a break in 1941 – 1956. Until 1941, the publication was called “Cinema and Life”, from 1991 to 1997 – “Screen”.

The first Soviet fashion shoots appeared in this magazine. In the 1960s – 80s, eminent photographers Nikolai Gnisyuk, Igor Gnevashev, Valery Plotnikov shot for the Soviet Screen. In 1984, the publication's circulation was 1 million 900 thousand copies.

"Community"

From 1936 to 1941, a socio-political magazine for housewives, wives of business executives, managers and technical workers, “Community Woman,” was published, created on the initiative of S. Ordzhonikidze.

Its main goal was to attract female readers to social and industrial work. The magazine consisted of two blocks: socio-political and small family-domestic.

The main part included sections on political education, social activities, history, letters, and literature. The family and household block contained sections on home economics, fashion, handicrafts, pedagogy, medicine, cooking and a “Children’s Page”.

1945 – 1950

Gradually, in post-war Russia, the main typological features of the Soviet women's press system were formed, which was based on the principle of territorial division of the party apparatus and consisted of three levels.
The upper one was represented by the central magazines for women: “Worker”, “Peasant Woman”, “Soviet Woman”. They served as an example for periodicals at lower levels.
The second level was represented by publications published by the Republican Central Committees of the party in national languages. At the third level were the journals of the autonomous republics.
All women's publications of that time belonged to the socio-political type, they addressed a wide audience, there was no division into reader groups (working women, peasant women, party members). The system of headings was a list of the main spheres of a woman’s life in a hierarchical sequence: politics - work (study) - organization of everyday life - leisure - treatment / recreation - pregnancy / childbirth / raising children - advice, recipes, patterns.

The topics and structure of publications changed in accordance with the programs of the Communist Party. The central themes of that period were the development of agriculture, the struggle for peace, and economic reform.
After 1945, the Ministry of Light Industry began to publish seasonal fashion magazines with illustrations and photographs, descriptions of styles, textures of materials, accessories, with patterns and inserts: “Fashion Magazine”, “Fashion Atelier”, “Dress”, “Sew It Yourself”, “Fashion” "and others. Since the mid-40s. begins publishing a seasonal “Fashion Magazine”, reflecting the latest fashion trends.

In 1945, the socio-political magazine “Soviet Woman” appeared, which was published, in addition to Russian, in several foreign languages. The publication was intended to shape the image of the Soviet working woman and promote her lifestyle abroad.
The first magazine, focused on propaganda abroad, sought to present on its pages all the most advanced and significant: biographies of female Heroes of the Soviet Union, famous scientists, public figures, representatives of art, articles about female images in Russian literature, materials about Moscow University, beauty Karelia, children's camp in Artek, music school named after the Gnessins, etc.

A large number of high-quality photographs were printed in “Soviet Woman,” and the design was very different from the design of “Working Woman” and “Peasant Woman.” The priority issues were the problems of peaceful coexistence, disarmament and the participation of Soviet women in it.
The magazine had sections “Women's Movement”, “Around the Native Country”, “Soviet Woman in the Days of War”, “Wonderful Russian Women”, “Five-Year Plan - in Four Years”, “Take a Tour”, “Our Tribune”, “Pedagogical Conversations” , “New Books”, “Advice for a Young Housewife”, “Latest Fashions”, art section. New Soviet fashion items were presented by Nadezhda Lamanova and Alexandra Ekster.

1950s

In the 1950s, the party proclaimed a new program for rural growth. The priority areas were increasing investment in agriculture, increasing purchase prices, and developing virgin lands. Women's magazines received a direct order to strengthen their propaganda work among female readers. New sections were introduced, special reports, essays, sketches, etc. were published.

After the death of the leader, the magazine “Peasant Woman” placed his portrait on the cover in a mourning frame.
In the second half of the 1950s, during the “thaw,” the degree of influence of political and economic propaganda decreased. To control the population, the press began to use moral and psychological methods of influencing the audience.

The image of a Soviet woman became the standard for women's magazines, where, along with professional qualities, her spiritual world was also considered. In conversations with teachers and psychologists, education in women of the concepts of motherhood and family responsibilities was promoted. Public discussion was necessary to spread personal feelings and attention to appearance that are uncharacteristic of a woman in a totalitarian society.

Women's magazines gradually began to publish materials about women's working conditions and the standard of living in the family, that is, the previous ideals were losing relevance. Many educational sections and materials began to appear in magazines.
Gradually, magazines began to focus on helping women in everyday life and family life: applications for the whole family, sections on home economics, handicrafts, education, and psychology appeared. Socio-political women's publications began to acquire a universal character.

In the 1950s, magazines began to use reproductions of paintings by famous artists as illustrations. Readers tore out pages with them and hung them on the walls in their homes. Joseph Stalin decorated his dacha in Volynskoye with a reproduction of “Girls with a Lamb” cut out from a magazine.

1960s

In the 1960s, the USSR felt the consequences of the economic crisis, urbanization and extinction of the countryside, and a slowdown in the development of production.
Women's magazines intensified their work to combat these phenomena, for example, “Rabotnitsa” introduced sections “Raid “Rabotnitsa””, “Good news from women's councils”, “On a voluntary basis”. The propaganda of professions that a woman could master was launched with renewed vigor.

“Peasant Woman” proposed “a wider exchange of experience”, devoting a significant number of pages to materials from the field. The magazine actively promoted chemical science and the implementation of its achievements in life; even special sections “The ABCs of Agrochemistry” and “Chemistry for Children” appeared.

Also in the publication there were permanent columns devoted to cinema, literature, and the publication of various entertaining information.

The covers of “Working Woman” became more diverse in the 60s: the heroines admired the clear sky near a tractor, participated in alpine skiing competitions, and posed for a photographer against the backdrop of huge coils of cable.

1970s–1980s

In the 1970s and early 1980s, three types of press occupied a stable position: the official one - the mouthpiece of the CPSU, the alternative uncensored (dissident) and liberal publications. This division was also reflected in women's periodicals.

In official magazines - “Rabotnitsa”, “Peasant Woman”, “Soviet Woman” - the woman was still presented as an activist and worker, but now additional emphasis was placed on the role of an exemplary mother, which was associated with a serious decrease in the birth rate.

The amount of practical and educational materials in magazines has increased again. The publications also gradually began to appear materials about the personal and spiritual sphere of life: in “Rabotnitsa” - the headings “Poetry Notebook”, “Heart-to-Heart Conversation”, “Interviews at the Request of Readers”, “Advice and Love”; in “The Peasant Woman” - “Terem-Teremok”, “Picture Gallery”, “Specific concern for a specific person”, “Our moral values”.

The “peasant woman” in the 80s was characterized by a special fashionable freedom: bright colors of suits, romantic blouses, stylish shirts of a men’s cut, original accessories.
During perestroika, for the first time, “in the women’s press, we talked about the contradictions in society’s attitude towards women, about the contradictions between the political and social rights of women proclaimed by the Constitution of the USSR and their real situation in reality” (R.P. Hovsepyan). It began to be said that it is difficult for a woman to combine all the social roles offered to her: wife, mother, worker, social activist.

The magazine “Rabotnitsa” introduced a section “Non-women’s work”, where materials were published about the backbreaking work of female fitters, miners, and loaders. Articles about outstanding women began to be supplemented with facts from their personal lives, the texts became more artistic and emotional.
Until the 80s, delegates of the next congress, athletes, pilots, cosmonauts, and shock workers were placed on the covers of “Peasant Woman.”

During the era of perestroika, the authors tried to show the freedom of the country: in 1981, the heroine of the cover was a happy girl with a sheaf of hay, in 1986 - an elderly woman, a livestock specialist in the village of Korovitsy, in 1988 - 4 laughing girls in fashionable colorful outfits, in 89 - newlyweds. In 1989, the circulation of one issue of “Worker Woman” and then “Peasant Woman” exceeded 20 million copies.
Since 1987, the Fashion of the Season magazine, which has existed since the 50s, began publishing as a newsletter. In the 80s, the quarterly magazine of the All-Union House of Clothing Models “Kuznetsky Most, 14” was also published, distributed throughout all the Union republics. Among Muscovites, the publication “Riga Fashions” was popular, published in the 50s - 80s by the Riga Fashion House in Russian and Latvian.

"Woman and Russia"

In 1979, the uncensored magazine “Woman and Russia” (later “Maria”) was published in Leningrad. A group of feminists described the life of Soviet women as a chain of endless humiliation, bullying and torment, and spoke about the presence of severe gender discrimination in the country in all areas of life - in work, family, prison, art. The group was expelled from the country and only a few saw the magazine.

By the mid-80s, women's magazines began to focus on practical topics: sections on home economics, handicrafts, psychology, and raising children appeared in the publications. Women's magazines began to transform from socio-political ones into press for women and her family.

In 1987, the first domestic version of a Western magazine, Burda Moden, appeared in Russia. This moment became a harbinger of new changes in the typology of women's magazines, a prototype of Russian gloss.
Evgeniya Laskina

Since the beginning of the 19th century, publishers have paid attention towomen's themein magazines. A real woman has always been associated with home comfort and maintaining the family hearth. And therefore this topic has always been in demand and relevant. The subject of our research was a number of magazines published throughout the Soviet era, primarily the most popular “Rabotnitsa” and “Peasant Woman”...

1945 - 1950
All women's publications of that time belonged to the socio-political type, they addressed a wide audience, there was no division into reader groups (working women, peasant women, party members). The system of headings was a list of the main spheres of a woman’s life in a hierarchical sequence: politics - work (study) - organization of everyday life - leisure - treatment / recreation - pregnancy / childbirth / raising children - advice, recipes, patterns.
After 1945, the Ministry of Light Industry began to publish seasonal fashion magazines with illustrations and photographs, descriptions of styles, textures of materials, accessories, with patterns and inserts: “Fashion Magazine”, “Fashion Atelier”, “Dress”, “Sew It Yourself”, “Fashion” "and others. Since the mid-40s. begins publishing a seasonal “Fashion Magazine”, reflecting the latest fashion trends.

"Soviet Woman"
In 1945, the socio-political magazine “Soviet Woman” appeared, which was published, in addition to Russian, in several foreign languages. The publication was intended to shape the image of the Soviet working woman and promote her lifestyle abroad.
The first magazine, focused on propaganda abroad, sought to present on its pages all the most advanced and significant: biographies of female Heroes of the Soviet Union, famous scientists, public figures, representatives of art, articles about female images in Russian literature, materials about Moscow University, beauty Karelia, children's camp in Artek, music school named after the Gnessins, etc.

1950s
In the 1950s, the party proclaimed a new program for rural growth. The priority areas were increasing investment in agriculture, increasing purchase prices, and developing virgin lands. Women's magazines received a direct order to strengthen their propaganda work among female readers. New sections were introduced, special reports, essays, sketches, etc. were published.

After the death of the leader, the magazine “Peasant Woman” placed his portrait on the cover in a mourning frame.

In the second half of the 1950s, during the “thaw,” the degree of influence of political and economic propaganda decreased. To control the population, the press began to use moral and psychological methods of influencing the audience.

1960s
In the 1960s, the USSR felt the consequences of the economic crisis, urbanization and extinction of the countryside, and a slowdown in the development of production.
Women's magazines intensified their work to combat these phenomena, for example, “Rabotnitsa” introduced sections “Raid “Rabotnitsa””, “Good news from women's councils”, “On a voluntary basis”. The propaganda of professions that a woman could master was launched with renewed vigor.

Also in the publication there were permanent columns devoted to cinema, literature, and the publication of various entertaining information.

1970s - 1980s
In the 1970s and early 1980s, three types of press occupied a stable position: the official one - the mouthpiece of the CPSU, the alternative uncensored (dissident) and liberal publications. This division was also reflected in women's periodicals.

The amount of practical and educational materials in magazines has increased again. Materials about the personal and spiritual sphere of life also gradually began to appear in the publications: in “Rabotnitsa” - the headings “Poetic notebook”, “Heart-to-heart conversation”, “Interview at the request of readers”, “Advice and love”; in “The Peasant Woman” - “Terem-Teremok”, “Picture Gallery”, “Specific concern for a specific person”, “Our moral values”.

"Woman and Russia"
In 1979, the uncensored magazine “Woman and Russia” (later “Maria”) was published in Leningrad. A group of feminists described the life of Soviet women as a chain of endless humiliation, bullying and torment, and talked about the presence of severe gender discrimination in all areas of life in the country - in work, family, prison, art. The group was expelled from the country and only a few saw the magazine.

And in the Soviet Union there were fashion magazines!

Many today are sure that women’s “gloss” is a sign of capitalist times and that nothing like this existed during the Soviet era. In fact, this niche in the media existed, it’s just that the publications were also thoroughly Soviet. We present a selection of the most favorite magazines of that period - 7 favorite women's magazines in the USSR.

1. Worker

The oldest Soviet women's magazine appeared before the revolution in 1914. The initiator of its creation was Vladimir Lenin himself, and the first editorial board included the entire flower of the party: Krupskaya, Armand, Kollontai.

With money from the party and factory workers, they turned around: they prepared 7 issues with a circulation of 12 thousand copies each. Unfortunately for the publishers, it was read not only by women working in factories in St. Petersburg, but also by the royal authorities. As a result, the magazine was closed and the last three editions were seized.

Immediately after the February Revolution, the publication of “Rabotnitsa” was resumed, but not for long. The Civil War somehow pushed women's issues into the background and they were remembered only in 1923.

Initially, the magazine was engaged in breaking up patriarchal life and a wide variety of propaganda useful to the authorities. For example, in issue 36 of 1935, a fifth of the volume is occupied by Stalin’s speech at a meeting of combine operators.

Then there were stories from other participants in the meeting, material about record holders in cotton fields, news about the awarding of female Stakhanovites, and only at the very end - an article about how to decorate a home.

Gradually, the magazine moved more and more away from outright officialdom. It was impossible to completely abandon such materials, but they no longer took up so many pages. There were more topics that really interested the ladies: journalism, stories, home economics and even fashion.

The “Discussion Club” section attracted a lot of attention. But the peak of popularity, when the circulation soared to 23 million, came during Perestroika, when they were one of the first to allow themselves to interview stars, print horoscopes and the like. The magazine also became famous for the photographs of very pretty women workers on the cover.

2. Health

The magazine does not fully fit into today's selection. Initially, it was created to popularize Soviet medicine among the people and it was assumed that the audience would be represented by both sexes. In the sixties, “Health” was more like a wave of press that popularized science, only with a medical bias. For example, in the 3rd issue for 1959 there are articles about Krupskaya, whooping cough vaccination, the director of the Institute of Nutrition, a centenarian, ionites, rheumatism, and so on.

In the seventies the content changed. Materials began to appear on women's health, pregnancy, childbirth, the psychology of married life, raising children and diets. In the second issue of 1977, in addition to the usual information about various diseases and their treatment, they published the articles “Difficult Teenager”, “Your First Child” with a story about artificial feeding and early hardening. In the eighties, there was even more “female” material.

3. Peasant woman

It is impossible to call this magazine a simple clone of “Rabotnitsa”. It appeared in 1922, just during the period when it was not published. His main task was to convey the party’s policies even to the illiterate in the most distant village. Although initially the circulation was small - only 5 thousand copies - and simply did not reach the provinces. But the material was presented in a simpler form, there were more graphics, and they did not forget about useful tips for everyday life.

The magazine originally had a small insert dedicated to handicrafts. Readers of “The Peasant Woman” were taught to sew, knit, and embroider. It was because of him that the publication was canceled. Stories, poems and even songs with notes appeared regularly on the pages. Naturally, before the Khrushchev thaw there was a lot of official propaganda, then more and more space was allocated to home economics, and mandatory materials were presented even much softer than those of competitors.

Another feature of it was a huge network of correspondents in villages. It allowed us to be the first to receive information about useful initiatives from below. The party leadership really liked this efficiency until the seventies, and then the general enthusiasm of all participants in this feedback decreased and the network also noticeably decreased. The peak of the magazine’s popularity also occurred during Perestroika; in terms of circulation it was inferior to “Rabotnitsa”, but the issue exceeded twenty million.

Again, not exactly a specialized magazine, but in the Soviet Union there were completely no publications dedicated to show business in the modern sense. No secular news or reports from the red carpets of festivals for you.

The only outlet is “Soviet Screen,” which has been published since 1925. All this was superimposed on the colossal love of Soviet women for cinema. Until the mid-eighties, it was he who remained the main source of information about what was happening in this area.

It is interesting that during Perestroika, when many Soviet magazines began to rapidly turn yellow, Soviet Screen practically did not change its policy, printing mainly information about films, and not gossip about the lives of actors.

The only thing that the editors allowed themselves to do was publish on the covers not only film actors, but also pop stars like Leontyev, Dolina or even Kinchev from the rock group “Alice”. As a result, circulations even decreased slightly. In the seventies, the issue's circulation confidently exceeded a million, and in the eighties, a million was already the ceiling.

The most boring of the big three women's magazines from the USSR. Even in encyclopedias they write about it that it was distributed, not sold. There was too much officialdom on its pages. It was published in one of the best publishing houses in the Land of Soviets - TseKovskaya Pravda, and even in at least twelve languages of the world. At the same time, almost no one noticed the cessation of production in 1991, and today many will not even remember its existence.

Behind all the propaganda molasses, the close connection of the magazine with the international women's movement was somehow completely lost. With the leftist part of it, of course. Articles by Indira Gandhi, Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim, Eugenie Cotton and other figures known mainly in the USSR appeared here. Information about women's problems abroad was regularly published. In principle, only during Perestroika did the Soviet Woman begin to discuss issues that concerned the main audience of the magazine.

For example, a long discussion on the pages of the magazine was caused by the publication of a letter from Valentin Rasputin about women, morality and moral fortitude. But there were also plenty of frankly “yellow” materials, like the column by astrologer Tamara Globa.

6. Rigas Modes

The USSR had enough magazines, almanacs and other publications that were dedicated to fashion. But they didn’t leave any solid memories of themselves, with the exception of Rigas Modes. The rest were extremely inconsistent: interesting releases were replaced by outright hackwork, the models were often outdated, and they themselves were released irregularly and haphazardly. Since its founding in 1947, the Riga magazine has been essentially promoting world fashion, redrawing models from foreign magazines.

In the first years of his existence, under Stalin, he was not particularly bold, but with the beginning of the Thaw he began to reprint models from Czech and Hungarian fashion magazines, which, in turn, actively pulled ideas from Europe. As a result, Rigas Modes has become almost the main source of information about modern fashion with a minuscule circulation of 200-250 thousand copies by Soviet standards. Needless to say, even now it is very difficult to find a binder of this magazine.

7. Burda Moden

The magazine was officially published in the USSR only since 1987. In fact, the appearance of Soyuzpechat in the newsstands itself went down in history: Burda Moden became the first Western print publication to break through the Iron Curtain. Interestingly, in 1994 it became the first of its kind in China. However, it must be said right away that they began to bring the magazine to the Soviet Union back in the sixties, and in the seventies it turned into a real mania for the entire female population of the country.

Most women, of course, were attracted to the world of Western fashion. Even if these were not couture models. Burda Moden, in fact, made a name for itself by offering fashionable clothes for every day. But for the USSR, studying this magazine was almost an obligatory ritual. Absolutely everyone traveling to Europe brought it. And the best indicator of a person’s high status was a coffee table with a recent issue casually left on it. Its popularity is evidenced by the fact that materials from it were actively reprinted by Soviet publications, for example, the same “Rabotnitsa”.

Another important factor in demand is the availability of quality patterns that can be used immediately. Burda Moden simply fit perfectly into the realities of the USSR. In a country where there was a shortage, to get something fashionable, millions of women either sewed themselves or turned to professional seamstresses. Therefore, patterns from this magazine were collected and carefully stored.

"Soviet Photo" - Soviet, then Russian monthly

illustrated magazine of the Union of Journalists of the USSR. Was founded in 1926

Soviet journalist Mikhail Koltsov, with the help of former magazine workers, editors of the Photographic News magazine published from 1906 to 1916 in St. Petersburg, scientists and professors Nikolai Evgrafovich Ermilov and Vyacheslav Izmailovich Sreznevsky.

The publication of the magazine began in Moscow under the auspices of the

joint-stock publishing house "Ogonyok", transformed in 1931 into

"Magazine and newspaper association." The break in publication was 1942-1956.

The magazine was designed for amateurs and professionals of photography and

cinematic arts. Its pages published works by Soviet and

foreign photographers, as well as articles on theory, practice and history

photos. In 1976, the magazine's circulation reached 240 thousand copies. IN

the same year he was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.

Since 1992, it began to be called “Photography”. In his last years

existence, the circulation and editorial staff were significantly reduced. Stopped

published in mid-1997.

Sovetskoe foto (Soviet photography) was a Moscow-based journal dedicated to photography and photographic techniques. It was inaugurated by the writer and editor Mikhail Kol’tsov in April 1926 and acquired in 1931 by the Ogonek publishing company. In the interwar period, the journal experienced two pauses in publication—one between 1931 and 1933, when it was renamed Proletarskoe foto (Proletariat photography), and another between 1942 and 1956, due to World War II and the war’s aftereffects. Although its publication schedule was at times irregular, Sovetskoe foto was an illustrated monthly featuring editorials, letters, articles, and photographic essays alongside advertisements for photography, photographic processes, and photographic chemicals and equipment. It primarily addressed a domestic audience of Soviet amateur photographers and photo clubs, yet it also featured the works of international and professional photographers, such as Semyon Fridlyand. It was in the pages of Sovetskoe foto that the works of avant-garde photographers, including Aleksandr Rodchenko, were denounced as formalist (implying that they reflected a foreign and elitist style), even before Socialist Realism was decreed to be the official style of the Soviet Union, in 1934. In a letter published in April 1928, an anonymous author accused Rodchenko of plagiarizing the subject matter and compositions of Western European photographers László Moholy-Nagy and Albert Renger-Patzsch. This resulted in the journal’s boycotting Rodchenko’s work and prompted the artist to respond directly, in June 1928, in Novyi lef, a journal for alternative art and culture. The tensions between so-called leftist avant-garde photographers and photographers of and for the people culminated in 1931 with the formation of the Russian Association of Proletarian Photo Reporters (ROPF), which promoted its mission to use photography as “a weapon for the socialist” reconstruction of reality” in Sovetskoe foto. Throughout the 1930s this state-sanctioned journal became increasingly conservative in its promotion of a photographic practice that valued content over form, a shift dramatically represented in the 1927 and 1935 covers (reproduced here). -Ksenia Nouril

Jorge Ribalta, introduction to The Worker Photography Movement (1926–1939): Essays and Documents (Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 2011), p. 16.